Subdividing the pasture

A task we've been wanting to accomplish since getting the cows is to subdivide the larger pasture. With fairly small acreage compared to our last place, it's important that we don't let anything get overgrazed, and having subdivided pastures allows us to rotate the animals frequently.

With that in mind, we gathered everything we needed. Thankfully we weren't faced with anything nearly as complex and difficult as fencing in the sacrifice pasture. In fact, we could bring all the heavy items (T-posts, roll of fencing, pounders, etc.) in the bucket of the tractor.

We unloaded everything and got ready to run a string.

Because the pasture is sloped (everything on our property is sloped!), we hammered a stake just where the line of vision breaks between one end of the fence line and the other. Then we used the bright-pink string to mark the fence line.

(There's my handsome man on his iron steed!)

Then we dropped T-posts at 12-foot intervals and started pounding. The ground is still fairly soft, so it wasn't overly hard work. Don started at the top of the pasture, and I started at the bottom, the idea being to meet in the middle.

There was only one problem with this task: There's a ridge line of rock right where the fence line was passing through.

Don was frustrated by this impediment and started theorizing about building field-fence cages filled with rock to make gabions, which would be an enormous task. "Why not just make a jog in the fence line and go around the rocks?" I asked. Don chuckled and admitted it goes against his thinking. "Men think linearly," he said, and admitted going around the outcrop hadn't even occurred to him.

So we jogged around the rocks. I did the T-post pounding in this section, and sometimes I had to reposition the posts irregularly whenever I hit a rock, but over all it wasn't bad. (You can see the still-unfenced garden in the center-left of the photo.)

Pounding that many T-posts was enough work for a couple of senior citizens for one day. The next day we commenced stretching the fencing. For obvious reasons we started at the top of the slope and worked downhill.

We unrolled the fencing until we got to the jog around the rock outcrop, and cut it. (Don pounded and wired some older and somewhat bent T-posts to the corners of the jog to make "king posts" for extra support. No photos, sorry.)

With the fencing unrolled, we needed to stretch it tight. We started by threading a metal bar through the fencing...

...and attached the bar to a chain. The bar threaded through the field fence allows us to impost more or less equal pressure on the entire stretch of fencing at the same time, without deforming individual squares of the field fence.

Then he attached the chain to the fence-puller, one of those extremely handy homestead tools.

The fence-puller straddles the gap between the fencing and an upright support (a T-post, in this case). By ratcheting the fence-puller, the fencing material is stretched until it's tight enough to wire the fencing in place to the T-posts all up the line.

Once the fencing was pulled tight, Don and I started wiring the fencing to the T-posts.

We fenced the jog as well, though we didn't use the fence-puller in this section for the task of pulling the fence tight.

This completed the bulk of the project. We still have some ancillary tasks (notably building strategically placed gates), but this subdivision should serve us well as we endeavor to rotate the cows through the summer grazing months.

(Bonus photos: Here's a rose bush we thankfully didn't have to work through when installing the fence.

Look at those horrible vicious thorns. Now you know why I postulated these were the thorns that surrounded Sleeping Beauty's castle.)

Nature is amazing

Everyone's heard of deep-sea angler fish, right? These are the creatures that attract prey toward them with a bioluminescent lure.

Fairly recently, this same principle was discovered in a snake. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the spider-tailed horned viper. Specifically, view the video at this link and watch its tail.

According to Wikipedia, this venomous snake lives in harsh desert conditions in Iran and uses its spider-like tail to lure in prey. When scientists described the first specimen they found, they attributed its tail configuration "to either a parasite, deformity, or tumors." Then a second specimen was found, and – whoa, Nellie – they realized this is how it catches prey.

I've never heard of this species, and I'll admit being gobsmacked. Here's a video of the snake luring in and catching a bird:

"I'm going to put this up on the blog," I enthused. "This is incredible."

"Ah, the biologist strikes again," observed Don, remarking on my past education.

The spider-tailed horned viper. Nature is amazing.

Happy birthday, Younger Daughter!

Today is Younger Daughter's birthday.

Happy birthday, dear daughter!

How people spent their time

Here's a short 50-second clip on how people spent their time, from 1932 through 2024.

In 1932, most people spent their time with family:

And today:

Notable caption on the clip: "And we wonder why society is in decline..."

Product Review Monday

Today's product review will focus on power outages, and what to do about them.

When we moved here about four and a half years ago (in mid-December of 2020), we quickly learned the electrical grid in this area is very fragile. Anything seems to knock out power: a wind, a snowfall, a Tuesday. To that end, and because we were concerned about keeping me available for my online job, we needed a dependable backup to run my laptop in the event the power went out on a workday.

Enter a backup power source called AllPowers:

This gizmo is the size of a car battery and provides 600 watts and almost 300 watt-hours. It will power my laptop for, I kid you not, about four days of continuous use. (Trust me on this.)

Indirectly, it also charged our wireless hotspot backup, which was plugged into the laptop during my workdays.

This battery powers more than my laptop, of course. It will power anything you plug into it (personal electronics, LED lights, etc.). When using it for my laptop, I have not had anything else plugged into it since I wanted to make sure I had sufficient dedicated power for my computer. However the manufacturers say the battery can charge up to eight things at once. The unit has the advantage of being portable and relatively lightweight at about 13 pounds. We keep it fully charged at all times.

The exact model we purchased is no longer available, but a comparable unit by the same company has the same (or better) specs. Highly recommended if you depend on your computer for employment and live in areas prone to power outages.

Buoyed by the success of this battery backup, we went up a step and got a larger version, a VTOMAN. This unit provides 1500 watts and 828 watt-hours. It weighs about 31 lbs. and can be charged a number of different ways (electricity, solar, car charger, etc.). It's large enough to power bigger appliances, such as a refrigerator or chest freezer, for a limited period of time. (Keep in mind a fridge or freezer can keep food suitably cold/frozen, if the doors aren't opened, on as little as an hour of electricity a day if need be.)

The advantage of this unit is its portability. It's not something you want to sling in your backpack and take hiking, of course, but Don and I took it with us on our second honeymoon trip as an emergency source of power without an issue. Highly recommended.

And finally, we bought yet another battery backup, a spectacular purchase called a Bluetti. This workhorse is much heavier (about 70 lbs.), but it's a giant when it comes to running household appliances during outages.

Again, the exact model we have has been upgraded to a newer type, one that offers a 2400-watt output and over 2000 watt-hours of use.

This Bluetti has saved our fanny any number of times. Last year, during a particularly bad series of storms with a resulting multi-day power outage, we used it to keep our fridge and chest freezer cold.

We also took the opportunity to recharge it using our generator; not because it needed recharging, but because we wanted to test whether charging it with the generator would work. (It did.)

There are multiple types of battery backups on the market, but these are the ones we've used (a lot!) and can attest to their quality and usefulness.

(Obligatory disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, if you purchase through those links, I earn a small commission.)

Happy charging!

Loud budgeting

Social media trends famously come and go. Some are stupid, some are dangerous ... but once in a while you come across a trend that actually makes sense.

Thanks to social media, the pressure to keep up with the proverbial Joneses and appear more affluent than one really is, it seems, is bigger than ever.

But I just caught wind of something called "loud budgeting."

Apparently in some areas (the articles I read focused on New York City), there is a great deal of social pressure NOT to admit you're on a budget. Therefore if you're invited out for drinks or a meal or a nightclub, you feel compelled to go and must never admit you can't afford it.

"Picture this," begins one such article. "You’re out to dinner with a friend who you know makes a lot more money than you do. When you open the menu, your heart sinks. There’s not an entree in sight that’s less than $35, and even a soup is going to run you $18. Then the waiter comes by with…oh God, is that an in-house sommelier? That's it, you’re dropping $100 tonight, at the very least. If you’ve been in this scenario (and let’s be real, who hasn’t) you probably left the dinner and vowed to subsist on dollar pizzas slices until payday to make up for it. But what if you just turned to your friend, closed the menu, and said, 'Sorry, I have to be honest. I can’t afford this. Let’s go somewhere else?'"

And that defiant act – telling your friend you can't afford something – is now called "loud budgeting." Excuse me while I stand up and cheer and pump my fist in enthusiastic support of this trend.

The trend may have started as something of a joke on TikTok, but those in the financial services industry are getting on board as well. The trend has even been highlighted on Good Morning America.

One financial advisor says she’s seen social media add pressure to her clients to spend beyond their means on luxury items they can’t really afford, and welcomes a movement to mitigate that: "I think [social media] can make a lot of younger people feel like they're behind to some capacity and that they have to keep up with that and they have to be buying luxury and brand named items, whether it's clothing or cars or whatever the case may be, and put it out there."

In short, younger people are learning financial struggles are the norm, not the exception; and that frugality and avoiding debt is freedom, not slavery. This is a very, very good lesson to learn at a young age.

One person said, "Staying quiet about your finances and setting spending limits don't have to be shrouded in shame."

Trends may come and trends may go, but hopefully this one sticks around.

Addendum to garden progress

As an addendum to the blog post on our garden progress, here's a bit of an update: Mulch!

We had a good solid, steady rain yesterday, so everything got thoroughly watered. Since I couldn't work outdoors during that kind of weather, instead I went into town and purchased some bales of straw. (Not hay; straw. Hay, when used as mulch, can grow unwanted plants in the garden. The only thing straw mulch will grow is the occasional wheat plant.)

I laid down a sheet in the car and crammed in four bales of straw. Despite the protective sheet, they still made a mess. By the time I thought to take a photo, I'd already removed one of the bales (there's a bale in back, behind these two).

I loaded the rest into our Gorilla cart.

I transported one bale of straw at a time into the garden using a hay sled.

It didn't take long to spread straw on each potato bed.

All eight beds, mulched.

I had about two and a quarter bales of straw left for future mulching projects. I loaded the uncut bales onto the hay sled and crammed it under the porch, where the straw will stay dry.

Straw is nice as a mulch because we can use it for several years. I mulched four out of the five beds of garlic I planted last fall with the previous year's mulch. As we ramp up the garden, we'll get whatever additional straw we need to mulch the additional beds, then reuse it until it breaks down enough to just dig in as an addendum to the soil.

Garden progress

Right now, with spring fully upon us, we have any number of projects yanking us in different directions. However we're focusing on one very big and very important project at the moment: The garden.

We installed about half the garden beds two summers ago, but nothing since then. And even those beds weren't fully planted. Why? Because we didn't have the garden fenced against deer. The things I did plant (such as strawberries) had to be heavily cloched with deer netting, and even then the deer learned they could press their faces against the netting until plants poked through, then eat down what they could. (This –  THIS! – is why we're planning on installing ten foot fences around the garden. Eight feet simply isn't enough. Not taking chances!)

This year is when we plan to complete the first phase of the garden. I say "first phase" because we're giving ourselves the option of literally doubling the size of the garden at some future point, should the need arise. But for now, we plan to have 35 garden beds in four rows (three rows of nine beds, one row with eight beds, leaving a space to install some solar panels we purchased second-hand a few years ago, and which we hope will work to charge our Bluetti battery. More on that when the project happens.)

So, once the ground was firm enough to drive on, we got busy. The first thing we did was remove the cattle panels we had used to enclose the garden area against the cows for the last year. (The cows are currently in the sacrifice pasture.) These four-foot-high panels were ineffective against deer, but fine for keeping the cows out. Since we carved the long, narrow garden area out of a section of the pasture next to the house, protecting it against the cows was imperative.

While I worked on disassembling the fencing, Don opened the pasture gate and brought in the tractor with the rototiller attachment on the back. This way he could churn together the three elements we use to fill garden beds – dirt, compost, sand – and pile it up.

Then Don started weed-whacking the other half of the garden to knock down the vegetation.

While he worked on that, I pulled together a new roll of heavy-duty weed cloth. This is one of the many purchases we made over the last few years in anticipation of such projects, and now that we're on a strict budget, we're beyond grateful for the resources we bought ahead.

We rolled out the weed cloth the length of the garden.

This cloth comes doubled over, so we unfolded it once it was cut to length.

See the hose bibs sticking up? We installed those two years ago for the future drip irrigation system (they're placed to fit at the end of each garden bed). We had to fit the cloth over those.

To help with this, we pinned the edge of the cloth with metal stakes to hold things in place. 

Then we each took a pair of scissors and went down the row, feeling the hose bibs and making X-shaped cuts in the cloth to let the bibs poke through.

Here's the progress so far. We need to trench and lay irrigation hose on the right-hand side for the last row of garden beds, but that won't happen yet.

With that task completed, it was time to bring in gravel. This not only anchors the weed cloth, but it provides a drainage base for the garden beds. By the way, piles of gravel are yet another resource we purchased last year.

We kinda rolled the side of the weed cloth in while Don moved gravel so the cloth wouldn't get damaged by the tractor tires.

He spaced the gravel loads wide enough to make about a one-rock-thick layer once everything was spread out. Spreading gravel with a rake and shovel is exhausting. It also let us know where Don needed to add more gravel to fill in black spots.

After this, we carried in the nine garden beds Don had constructed last summer, and which have been stacked and waiting this whole time. We positioned these beds in front of each hose bib.

Because we've been having some issues with the beds bowing outward, Don installed a heavy-duty wire brace inside each bed.

He drilled a thin hole through each center rib and threaded the wire through, stapling it down. We've had no problems with beds actually breaking, but we figure this will relieve some of the outward pressure.

Then it was time to start filling the beds. Here's the first of the mounds of dirt/sand/compost Don churned up.

He scooped up a bucket at a time with the tractor, and brought it over to each empty bed. For obvious reasons, it's essential to fill the inner beds with soil before we put the last row of beds in place. (In other words, to fill the beds as we go.)

Once the beds were filled, we took a break from infrastructure so I could get some stuff planted. Some of the older garden beds had been cannibalized of their soil to top off other beds (soil tends to settle), so I needed to get those beds refilled. To do that, I cannibalized soil from the newer beds, since Don can top them off with the tractor later on.

Of our original 17 beds, four already had strawberries planted in them, and five had been planted with garlic last fall. Here is the garlic...

...and at the other end, four strawberry beds, cloched with deer netting until such time as we have the permanent perimeter fence installed.

This left eight beds, which I wanted to plant with potatoes.

Yesterday I pushed through and got everything done. I topped off the beds with dirt and raked them smooth. Then I pulled out some crates of potatoes harvested last fall which had been stored in our pantry. They were comically overgrown.

I planted three rows of seven potatoes – 21 potatoes – in each bed.

I laid them out first...

...before digging them in deeply.

The actual planting didn't take long; but by the end of the day, after all the toil of weeding the beds, topping them with dirt, then planting all the potatoes ... well, I was wiped.

But I managed to accomplish another task that was overdue: Planting seedlings.

I'd been meaning to do this for a couple weeks, and finally got around to it. I'm kinda late, but hey, it's been a busy spring. (Visiting my parents was more important.)

I planted 50 onion seeds, 34 paste tomatoes, 16 broccoli, 2 beefsteak tomatoes, and 16 sweet peppers.

The rest of the seeds can be direct-seeded once the beds are completed and the weather permits.

So that's our garden progress so far. Don is engaged in building the remaining beds for the final row. Once we have the area rocked in and the beds filled, we'll install the permanent perimeter fence and breath a sigh of relief that the deer won't be able to decimate anything we plant. Onward!