Well I started out to check out the property that I trade/lease for graze to make sure the fences were good, the hot wire was working properly, the feed was ok and maybe work a bit on the spring we have located. Oh and also spend time with my longhorns. :)
So I started out by walking the fence line all the way around. I chose to go around clockwise this time as it gradually climbs up that way and then there is a fairly steep down hill across the back, that if you go counter clockwise requires climbing. As I am coming across the back fence line, I see what looks like a den. I had never noticed it before as I was usually walking away from it going the other way. I don't believe it was used by anything but seemed like a nice Fox or Bobcat home to me. At the top of the hill on the back a good sized Oak tree along the fence had fallen and busted the two bottom wires. I will be fixing that soon, but with no calves currently in there did not need to do it right away, besides I didn't bring my fence stretcher. I get down to the road side where the actual fence is the worst and we have a hot wire and the dog's ear was touching the hot wire. I grimaced but nothing happened so I knew there was a problem with that also. Sure enough broke in two about half way. Got that fixed and the rest of the fence was fine.
Food is getting thinner and they are having to do some walking to the back side to get good grazing but they are holding their weight well. I am praying for some more rain and good sunshine to push the grass up. I did noticed that all the stickers have been tromped and looks like maybe grazed so hopefully their browsing instinct is kicking in and they are eating the stickers that plague the place. Also I noticed a bush or two that seemed to be worked over.
After that I went to the spring to see what I could find. Now this is an old abandoned spring that even has an old cement trough down the hill to hold the water. Over time it has been allowed to disintegrate and is no longer producing any water worth anything, however the ground down hill has been moist all year long so I feel like it may develop into something. I remembered that I had a friends metal detector in my truck, that I used for something else, so I got it out and traced the old metal pipe up to where it ended. I thought it should go on so dug further up the hill and found nothing so I went back to where I last found pipe and after digging up about a foot more came to the end of the pipe. This is about 15 ft from the holes that are where the spring comes out of the ground. My guess now is that the pipe was used to gather the water as it seems to be lower than the spring and that the water flowed down hill to it then through it to the water trough below. There is a lot of sediment in the ravine that seems to have filled it in. I have dug the actual spring out a few times trying to decide if it would be worth developing and the cows and animals tramping down in it fill it back in. The land owner was excited about the possibility so we are going to fence off the spring to keep them out of the actual spring and develop it.
The cows finally noticed me down by the spring and came over. This is when I got some great pics of their horns and while feeding Felina by hand Blondie decided to come up and sniff. Pretty soon she even ate out of my hand. They have come a long way from when I got them. A lot more calm and a lot more horn I believe these two are over 4 feet. I am looking at Longhorn chutes to buy so I can measure them and also be able to doctor them if anything goes wrong as they are just not going to fit in any regular chute.
