Thread by @homemadeguitars

The girls staged a walkoff today but I won.
Tee hee.
It's been raining three or four days, and they've been self-shut-in under the stall roof. The barnyard they have access too is a mud slolly.
(Autocorrect does not like the word "slolly.")

2. I needed to clean up some tree trimmings out of the orchard, and I needed to (or felt the need to, wanted to, actually) plant some persimmon trees, hickory trees, and blackhaw bushes, all native to this spot, all which produce food for life forms including humans. Out of CO2.

3. And the girls weren't really into it at first, and were kind of grouchy, but I bitched and grumbled a little and handed out several pockets full of goodies, and we had a pretty productive mostly cheerful day.

4. There's a gate that has to be opened and close to get into the south part of the home 10. Patches the cow lives in there, and she's likely to go exploring if we don't keep the gate shut.
And she's really big. If some fool ran into her on the road it would likely kill him.

5. Missy knows all this drill, but Clara doesn't. Clara is wilful. She's smart, and mostly willing, but she's got her own interests, which are centered on tall green grass.
Missy tends to agree.
So anyway. Up on the very top of the watershed to the creek I've planted trees.

6. Black walnut, burr oak, some kind of generic red oak. All from seeds.
This was where the current project started. I had a bottomless wealth of ignorance. I've still got most of it.
But in spite of that, some trees are growing, both walnut and oak.

7. If you want to grow seedlings of these trees, which would come later in natural succession after thorn trees and mulberries, it helps a lot to consistently mow around them. So I do. Currently I do all my mowing with fossil fuel energy. Obtaining a donkey powered mower is

8. high on the agenda.
Any kind of working animal, including homo Sapiens, does best with a consistent work requirement in life.
I do all this work at least partly because I think it helps extend my healthy life. That's a big piece of it. The things I do are research proven

9. to improve the mental health of any typical human subject.
I definitely need to work on my mental health. I am brain damaged and have diagnoses. This place keeps me out of a cage.

10. So anyway. Heading up there, it's out of the barnyard, around the machine shed, and stop for Jeffie to open the gate. We've got that part down. I drive them from behind the cart, walking, and I can pull the gate shut as we go through.
Regular 16' farm gate with a wheel.

11. One of the mistakes I made when I started at this was, I staked my plantings with steel posts. Steel electric fence posts are about 3/8 or 7/16" steel rod with a triangle welded on one end, and we used to have *lots* of electric fences for rotation grazing. Lots of posts.

12. So then Patches the cow, or a passing deer, knocks the steel posts down in the grass. They're *seriously* hard on expensive mowing machines.
So now I buy wooden survey stakes. If one gets knocked down and I mow it, oh well. No biggie.

13. Up on the hilltop it's still steel posts, and not all the posts have live desired plants. Even though I mow around them, there's always a clump of grass about a foot and a half across that the mower can't get. So the trees still have to face serious competition. Some make it.

14. So I put a mess of wooden survey posts, and hickories, persimmons, and blackhaw, and (honest to God, you guys) my hammer and my sickle, just like the ones on the flags and stuff, and my water bottle, and a shovel, on the donkey cart and up we went.

15. I use the sickle to cut the grass away from the seedlings, which in many cases are no bigger in diameter, and not as tall, as the grass. It's a detailed hand tool proposition. You can't do this work with power tools. It's impossible. But I can with a sickle.

16. So we'd go to a marked plant - a steel post - and see if there was a plant there. If not, I'd cut the grass clump with the sickle and plant either a hickory, persimmon, or blackhaw, depending on my feeling about a particular place.
While I do this the girls graze nearby.

17. If they go too far I fuss at them and make them come back to the work zone, either by backing up or by circling around.
We'd already done some other work using the cart before we got up there, and their initial grumpiness was gone, and we were just working together.

18. So we accomplished some stuff, and their cart was empty of wooden stakes and loaded with steel ones, and some trees were cleared around for spring growth, and some were planted. And it was time to go back. And we stopped at the gate for Jeffie to open it, but going this way

19. I can't close the gate as we go through. So they have to stop on the other side, while I go back and close it.
I can tie them up but not conveniently. So I didn't.
And they decided, yeah, we know the way from here, and walked away.
But they went the long way.
I shortcut.

20. They're going around the truck and trailer, which I almost never unhitch, and when they get to the front I'm between them and the barn.
So they head for the orchard.
This is not a well thought through plan. The orchard is a blind alley. Only one way in and out.

21. They were cool about it. They were just walking. We have established to certainty that I can't run them down and catch them, so I don't rush them and they don't rush.
The gateway to the orchard isn't much wider than their cart. Five or six inches wider maybe.

22. Then right inside the gateway is an apple tree. So the know about the width, and cleared it on both sides, but they made a 90° left turn to miss the tree, and I could see for sure that the cart was going to catch on the gatepost, which is an old railroad tie.
So I said "Whoa"

23. And about half a second after I said whoa the cart hit the post, and the whole deal came to a screeching halt.
Clara gave it her best to keep pulling, but Missy knows all about stuck carts and she stopped instantly.
So I told them they were good girls (after all, they stopped

24. And gave them a goodie apiece, and went to the back of the cart, picked up the lines, and said, "Back." And they backed up, and we got loose from the post, and went into the orchard, made a turnaround, and headed for the barn like it was all part of the plan all along.

25. Nobody hurt, nothing broken, no high stress moments, home well mannered and under control.
I consider this a victory.
Later, y'all.