…even though once people might have found the place useful.
There equipment is left to rust. Cottontails and elk wander through, unmolested. Rattlesnakes hunt the rats that live under piles of abandoned trash that was once valuable.
I’m just a cedar rat. I like places like this because abandoned places are quiet places, and I like it quiet.
Doesn’t always stay quiet, though.
This is what all the yelling is about lately. Doesn’t look like much, does it? But the plan is to use this to bring one of those abandoned places back to life.
The outlet hose snakes off into the weeds, down a rocky gully, through a bunch of other weeds,…
…and up the side of an old cistern that might still hold water.
“We’re gonna find out,” said the welldigger.
And if the cistern works, it will fill this stock tank. Cottontails and rats will drown in it, elk will drink from it…
And it’ll attract hundreds of cattle for the sole purpose of complicating my life. Grumble. There goes the neighborhood.
There goes the neighborhood is right. Looks like your area is changing, Joel. Sorry to see that, been through too much of that crap myself, and I’m sure I will until the day I die.
Most of the time I find that the anticipation of change is far worse than that change itself.
You’ve had cows around since you moved in there, and you’ve figured out how to co-exist with them to date. I’m sure that the future will be no different.
It does suck that you’re required to fence them out, instead of the rancher fencing them in, but the rules is the rules…
Can you fence them out? Some areas, that’s a no-go.
Sabotage is a time-honored tradition, around here as well as other rural areas, but I suspect that you’d leave pretty distinct & identifiable tracks, Joel, so…Plan B.
Not that you’d ever consider something like that.
Any evidence so far of a plan for a power source for that pump?
I’d guess solar panels, etc.
It has varied at various places, but I’d be surprised if they don’t go with a solar panel. I’d have asked, if I hadn’t been distracted (and the atmosphere significantly soured) by my boys’ misbehavior.
Even if I were interested in doing that, I’d be the very tippy-top suspect.
Yeah . . . that was my first concern, too . . .
czechsix – you can fence range cattle out of private property in every jurisdiction that I’m aware of.
It’s your property. You can fence it if you want.
Yeah, I can fence them out without penalty – except the cost of the fencing, which is of course impossible.
The thing I’m regretting now: The original Lair plan called for a fenced front yard for when I needed to fence the boys in. The good chain link fencing I scavenged to do that eventually went into making my chicken yard, so I never did it. Now I’m wishing I had it.
Not to make uncompensated work for you, but what about using rocks? From the pictures you’ve posted, there are plenty thereabouts. A stone wall with some strategic thorn bushes might help mitigate the issue, one way or another.
It’s be a big job though, especially if you had to do it manually.
Use Gulchendiggensmoothen and dig a moat. Float a couple of those tire alligators in it and you should be all set.
“Yeah, I can fence them out without penalty – except the cost of the fencing, which is of course impossible.”
Jury-rigged electric fencing works well enough if you don’t have anything tasty inside, like a nice crop of alfalfa. I always thought electric fence wire is amazingly cheap, given what it is. You can space the fence posts out pretty far, and might even get by with a single strand.
“Jury-rigged electric fencing works well enough” True, but I don’t think that would work for Joel. That fence charger with the single strand might keep the cows out, but it won’t keep the dogs in. The way I understand it: If the dogs get lose and then mess with the cows, the cowboy can (and likely will) simply shoot the dogs.