Reclaiming The Land

Well this won't turn out to be what you think by reading the title lol. Let me preface by saying, when the gal who owned this place before us had her perimeter fence done, on the west side they "missed the mark" so to speak, lined up with the wrong stake out front and therefore left out a pie-shaped piece of land, which they later enclosed with a simple 3-strand barb-wire fence. In the back the two fences were REALLY close together, but the wedge gets wider as you move toward the front, and at the very front it is more than enough room to drive a car in! After about 5 years of cattle, and another 7 years of horses, the fence was in really sad shape in the back, and one goal with truck money once it sold was to take care of that problem - and MY goal was, to reclaim our land when we fixed the fence. We did the first 100-foot section last weekend but I wasn't able to take pictures due to camera problems. Now that I have a working camera again, this is the piece we did last week:

Today we had some helpers:
Shasta

Zacchaeus (and Shasta again)

Rocket (at least he looks like he might actually be some help!)

Here is the end of the first section and the start of the second section. The old fence is on the right. You can see that in 100 feet, the two fences are already about 5 feet apart!

Oh boy, found another helper! Justin is supervising Randy's use of the come-along.
This is the come-along - yes, HOME-MADE! We didn't have one, and Randy has gotten quite good at finding solutions to our problems that don't overwork his bad back or his "older" wife lol. With his issues it's a necessity... and I am more than happy to take advantage of his brilliance to save my own aching back! It's truly a blessing in our situation that he has such a good brain for figuring out how to accomplish what we need done that we really cannot do ourselves. His motto - work smarter, not harder!


Cranking away, looks like he is working hard but the strap is doing the hard part!

The old fence:



And the new one, all stretched and ready for us to strap it to the T-posts! Also on the ground on the right you can see the T-post puller, which makes it real easy for me to pull out the old posts! Putting them back in to supplement the not-enough-posts in the barb-wire fence was not so easy, even with the post-pounder! It really wore me out, but even so the post-pounder is much easier than trying to do it with a sledge hammer!

The only remaining issue is removing the wooden posts from the old fence line. Behind these where the shovels are leaning (see the orange handle?), you can see where we put 3 green T-posts close to handle the seam in the fencing, instead of using wood like they did on the old fence. Bcause we plan to put pipe fencing up a few feet inside the wire fence, to keep the horses off it, we did not need to use the heavy duty wooden posts - besides, as you can see from the old ones, the horses just use them as chew toys anyway!

As for these posts, the half-dug first one took Hilary and I over half an hour last weekend, and I was NOT looking forward to having to dig up the rest of them. But SCORE the neighbor's teen-aged son came out the back door just at the right time today, he's visiting long-term from out of state and was quite amenable to making a few bucks - which I am happy to spend to keep myself OFF the wrong end of the shovel!!!! Especially since there will be 3 more, and 3 more, and 3 more... each time we replace a 100-foot section of fence!

Merry, Merry Christmas!!

A peek at the mischief our little "Santa's Elves" got into ;)









We pray that all of you are have a blessed Christmas!!

From all of us at Painted Promise Ranch:

Randy & Susan (the folks in charge of it all)

Hilary (the only kid still living at home)

Paint Mare, Katie, Skeye, Destiny and Luna (the big horses and pony)

Foxy, Holly and Ozzie (the mini horses)

Dillon, Wiley, Milly Jo, Taffy Leah, Betty Jean, Betty Lou, Susie Q, Josey Marie, Becky Lynn, Peggy Sue, Mary Ellen, Ellie Mae, Sarah Beth and Charles (the mini donkeys)

Tank, Shasta, Samson, Delilah, Zacchaeus, Sherman, Rocket, Jacob, Radar, Darci, Vada, Justin and Ty, and the 4 "elves" above (the dogs)

O'Malley and Twister (the cats)

Dodge (the ram)

{{yes, Dodge the ram - hey it's RANDY's sheep, not mine!!}}

and of course all the goldfish in the fish pond and horse troughs...

Wow Two Days In A Row!!

Well there isn't much to this post FROM ME but it's a CUTE one... my good friend Tammy has a horse crazy daughter, so I thought I would share what she is up to since I am scheming to take advantage of her NEXT school break:

http://spicebootcamp.blogspot.com/

Added to my blog list if it's easier to go click there :)

Back From Among The Missing

Sorry, things have been SO HECTIC here... and to top it all off the video camera broke, and BOTH my little digital cameras are having issues. {gggrrrrrrrrrr}

So I bit the bullet and bought another camera. AND IT WORKS! I'm officially happy with it :)

Now if work would just slow down I could get back to blogging! I miss all my friends, haven't been keeping up on ANYBODY's blog any better than my own {embarrassed face here} I think about you all and miss you terribly though!!!

So some updates.

Work: Thought I was losing my job 12/31 but the good news is, I have a reprieve of 5-6 months that just might turn into permanent. So praying hard and would appreciate any and all added prayers! With Randy out of work since March I do NOT need to lose my job too! Have been busy as all get-out at work, organizing the division of our firm. The paperwork is unbelievable!!! Which means I have to actually work instead of blogging lol.

Critters: Darci's and Vada's pups are walking around, playing, eyes wide open, even growling and barking (but still mostly whining). Here's a sample and I have more so watch for me to add...




And one of the videos I have so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESL33j0wSGE

Randy: Things are looking up a bit, he had an interview today. So we are praying for a call back. It's not the best but a darn good opportunity for now considering he's had no other luck.

The Ranch: Since we finally got the small horse trailer and the Ford truck sold, we started some long overdue fence replacement. No working camera for before and after pics darn it. But between the two of us and a little assistance from Hilary when she got home we completed the first 100-foot section. Broke down and bought a new camera AND IT WORKS (ok, maybe i should say AND I CAN WORK IT) so I'll get some pictures up when we do the next 100-foot section. And the puppy pen is well on the way so will get some shots of that too.

Well I have been lots busier than it sounds but a lot of stuff that would bore y'all to tears so I'll say goodnight for now.

Chi Pups - Eyes Open!

I am still fighting withmy camera so some of the pictures aren't the greatest but you will get the idea...
Well, eyes are not open when one is sleeping!

This is Vada's fawn boy... and the batteries died before I got a closeup of the girl! (But she looks quite a bit like this one.)

Vada's black and white boy

Darci's fawn boy - look at all that hair!!!

Vada watching me take pictures of the pups

Since the four pups were all together, Darci just fed them all... and actually, shortly before this, so did Vada!

Up on little legs instead of scooting on bellies!

Ty wondering why the little ones get all the attention (he actually blinked when I took this, his eyes were WIDE OPEN watching me take all the pictures of the otherse!)

Now the fun will start... once they can actually see and start walking around, they get SO CUTE! I got the black and white boy chewing on his brother's ear this afternoon. And, we have actually heard a couple of little barks already.

MARES!

I've added a new blog to my list, by Betsy Kelleher. I've read two of her books and they are awesome. Brought tears to my eyes multiple times!! Be sure to check her out and, if you own a mare, add your input!

Bye, truck!

Finally, finally sold the truck. Took quite a hit on the price but man, things are just NOT moving around here. No one seems to have any money... it's really sad. And scary. Even scarier is, now we have nothing BIG left to sell... so we are really praying that the VA gets off its duff and gets us a determination SOON!