More mowing... and more mowing....

I spent most of my day mowing the pasture. Finished up the area I was mowing on Saturday, then mowed another totally unmowed section toward the middle of the pasture, then mowed the cows favorite section behind the female alpacas pasture (this had been mowed a few times now and is looking really good finally which is probably why it is the cows favorite area), then mowed the male alpaca pasture, then the tiny section up by the barn and finally the female alpaca pasture! While in the girls pasture I had to move the limbs from the large oak tree that we fell earlier in the spring. We haven't had time to finish sawing it up and chip all the limbs so it has just been sitting in the pasture were it fell. I have been mowing around it up until now but it sure was starting to look scraggly. I moved all the limbs from one side of the big tree to the other so I could at least mow along one side of the tree that could be seen from the road to clean up the look of the pasture a bit. All in all it was probably 3 acres of mowing I got done.

The difficult part is getting the tractor into and out of each of the different pastures without letting the animals mingle. When Neil is here it is fairly straight forward but when it is just me I need to get creative in how I open gates and then leave it open long enough for me to drive the tractor through, then jump off and close the gate again. The LDGs can be with both alpacas (male and female) but they can't be with the geese yet which are in the male alpaca pasture. The male and female alpacas can't mingle, as the two girls are two young to breed yet. Peter, our male alpaca can't be in with the donkeys as he chases them relentlessly. It is an exercise in timing and patience. But it got done!