Me, Setting Up COWS to clear a Forest

Are you able to get it?

I'm trying to put it under my boot. Can you come help me?

What do you need help with, babe?

I'm taking the feed out to the sea monsters.

A couple are out, honey. Good catch. Oh, never mind.

I fill up the water first.

Okay, good. Well, they've been eating. This is quite drastically down. You went off right here. Why you went off right here? Because You going crawdad fishing with Josiah?

Yeah.

You caught any, Josiah?

I see one.

Project time. Those are the posts we have. I don't know, I mean, we have some more. We have to put them together. I don't know if I have insulators. I don't know if what I have is enough. These are T-post insulators. They're not the right kind that we need. Let's put the stuff from the wheelbarrow into the mower. You want to? Yeah. All right, it is literally 8:47, Jonah. I guess it's worth it just to take this stuff out there and look at it. I don't think we can do anything, but we can look. We came up here for some earmuffins. Remember, we were supposed to hang them on the banister. Did we only get 2 white ones? Yeah, and they're accounted for. Okay, we need your old ones. Hey, don't— hey, don't— don't— hey, don't create more of a mess. Hey, hey, where'd you find them? Okay, good. To get over into this area, we have a lane coming through the pasture already. The lane ends there. There's a cross fence up right here, fellas, that we can use as a side of another lane to come over here. So we'll bring the cows down through here through a lane. We'll use that as one side of a lane, the perimeter, and come right through here. We need to put another T-post in and a gate. And then the cows— this is, this is the area we're working. So maybe the lane for the cows comes right through here, through our worked area. It'll come right through here by our— where the pigs currently are. Oh yeah, we all— somebody bring their feed. And oh shoot, I just stepped on a something bad. Oh, it went right through my boot. Wow, what a thorn. Walking down this lane, and then this is the area we want them to be in to come and work ahead of us. Let's just wrap around this one small area. That's a few weeks for the pigs anyway, so yeah, we'll come back, look here Here's how it goes. Comes to this end, comes up our perimeter, our actual property line perimeter, and then another strip right there. So we'll put the cows in here. They will eat on this poplar for sure, and they'll eat on this poison ivy. So, and who else? Who knows what else? And look at all that poison ivy. Yes, the pigs aren't crazy for it. So I think it's possible if we hurry up and milk, eat breakfast, maybe we can come back like later in the morning, or we'll edit and come back in the afternoon. To do water, does our water line— look, our water line has a connection here, so we can bring a water hose up to right here and easily fill them up water right there. The hose is currently connected way down here I'm gonna see if— see, could I disconnect this hose and connect the water line? I can. Look at that. Okay, now I can get water all the way up to that black line and I can reconnect this hose up there. So I think it's a 30-minute to an hour project. See, they're gonna be done with this. Look, they're gonna be done with this. We've timed this right. Let's turn Stud and Bear around. It's hard to get Phyllis to come through Stud, so let's herd him back out in the pasture and then get her. All right, you go get Phyllis, I'll keep the gentleman. Okay, let's just turn him into here. There we go. Okay, we got him behind a gate fence. All right, we can do this, ladies, in peace. Let's get Bessie out. Can you get Bessie? Just Bessie, not Nellie. She's gonna want to come out because she's in heat. All right, that's okay. What you doing, Josiah?

Picking a cucumber.

Did, uh, is that for a snack?

This one?

Did Mom send you for it?

This one's a snack.

Okay, round 2. Stud, he's getting anxious. Come on, Jonah, help me. Stud's there. All the cows are in the back right now. But the pasture in the forest is way over there, so let's get him and Bear out of here, and then we can put Nellie out. She doesn't have to be in her stall. All right, Jonah, I'm gonna hopefully move him back when I drop this gate. Come on, come on. Maybe I can move him with the gate. Come on. There we go. Perfect. Well, I was editing and then the power company came to replace the pole. This pole was getting washed out in the creek, so there's the new pole. So we're gonna be out for a bit, so I'm gonna go set up the cow pens. I think I'll grab this waterer. We're not going to be back here for a while, so we can just borrow it. Uh, we already have this cross fence up. Put another one right here to form a lane. Phase 1 is done. We have our lane up. Mr. Brown is getting hot and thirsty. Well, let's go get you some water, maybe a hat. Gideon, are you gonna come with me? You are? Then let's go.

I'm not.

What are you gonna do? Okay, you're gonna take the goose swim?

Last night it was so fun.

So I turned my water on out there on my way back. We're gonna see if it's gonna come through and on up. Let's get our water trough filling up because it does take a while. This is where water should be coming out. It's not. I don't really hear anything. There's nothing coming out. Maybe just let it pump for a little while. It is climbing a long way and doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of pressure on it. No, it's empty right here. I don't think there's any water in there. Nothing there. Maybe I didn't turn it on down here. I turned it on. See if there's water coming to it. Oh yeah, oh yeah, and there's water coming down. So the water came out of that, so just gonna take a minute. We have it so Stud and Bear can come down a lane, temporary lane. And now, and now they've got to get through this perimeter fence, so I've got to put gates on it. Yeehaw! I got us a gate through here. Still, we need to get a lane, another, uh, semi-temporary, semi-temporary lane going through here to our next paddock and this is all I've got. You know, using animals to do the work of the farm is a romantic idea and it does work, but it does take work and management. What's the minimum to get over here? There's 2 out of 2 there. I'm about to put 2 there too, so 6. And then once I'm here, uh, 1, 2, 3. I could do 3, 4, 5, 6. 6. Some water progress because we got a leak. It hasn't made it up here, and I wonder if it's not gonna because there's not enough pressure and it's all running off that crack. That may be all the water we're getting. That's a pretty good slit. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11. 12, 13, 14, 15. And I have 2 insulators. That's enough. I got my poles in. Looks like I've got an extra insulator here. I do like to— I miscalculated. I need 8 for this lane. I'm beginning to think I'm not going to make it. It's 3:15. Hopefully the The power truck companies are leaving. Hopefully the power company's back on, the power's back on. I probably have a good strong hour and a half of editing. Let's do this. We'll put our line now up on our lane, so we'll get our lane up. Then all we'll lack is the perimeter for in here. We'll check, we'll check the water before we go in. Yeah, look, power company's leaving. Yeah, so I should go edit. Got my temporary line up. You see it? That's a lane to get in there. What are you munching on? What are you munching on, you fat hogs? Okay, there's no water up here. None. With those holes, there's not enough pressure. All right, it's 3:30. For now, we need to get back and finish the edit. It's after supper, exporting the video finally. 6:20. Look at this, guys. Happy anniversary to mom and pop, right?

Happy anniversary!

Little late, but better late than never.

So white beans or navy bean blondie with like a, a kind of a caramelly, as caramelly as you can get, with gaps and pecans on top.

Okay, let's patch this water pipe. First, because if we don't get water over here, we're not getting the cows over here. Let's, uh, let's go around now and put our fence around the perimeter where we want the cows to work. Let's see if there's any more. Let's look for any other major leaks. Oh look, okay, here, John, one more. Oh gosh, a whole bunch. Alright, Jonah, you're gonna finish that and I'm gonna go turn it on. 3 patches. Let's see if it's gonna work. Okay. See if it's working. I'm hopeful. Are you hopeful, Jonah? Yeah. I thought it was gonna be beating up here. Just listen. Just please come splash me in the face. Whoa, okay, almost splashed me in the face. Okay, good. All right, we can get our hose on here, Jonah. There you go, buddy. Good job. 7:43. I'm gonna do it. Let's do it. Let's do it, Jonah. You want to do it? We normally quit at 7:50. Let's do it. There we go, Jonah. Let's turn that on. Got my flexible hose hooked up. Turn it on. We got water down there, Jonah. I think he went to get a reel. All we lack is putting a wire around this thing and a jumper to the pig fence. What do you guys think? You think the cows are gonna give this a boost? You gonna— are they gonna help us, Jonah? We got our lineup right there. We need a couple more posts. We ran out of wire. So close, we came right there. We probably have 50 feet of wire left. We don't have any more out here, Jonah. All right, well, 7:52. We'll hit this in the morning, Jonah, and we'll get them out here tomorrow. Jonah, there's more wire right there. Wanna do it? I hesitate since we can't finish finish. We need posts. Yeah, let's just call it. I'm pooped.