Here he is 3 minutes before he went right through an un-electrified spot in the fence and headed for the hills!

What a time we had! Six hours we spent scouring three mountains and the hollows between them trying to find the little devil. Up and down, around and around, slipping and sliding and getting tore up by the long thorny tendrils of 'Wait A Minute Vine'. All over our 34 acres and the neighbor's next door.

Ken would call me on the walkie talkie to say he could see him 'down by the apple tree in the "other 'holler' or up near 'the big rock formation' Thank goodness he's white or we would have had no clue where he was. At one point I was trudging down our dirt road talking to Ken on the radio when a pick-up truck came slowly around the bend and pulled up next to me. A man I'd never set eyes on before leaned over and asked in a slow drawl : " did ya faand yer bool? Ah'd help ya but I got heart problems."

That was very nice of him but how did he know I'd lost my "bool"??

Now, don't ask me how we did it but with Joshua's help we actually managed to round the cow up and corral him again just as darkness fell. The hole in the fence had been blocked so we thought we had him good this time. He ate some hay and had a drink then what do you know, he lifted his head, decided enough was enough and walked right through the electic fence! Two hot wires! We stood in amazement. He'd been zapped by the fence a few times and jumped back. So we never imagined he'd go through it.

By this time it was too dark to try to find him so we had to just let him go and hope for the best. The next morning Ken was up bright and early and went back out to look for him. There was no sign of him anywhere so he continued up and over the ridge on the off chance that Moonshine had made his way back home. And there he was. Back on his own land standing by the barn with his little herd!

Based on the advice of a couple of experienced ox drovers we've decidied that he's going to have to be kept tied in a stall in the barn for a while until he's fully broken. So, all last week we were busy building a good sturdy and draft free stall for him.

He's set to return next week on the 21st. Keep your fingers crossed!

Riding Shady

Shady's previous owners came over on Saturday and we saddled up Shady for a ride. It's the first time I've ridden her since we moved her here two weeks ago. I'm glad they were here and they rode her first because she started out being very stubborn about being ridden out in the back pasture. She would go just so far and then act up and try to turn around to come back to the barn. T. and M. had to really lay the law down and work to get her to go beyond the lumber pile. The problem was she didn't want to leave Crystal! - Crystal who steals her food, chases her around the paddock and generally hasn't made her feel particularly welcome!

Mmm, I'm watching T. handle this little temper tantrum, complete with a few bucks and a couple of half hearted little rears and being a novice rider I wasn't feeling at all confident about getting up there myself!! But, thanks to lots of encouragement from our new friends I did it!

Shady still wanted to go back to the barn but we made her work a while way at the top end of the pasture and I was feeling much braver by the time we finished. Anyway, here are some pictures after we came back to the area around the barn. She was acting very nicely here because she could see Crystal in the corral!

My plan is to ride her here in the paddock with the back gate open and work on going out of the gate and getting her to go farther and farther away. I remember reading an interview with the horse trainer John Lyons. He said something to the effect of whatever problem your having with your horse, turn it into a project.

So, I guess I got me a project!

Building a Jackleg Fence

I'm going to have a cow!

Yes, a real cow. Actually, he's a Texas Longhorn steer and he's soon going to be in training as an ox.

Our 'next door' neighbor, about 3/4 of a mile away up on the ridge, called about a month ago to see if we were still interested in this 7 month old calf. We'd helped them search for him back in April when as a newborn he'd spooked and taken off into the woods. We hiked all over the mountain looking for this tiny white calf but to no avail. Later that afternoon the owner's stopped by to let us know that they'd found him. He'd gone in the opposite direction completely but he was back home safe and sound. We chatted for a while and I told them I might be interested in buying the calf once he was weaned to train as an ox. Well, now he's weaned and we are busy fencing a paddock for him.

To save money ( and to avoid having to dig yet MORE post holes!) we decided to use our own natural resources and build what's known as a "Jackleg" or "Buck and Rail" fence. They're more common out west but would work well here because of the steep rocky terrain.

What an undertaking! There are plenty of leaning trees that need to be cut but getting to them involves climbing up almost vertical mountainsides on all fours hanging on to roots and branches. Then of course we have to cut the tree into the right lengths needed and drag it all back down the mountain! It's a lot of backbraking work but fun. I love being up in the woods! There are some nice trails up there. I think some of them are old logging roads from many years ago. Wide enough for a team of horses. We took the metal detector on one and found some old chain and a horse shoe so I'm pretty sure they must have hauled logs out of there at one time. None of them lead to our fence building site so we can't use them to get our fence posts and rails out.

Anyway, here are some pictures to show our progress.

Moonshine, our future ox!
He's tame but not halter broke yet. That will be the first hurdle. He's going to grow HUGE and have extremely long horns so it's imperative that we establish who's the boss right away!

In order to form a tight fit, the logs that make the X must each be notched out at a 60 degree angle. They're then nailed with a six inch spike. The logs are 5 ft. long and the diagonal notch starts at about 12 inches from the top.

Chiseling out the kerf cuts. 

Ken making the diagonal cut-out. 

This is the fence so far.  

And here she is...

Shady!

Crystal is NOT impressed. If looks could kill!

Awe, come on Crystal, I'm not that bad! 

Well, I think they're standing a little closer to each other now. However, there's Crystal with her kicking leg primed and ready! I don't know if she's Welsh/Arab or plain ole mule! Shady was more interested in watching Ken who was chopping wood in the barn.

Work,work,work!

We don't seem to have stopped this past couple of weeks. There's so much to get finished before the snow and ice arrive. Ken got the roof on the horses run in shed and we started hanging the board siding. The back and one side is done. It's going to be board and batten but we just have the boards up at the moment.

Then, our friends called to arrange a date for us to go pick up Shady the horse. We decided on November 5th which at the time seemed plenty long enough to get the electric fence up and a new wider gate built for the small corral. Well, as usually happens what we thought would be a quick job turned into a race against time. We were still finishing the fence when we should have been on the road with the trailer! Those metal T - posts just didn't want to go into that rocky ground! We pryed up some huge boulders you would never know were under there. We managed to erect just enough of a padock sized area to give the horses room to get out of each other's way while they established who was going to be the boss. This next week we'll be taking the fence out further behind the barn.

Since the barn is now within the fence and we need to go in there a lot we decided to incorporate an English style Kissing Gate. This lets us go in and out without having to keep latching and unlatching a regular gate and yet the horses can't get out. It's functional but not quite finished yet. I'll take a picture of it when it's done. It's worked great. It's even easy to go through while carrying buckets of water from the creek.

The weather turned bitterly cold for a few days making the work not so pleasant. Ken made a big fire in the burn barrel so that we could stop to warm our hands now and then.

It was my birthday last week. Let's just say, I've reached 'that' age..where I really don't care what I look like! Especially when I'm cold. 

New Horse Corral

The new horse corral. The smoke is coming from the burn barrel. Once the sun had gone behind the mountain it was freezing out there!

The new larger gate to Crystal's corral. 

The Kissing Gate

Hanging the kissing gate.

Ken working on the run in shed 

Oh Happy Day!!

Woo Hoo! We finally went and got what we needed and finished hooking up the Pioneer Maid cook stove!!

Before we got done I was looking around online and came across a terrible review of our stove! This guy had nothing good to say about it at all. Said that it wouldn't hold a fire for more than a few hours, wouldn't heat the house as advertised, had a hard time keeping it clean because of the top loading fire box which allowed ashes to float out and cover the stove top...my heart sank. I was so worried that we'd wasted the money and were going to regret not buying some other brand. So, it was with great trepedition that we put in the kindling and started the first fire. The instructions advised that you should start with a small fire the first day just to break the stove in. So that's what we did. Wow! were we surprised! With just those few little stick burning the temperature in the dining room went up from 60 to 75 degrees in no time flat! The next day when we put in a larger fire an got the oven hot it was 85 in here and the temperature in the livingroom and hallway went up to 73 degrees! We left the furnace set at 65 just to keep the chill off in the night but I didn't even hear it come on last night. The house is -and stays-SO cozy! I absolutely love my stove!

Here are some pics.

And this is our first complete meal! Deer stew, crusty whole wheat bread, cornbread, - Joshua put in a special request for that- and some wonderful white wine David and Susan bought us! Thanks you two! We miss you!!! 

The first thing I made was some wholewheat bread and this pan of banana bread. It came out a bit darker on top than usual but it's not burned.  

The red things hanging on the back of the stove are hot peppers from the garden. We picked them all before the frost killed them. I strung them on heavy thread and hung them on the back of the stove to dry. You can see potatoes set out on trays on the floor to dry out a bit too. Ken had just dug them. We havent finished with the base yet. We will be adding another row of pavers around the front and sides for the hearth. 

The fire box. 

Backyard Camping

We've had a large pile of brush sitting out back since we had those pine trees felled. Last week Ken decided to start burning it. It was too large to just set fire to so he made a small fire and just kept feeding it with the brush. It was so warm and cozy we got the tent out of the barn and camped out. We cooked hamburgers on the swing grill over the fire and toasted marshmallows. Afterwards, we did some star gazing through the telescope. Even though we had just about every blanket we own plus a hot water bottle we still got a bit chilly during the night! Our tent is really only made for the warm summer months. About 4am Ken came up to the house and refilled the bottle and got the campfire blazing again.

We didn't get much sleep. There were so many strange noises out there what with the animals in the barn banging around plus other unknown things in the woods. It sounded like the rabbits in the horse trailer had got a hold of a trampoline! We spent half the night saying "what was that?!"

Needless to say the next day we weren't moving very fast at all. When we came inside it felt like we'd been away for a week!

Our little camp. Looking down from the hillside. 

Josh and Mom. 

Enjoying the fire.