Chucky’s Pond

Using a single wire connected to a solar fence charger, I’ve fenced a corridor from the barn to the alfalfa field. Josey spent two weeks in the field which I previously fenced with a single electric wire. Josey and Tilly are now together, and they seem to get along fine. They’re grazing the corridor. In a few days, I’ll fence another paddock for them in what has until this point been a hay field. I’ll still cut and bale hay on it because it’s bigger than they can keep up with, but they will have plenty of green grass to eat as I rotate them through the field.

I fenced another area for Chucky. I’d love to let him be with the others, but even though he’s a year old, he thinks he needs to still nurse. Josey is enough of a doting momma that she’ll let him, too. She wants to baby him. So, they’ll be kept separate. They can see each other and sniff noses over the electric fence, though.

In the paddock Chucky’s in, I dug a small pond before I put him in it. Later this summer, I’d like to have the whole area made into a pond. I’ll move Chucky before then, of course. For now, I wanted to provide a drinking hole for him, and I wanted to see if there was clay under the topsoil. I dug down only about four feet, and there is clay. It’s not red like the clay near our house site, but it’s clay. That’s good. Clay will help the big pond hold water when we have it made.

I dug Chucky’s pond the day after we had a fair bit of rain overnight. It only took about 15-20 minutes to dig using the borrowed backhoe that’s been here for about three weeks. In about three hours, the hole was full of water. We’ll see how it does as far as holding water is concerned. Right now, we’ve had plenty of rain and more forecast for later in the week. The real test is for when things get a bit drier, whenever that will be (we’ve had rain nearly every day for a week and a half).