Those cattle guys keep spending money on this new water station, but so far haven’t actually added cattle. The only animals I’ve seen are a few up near the county road where they always are, miles away. But here they’ve put in some big mineral blocks and – ominously – bulldozed a path between there and the wash. Which means they’re planning for the cattle to use the wash as a major highway. The wash that meanders right past the Secret Lair. My boys are going to think that’s just the most exciting thing that’s happened since last time, which for their protection is exactly what I’d like to avoid. Not their protection from the cattle – they can handle the cattle. I’m worried about the rancher, who has all the legal rights of a(n?) “it approached me aggressively” cop in these matters.
Recently scrounged some fenceposts made for chain link fencing. I think after the siding it would be a good idea to get serious about fencing in a front yard. Pain in the ass, but without it this might be a stressful summer.
And speaking of shooting things…
I was in my reloading shack yesterday, and it occurred to me that my bench has gone more than Two! Whole! Weeks! without (yet) reverting to something really embarrassing. Even the rats are so offended by the cleanliness they’re staying off the counter in protest. I am shocked at myself.
And here’s some practical advice for anyone who finds himself compelled by society to do baking he’d rather not. This should absolutely not be taken as legal advice on the part of TUAK or anybody else of whom staff or management approve.
Curious. With all the landowners in your vicinity, is the wash not on private property at some point and you and the neighbors could run a fence across it to fence out the cows? Or, you could tell the rancher that each of you neighbors will only keep one cow/year if they’re on your property. 😉
I can answer that from having lived out there. 🙁 Yes, the washes are private property and people do build fences across them. Then the next flash flood comes along and …
Property rights are funny things in open range country, CH. You’re perfectly free to fence cattle off your property, but without fences the cattle are permitted by law to wander where they will. And the problem isn’t the cattle, really, but the dogs. A three-strand barbed wire fence will keep cattle out quite nicely but dogs won’t even pause at it. And a cattleman may shoot any cattle-chasing dog. And any self-respecting dog will most certainly chase cattle: That’s what cattle are for!
The wash is private property for its entire known length, with one short section just this side of the canyons that I think might be BLM land. And I can show you several places where people attempted to fence it. That works until the first flood – actually I can show you one fence that lasted several years, though great was its fall.
So the bottom line is that I could fence the cattle off my little flood plain, but it would cost more than the Lair siding project and wouldn’t solve my problem. If I could wrap the plain in chain link fence, that would fix the problem nicely – and cost a good month’s payment on a late-model Gulfstream G5.
I hadn’t thought about all the crap that probably washes down the wash and what it’d do to an actual fence. Just kind of burns my butt that you said they’re intentionally guiding the cattle to the private property wash. I’m glad we’re fenced and on good terms with our neighbor rancher and down to one small chiweenie dog who’d run like hell away from a cow if she ever saw one.
The mineral blocks could disappear… 😉