Nathaniel is the pioneer woodsman of the family. His heart's desire is to explore the great wilderness that is out behind our house. Mind you we live in a subdivided section of manufactured homes and have neighbors on both sides. We have 1 whole acre, we know, but what we didn't know is that we were miscalculating where the markers belong that show the boundary lines.
Nathaniel and Virginia were out trudging through the woods, whacking prickle bushes and enjoying the snow, and looking for something that has been hidden for years. We have owned this property for over 4 years and could never find the boundary stakes. Half the problem is that we looked at the wrong time of year when shrubs, prickles, and leaves were obscuring our view. If we had looked in the winter (and if Daddy had pointed him in the right direction) Nathaniel would probably have found it long ago.
I never much cared where the lines were until I started devising a fence line to maximize how many critters we could have. Now that I have all these visions of more chickens, sheep, goats, and whatever else I can have without being thrown out of the town, I really wanted to know where the line was. So, my little man went to searching. We found out that a few feet of the fence my neighbor built is actually on my land. We found that a bit of the neighbors back yard is also on my land. Not that I am going to go kick him out, but believe me I will be clearing a path for my fence, thus allowing more critters.
On his travels, Nathaniel also found the opposing corner marker, which was also hard to find any other time of year. Since we figured we could not find them again when it was fence building season, I drove larger stakes and marked them with a colorful flag made out of a long sleeved shirt with blue, yellow, and green stripes. That should be easy to find in the spring, I hope.
So, according to my calculations, I can fence off about half an acre, and that is enough for the chickens and a sheep or goat or two. Won't be good enough to graze a calf on for a few years, but we will keep working on it. I would be happier with a calf raised to about 4 months on grass, but I also don't want to buy hay, so we will do just fine with a sheep or goat.
Next thing to do is make final preparations for the fence. I am still considering the pallet fence, but may just go with wire and use the pallets for my new sheep/goat shed. Maybe even a new wood shed. Nathaniel was given a riding mower from Grampa, so we will need someplace to park that over winter, and I would rather have the shed to do wood work, so a new woodshed made of pallets is probably in order.
Keep your chin up, warmer days must be coming soon.
Mark
