Expanded homestead. Zip line logging.

The Hinton Homesteader has been busy. The goats need more pasture and I found a piece of land less than a mile away that was itching to become a new goat pasture. It is this funny shaped area pictured above.  Below shows both places in green. 9.5 acres total.

This place is a really steep hill with lots of rocks - a real  goat paradise.

I have really been putting lots of work and time in this new place and it will require over half a mile of good fence before it is ready for goats. I had a man in this weekend bring a bulldozer to build two roads down over this steep hill so I can access one of the few flat spots - an old home site. there is a year round spring and two creeks.

We have been pulling locust fence-posts up the hill with the county's first skyline uphill logging rigging. It will now be adapted to load logs onto a trailer in the road or maybe just firewood. I try to never build fences using trees because the trees tear up the fences over time and the fences ruin the logs. We were pretty close to the state road right of way so we painted our posts red so no one would run into them.

This road into the property ended up, even after zigging and zagging, so steep that it is virtually impassible with all but the most powerful of 4x4s or a tractor but it is only going to be used for firewood and goat traffic so it is good enough. It was necessary to allow the bulldozer access to the bottom of the hill where  it could carve out a better road along the route of the old horse path back up to the state road.

Today we sewed seeds everywhere that soil was exposed to try to hold down the topsoil and prevent ruts. Ideally we would have had lots of mulch hay to roll out to further prevent erosion but for now the seeds will be enough. Yellow clay and shale aren't too bad to wash out anyhow and the fescue and rye will shortly have deep roots and spread green over the broken surface of the land.

It was a hard choice to allow a Bulldozer to go barreling through the woods pushing up trees and tearing stuff up but a good road improved the utility of an otherwise  unusable terrain and that is the cost of doing business. We avoided the creeks and watersheds and more valuable trees. I am pleased with the results. It may be a year or more before there is a fence around this place but a year isn't very long and theres plenty to do every weekend for the next year or two.

I will try to do more blog entries int he next few weeks

ideas are chainsaws
rigging a skyline
fence building 101
fence building 202
fence building expert level
goat diseases and care
and in the near future a simple country wedding.Thats right the Hinton Homesteader is getting married in July.
One more topic how to know when your homestead is big enough- aka  Never plant more than your wife can work.