Merry Soggy Christmas!

Merry Christmas from water-logged Zephyr Hill Farm!  Come along with us on our Christmas Day swim drive!  For the record, these photos were a lot darker, but I lightened them enough to show details.  It never got this light all day!

At 10 this morning, the creek through the lower part of our property was overflowing its banks after several days of rain followed by almost 3 inches of rain in the last 24 hours.

By 2:30, there was a lot more water.  No wonder, since the rain never let up all day!

We headed out to take a look at things.  Looking down at the Lower Pasture from above, we can see channels carved by runoff from the neighbors' adjoining hill that was deforested this year.

The Lower Pasture has a creek running through it where no creek should be.

Normally the "creek" is a dry bed that runs along the fence before it cuts across the Lower Pasture, but today it was a torrent.

Standing at the Back Pasture gate, we could see the water pouring out of the pond.  So far, the dam is holding . . .

We parked the Doodad and waded to the gate.  Misty is such a faithful companion, always ready to come with us and check on things, no matter the weather.

Ebby, Royal and Ebby's calf Seb are in the Back Pasture.  They're going to need a new hay bale soon, but at least we don't have to fill water troughs!  That tipped-over thing is a heavy wooden mineral feeder that was here when we bought the place.

Herb really likes his Muck boots and his LLBean rain coat and rain pants!

"This deep."

This photo shows the pond runoff on the left.  The drainage pipe discharges water coming in from the hunting preserve off to the right.  Those two streams of water join up here . . .

. . . and pour toward the front of our property, overwhelming the normally dry creek bed.

We headed back up toward the house, very thankful for hills!  Royal and his band have a hill and wooded shelter; Wellie and Remy are in the Home Pasture which is a hill with a shelter up top; Siobhan is in the barnyard, which may be soggy because it's flat, but she's got the barn.  The chicken coop is in the barnyard, too.

Just beyond Wellie and Remy's shelter, the horses are on the highest part of the farm.  They may be wet, but their hay is high and dry in their new Hay Hut.

A flood like this brings worries about whether fences will stand, whether trees might fall, and whether the dam will hold.  It brings slogging mud and damp and inconvenience, but up on our hills, we and the animals are safe.

I must admit that after days and days of rain, I've looked around and imagined how the people back in Noah's day must have felt as the water crept higher and higher.  Of course, they had no idea it was going to keep coming until it drowned them.  It makes me thankful for God's promise never to flood the earth again.  I'll be eagerly looking for some sun and a rainbow, but meanwhile, we have so much to be thankful for!

Christmas may feel different when it's soggy and muggy instead of cold and brisk, yet the reason we celebrate is still the same.  "Joy to the world, the Lord has come!"

Merry Christmas!

*We ended up getting 4.14" of rain in less than 24 hours on Christmas Day, about twice the all-time high.  We're still here, the only casualty being the overturned feeder you can see behind the cattle in the Back Pasture.  We got another torrential rainfall on the 28th with an even higher flood level, so we sure were ready for the sunshine we're getting today, Dec. 29!

Herb and the Amazing Honey-Do Pasture Fence

This post began with the soggy wet winter of 2012 when we realized that we couldn't keep our livestock in the barnyard another winter.  It's too small for our growing herd, and without gutters on the barn, all the rain gets channeled into the barnyard, leaving the animals standing in mud for much of the winter.

The obvious answer was to create a new pasture by fencing in the north edge of the property.  On this map of our pastures, the new fence line would go along the upper edge of the property from about the middle all the way to the lefthand corner (enclosing the white area that says "2.00 acres" and has a largish pink building with a branching green driveway.)  That area was already mostly fenced on three sides, the bottom (marked by x's) and the two ends where it joins the green and pink areas.

The idea was that this new pasture could double as a winter sacrifice area, still being handy to the barnyard for milking and feed storage.  I decided that we would name it Kara's Pasture and give the existing Kara's Pasture (in yellow) a new and very prosaic name, Middle Pasture.  My pasture names aren't very creative, but they tend to be fairly obvious and don't lend themselves to being misconstrued.

So on Dec. 17, 2013, Herb set to work with me as his assistant.  The first job was to walk the proposed fence line, find the surveyor's marks, and mark a trajectory for the new fence.  There was a lot of brush to be cleared away, including lots of rusted old fence that had grown into several trees.

By Dec. 31 we had cleared and marked all the open area and gone on into the patch of woods.

Here we're heading back to the house after finishing work for the day.  This new Kara's Pasture was going to be possible because Kara had moved to town and her old double-wide had finally been demolished.  The crew had finished the job by putting new gravel on the road to fill in the ruts left by their heavy equipment.  The gap across the road here and about 10 feet behind the barn were all that would need to be fenced on one end.  "All" that remained was about 900 feet along the edge of the hunting preserve, and we would have a pasture.

As things turned out, the pasture would not be finished in time for the winter of 2013.  Herb's classes started up again in January along with a busy counseling internship, and the fence was relegated to his Honey-Do List.  Finally, on May 12 (two days after graduation) he set to work--and promptly threw his back out!  After I finally dragged him to the chiropractor he felt better and began work in earnest on May 19.  By the 23rd he had finished the part of the fence in the open and was into the trees.

It may have been a relief in one sense to leave the hot open pasture, but working in the woods brought Herb its own set of challenges:  steep terrain, lots of brush to drag the cattle panels and fence posts through, and poison ivy.  By this time there wasn't much I could help with, not having the strength to drag stuff through the brush, so it became a one man job.

As Herb finished one section of fence he would move his bright orange hay string ahead and start on the next section.  Nine hundred feet can seem very long when the end isn't even in sight!

When Herb got towards the end I was able to be of a little assistance again, although I was milking Siobhan twice a day (since Wellie was born on May 26).  At least I could drive through the Middle Pasture in the Doodad and bring Herb ice water or drive him back to the house for lunch.

This flat area at the bottom of the hill with the creek on the left has always been one of my favorite spots.  I call it the "Billy and Blaze Trail" because it reminds me of a lane Billy might have ridden his pony along.  It's sure to be a favorite shady loafing area for the animals in the summer.

By May 30, Herb was setting the corner posts to tie the bottom of the new fence into the Back Pasture fence. 

Misty and Hero (you can see his white chest behind the wire) were Herb's constant and faithful companions, burrowing into the coolest places they could find and laying there panting until he was done for the day.

On May 31, the herculean task was done!  A solid line of cattle panels and T-posts ran all the way up to the barn and tied in behind it.

A sturdy section of 5-strand barbed wire fence crossed the creek bed, secured to a T-post in the middle.

Closing that last gap between the cattle panels and the barbed wire section was a momentous occasion!

My hero!

All that remained was to install and fill the water tanks at the new hydrant.

Kara's Pasture was ready for occupants!

The garage, re-sided with cement fiber and painted, was all that remained of Kara's old house.  A car port on the far side will provide cover for hay bales and animals during the coming winter.  Seeing the house demolished had been bitter sweet for us, but having the pasture finished was pure joy!

This pasture is great because it goes right up to the round pen and barnyard, so it's got easy access.  Hay bales are kept in the silver barn (far right), so it will be a short hop with the tractor to get them under the carport.

Most of Kara's Pasture is on high ground so it will drain well in winter, too.  While we plan to feed the horses their hay under the carport, we'll probably move hay bales for the cattle around in different places, wherever the pasture needs organic matter built up.  That way any hay that falls and is trampled in won't be wasted, but will enrich the soil.

Here are Ebby, over by the water tank, and Macree, under the tree, enjoying the new pasture on June 3.  Who knows where Tiggy is in all the long grass?

When we moved Ebby and her gang into Kara's Pasture on June 3, we had it temporarily closed off right beyond where Siobhan is in the photo above.  But we needed a real gate, so on June 14 Herb finished setting the posts for the new gate, which closes the gap across the driveway that runs between the barnyard and the Home Pasture.  We've left the temporary gate up at the other end because this allows Siobhan to get out and graze a bit in the "gap," usually in the evening since there's no shade.

With the gate, Kara's Pasture is complete, and the biggest item on Herb's Honey-Do List has been scratched off!  Now we can move animals from the barnyard to any one of our other pastures--or between any two pastures--without them ever going outside a fenced area.  That is very reassuring! All five pastures have shade and water hydrants, and four of them have shelter, too.  There will be no more long hoses running from the house down to the Lower Pasture and the Middle Pasture in the summer; no more hauling water down in the winter.

To re-cap, here's the original map of our pastures.

Here's the new map. The Middle Pasture has its new name, and Kara's Pasture (minus its house) is added to our list of pastures.

I just thought of a better name for it, though . . .  How about the "Amazing Honey-Do Pasture?"

Bush-hogging the Hunting Preserve

Our farm is surrounded on two sides by an almost-400-acre hunting preserve that is owned by a bank which also harvests lumber from time to time.  There are about a dozen people on the hunting lease, including Herb and me.  It helps the hunters to have an active member living in our house since the only entrance to the hunting preserve branches off our driveway.

So far, we've only used the hunting preserve as a place for Herb to jog and a place for us to ride when it isn't hunting season.  Perhaps this year Herb will get his hunting license and take advantage of his privilege of hunting since he's agreed to my plea that we not hunt on our own land.  The animals we enjoy watching are safe here!

Recently Jeff, the man in charge of the lease, asked Herb if he would be willing to bush-hog the roads so the hunters' vehicles aren't damaged by the brambles.  The first morning I rode along with Herb.

 Here's Herb on our Kubota, ready to go.  I rode along perched on the left fender (which is a big cramped on this small tractor).  DO NOT try this at home!  It is definitely not safe to ride "piggyback" on a tractor, so--just like mom always said--"Do as I say, not as I do!"

Right next to our driveway where the hunting road branches off, we found a peach tree growing at the edge of the woods.  Who knows how many years it has been there, but it actually has peaches (there's one in the center of the photo) and looks much better than the one we planted in our orchard two years ago!

It took three passes with the 5-foot bush-hog in mos to get the 15-foot clearance Jeff wanted, although in some places the road remained pretty bare.

In other places the road was badly washed with steep banks that were difficult to mow, and in those places I got down rather than risk falling off if I couldn't hang on.

It was really hot, and we appreciated whenever a shady spot beckoned ahead of us.  It was palpably cooler in the shade.

After several hours, we came to an open area where wild blackberry bushes were growing laden with ripe, juicy fruit.  I suggested a break and a snack . . .

. . . and here I am with my spoils.  Wild berries are always wonderful, but I've never had any that tasted that good after a hot morning's work.

While Herb bush-hogged around a fallen hunters' blind, I stood in the shade to finish my berries--and found wild muscadines growing!  We will definitely have to come back here later.

This place may not look like much apart from the view of Lookout Mountain, but I christened it Orchard Knob because of the grapes and berries.  Now this is the kind of hunting ground I like!