In the run up to going back to the UK to visit the folks, I had to do something about better securing the goats. For months, the goats had been walking out of the electric fences I'd put in around 6 years' previous. They had worked wonderfully to begin with, but then the UK started to attack the electric braid I'd used (because it was so much easier to use than high tensile wire and didn't require a tremendously strong fence), and the wallabies grew in number and continually pushed against the fences. The weakened braid gave under the onslaught and shorted it on the ground, or posts, and the goats just became used to the fence not being on - plus they'd been trained to expect it not to be on by it being switched off regularly during carport and greenhouse construction. This time, I was determined to include wire mesh that would keep out the wallabies as well. So, I built a paddock with wire mesh 700mm high, folded out around 200mm onto the ground, with electric and barbed wire strands above it and offset electric on the inside. It's still a mickey-mouse fence since I used star pickets and the tread-in posts that I'd already installed, when it was just going to be an electric fence. But I did brace the corners and pegged the 'skirt' down with hundreds of tent pegs that I angle grinded from scrap metal gleaned from the local tip. I stuck the angle-grinder in the vice, which made the job much easier. Converted a whole ute-load of scrap metal into 3 buckets of tent pegs. The following pics show the finished result.
When the fence was finally finished and the electric was switched on (was only at 3,000 volts for some strange reason, buat at least it was working), I got the goats loaded up in the goat float. They were fed up with having been kept in the small weaning pen behind the birds, because it was the only secure pen I had left. Me and Bronte had been at loggerheads, because when the goats got out, they immediately attacked his trees. I entered the new paddock by the nearest gate, not realising just how wet it was immediately in front of the gate (it was middle of winter, so everything was pretty soggy). I gunned the little Suzuki and we would probably have made it, but the back of the goat float caught on the slope and it instantly sunk into the bog. The back of the float obstructed the gate, so I couldn't close it, and couldn't therefore let the goats out, until I could unbog it. Eventually, by hooking up the ute to the front and engaging Luke to drive the Suzuki, we managed to free it.
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| Muddy tyre tracks |
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| Unbogged at last! |
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| Finally managed to use and move a large old water tank that had been something of an eyesore by our tractor shed since I'd first collected it from a neighbour a couple of years before. I tipped it onto its side (with some difficulty) and managed to angle-grind it in half, do some running repairs and tow it into the field. This sounds like an easy thing to do, but it flexed in all directions and nearly tore itself apart, as well as trying to swipe out trees and gate posts as we passed. It was then a struggle to get it staked down into position, so it wouldn't blow away in the first reasonable breeze. I covered it in weed mat, because it had many small holes, and despite the weed mat being porous, the water would slide off it quicker than it would soak through. |
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| Happy goats in new sizeable paddock, with plenty of blackberry bushes and willow for them to attack. Luke's trying to ride poor Gran in this photo! Mind you, she is a large and strong goat and quite able to bear his weight. |
Another project I managed to finish before we went to the UK, was to install a wind turbine on our wireless broadband internet hut. In the middle of winter, with short days and cold nights, the two solar panels and three 130 amp hour deep cycle batteries are just not enough to power the internet throughout a whole 16-hour day. So I hoped that by adding the wind turbine, the house-sitters would not have to fall back on the generator (which was rather temperamental and stowed under the hut out of the weather) while we were away. However, it was a somewhat vain hope I knew, particularly as neither the wind or sun could be relied on in July.
