So Productive!

This was a day of tasks accomplished. Besides a two-hour trip to the bank to see a notary (she was very busy on this, the first day of the month), and an involuntary move for the sheep (they had burst out of their pen already, so we went to contain them a different way), we received and moved two large hay bales down to the lower pasture, made four loaves of sourdough bread (to rave reviews from the boys, who all claim they "love" bread, even dense sourdough made of rye and spelt), finished the last readings in two weeks of Abraham's school, read many chapters of the classic children's book Caddie Woodlawn, and made multiple phone calls.

Even better, Phil put the last pole for the greenhouse in. The back corner has been eroding rapidly, so Phil put the pole in a concrete tube in order to preserve its place on the slope. It took a massive amount of effort on his part: a piece of wood perfectly carved to fit it, concrete mixed in the bucket of the tractor, then cleaned thoroughly, the concrete tube itself pounded into the earth with the bucket of the tractor, surveyors' tools to ensure the post was at the same height as the others, a level to ensure the post was actually level.

The other task that felt like real progress was that Phil scythed the amazing weeds that have grown up in two swales. He didn't want me to take pictures, "lest people know how bad its gotten," and I sort of agree. But it's our reality, and I am pleased that we are acting (finally) a little preemptively: the grasses are setting seeds, and I want them out of the garden before they drop all their seeds in the garden soil for future years of nightmarish growth. Phil has started to scythe at the right of the tall growth in the photo below (he is actually in the picture, scythe flashing, but he's very hard to see).

Half an hour or so later, after he had cut and I had gathered and carried to the roadway the amazing biomass, we could actually see a bit more of our land. What a crazy feeling, to begin to have visibility lines again.

Jadon, too, had a productive day, working on the Global Animal Puzzle with good will until it was done.

Joe was happy to join in the photos, and his enthusiasm got the better of him: two seconds after the photo, he flung out his arms and the puzzle flew into pieces.

With so many tasks accomplished, it was dusk before we headed over to move cows. It was a long move, from the top of the neighbor's land down to the lower pasture, probably about 1000 feet. It could have gone better. The cows were ready to move, and they followed us closely as we rolled out their corridor. Then Snowman broke out, but got his foot caught in the wire. Phil kept yelling at me to, "reel it in," but maybe it was wrapped, because it was me, tugging on a bull's hoof. Quite ineffective. So while part of the line was slack, three other cows broke through the wire. And then I ran out of electric line.

Phil headed upslope to loosen my reel. Snowman came closer and closer to me, and I tried not to show fear. But really: if he was feeling at all aggressive, all I would have between him and me was a single strand of electric wire, and he had already broken through that once. Which was, in itself, uncharacteristic.

I hate that, having been gored by Fern, I have a good bit more fear towards the beautiful bovines. Snowman looked at me and plodded off, and Phil soon had them all corralled. Once they figured out where they were going, they ran ahead of us, which made me wonder a bit if we had really needed the stressful corridor we had so elaborately unrolled in the gathering gloom. Probably.