The End Of Summer

As usual, every summer, there is a list of projects to tackle.  The lawn area was high on the list.  Since I am not at the RNR full time, and to conserve water, that meant I had to install sprinklers.

I installed the sprinklers with the idea of waiting to plant until the weather cooled down.  A week or two later the monsoon clouds and lightning began to roll in.  Joe and I worked our buns off  one afternoon to beat the predicted and visibly approaching storm.

Another project was to enclose the barn area of the "Cabarn".  That meant concrete floor, loft joists and floor, loft stairs, barn walls, etc.

There also was the typical farm projects.  Twice a day the goats were let out to graze the "South 40".  Cora and Joe are looking to see if the goats are getting into trouble.



Cora and Joe worked hard.












Colin came to visit and wondered why Grandpa didn't have a bigger swimming pool.

A new buck was brought to the farm.  On a field trip, Grandma Janna's Student Council kids nicknamed him, "The Big Nasty".

We had sunsets,

rainbows,

we went to one of the many local rodeos,

and we went to the state fair to watch the goat show. This is the "Grand Champion".

Joe is turning into a pretty good herd dog and

the new grass is doing well.  All and all, progress was made and fun was had at the RNR, but Rest and Relaxation was hard to find.

Miscellaneous Updates

Brad, Elise, Weston and Rose came for a short visit to pick up the girls. We went for a little tour, this is the first cutting of our new four acre field that we worked hard to irrigate.

Bailed and stacked.

Great Grandma Joan worked hard on a quilt made from Grandpa Dan's old work pants.

The headboard was made for Grandma Janna many years ago back in Gig Harbor, Wa.

The work on the kitchen stopped when the exterior farm work began this spring.  The lower cabinets will get doors and drawers, probably this winter.  But it is fully functional and is working quite well.

More of Grandma's cloud pictures.

It has been a lot of work so far.  We will update you later on Grandpa's new friend and helper.

Summer Visitors And The Reason For Having A Farm

 

Grace and Claire came from New Mexico to visit Grandma and Grandpa for a month.  They arrived just in time to help bring the goats to the R-N-R from St. George.

The next project was to mow the new grass that would be used for picnics, morning school and camping.

After school with Grandma, Grace and Claire headed to the creek for adventure.

The local wildlife was studied as much as possible. 

If not at school or adventuring, there was plenty of work to be done.  Grace is counting her pile of weeds she removed from the lawn.  She and Claire earned 1 penny for each weed.

After hard work we visited the local hot springs.

Lorraine and her girls came for a visit also, so we took them to the hot springs too.

But if you play you must work.  Everybody picked up rocks from the future lawn area.  As with the weeds 1 penny per rock was earned.

After the money was earned the four girls Grace, Claire, Cora and Cate jumped on their bikes and headed to the Mercantile for treats.

Ellie got out of all the work.

Summer Projects

 The biggest project for the early summer was to get the goats moved up to Kanosh from St. George.  The existing fencing on the farm is approx. 100 year old barbed wire.  It might hold a tame cow but not goats.  So, a pen needed to be built.  I decided on an approx. 2 acre pen in the North East corner of the front 8 acres. 

Getting the corners set, the back corner is visible 450 feet away.

On the property line I built the new fence up against the old existing fence.  This is the new corner, existing fence and fence building obstacles.

Trimming up some posts to use at my feeder fence area.

Getting started with the feeder fence posts. The hay stack backstop is in.

The 2 acre pen was taking too long for me to build by myself, but I could not wait any longer to move the goats to the farm.  I borrowed some fence panels from one of my Kanosh neighbors to make a small temporary pen. Then I built a wire lid for my dump trailer and we loaded up the goats.

 I finally got the larger pen complete, I just don't have a good picture of it.  You can see it in the back ground of this picture Janna took of the pretty clouds.

Spring Cleaning

Colin, Ember and Kevin came to Kanosh for some needed R-N-R at the Rockin-N-Ranch.


Colin is checking out the grandchild sleeping loft. Kevin and Megan looking on.

We decided that what Kevin really needed to relieve his stress from finishing up a hard semester of school, was a good work day.  So we (Dan, Janna and Megan) met up with them during there stay, for some good ole farm work.

Our new four acre pasture has been sorely neglected for years.  The first thing that needed to be done was to clean out the irrigation ditch. 

We removed two large trailer loads of brush just to get to the ditch.

Almost done here, but first we used the backhoe to remove most of the dirt in the ditch and then we hand shoveled the rest. A full days work.

A few days later it was our turn for water on the Kanosh irrigation system.

With a little last minute debris removal, we had water to the pasture.

A fun day, the goats will enjoy this during the summer.

The next project was mowing all of the nice green weeds on the front lot and orchard area.  Some day maybe this will be some nice grass.

The tilled area in the background is our 1/2 acre(approx.) experimental water melon patch. Kevin helped me plant it during his visit.  We will keep you posted on it's progress.

We also got started on the vegetable garden, with potatoes, green beans, corn and tomatoes.  Not all are pictured here.  We also got four more fruit trees planted in the orchard area.

Last but not least, I gave our little lawn area it's first mowing.