Summer Project Week

Most every year, we spend the last week of June at the farm for “Project Week”.  We hire a few extra bodies and get a lot done.  Most every year includes some amount of fence building, painting, general clean up, and at least one bonfire to get rid of branches from around the farm.  This year included all of the above.  We built a one acre “annex” pasture for the girls below the dam for our upper pond.  It’s got good grass but its construction was debated long and hard because it borders on the “nature” area.  However, since the sign at the end of the driveway says “alpacas” not “nature” the girls won some new space.  We had to rig a gate system to still allow a Gator path down to the lower pond, but the girls (and cria) love their new digs. 

We don’t do things small at Tiskilwa – so when we needed to take down a dead tree in a fence row, we decided to start at the top to avoid damaging the existing fence.  Hence the need for a high lift and a talented chain saw operator.  The lift also came in handy to paint the girls barn, the machine shed and the house during the week.  By Friday everyone was exhausted, some college kid’s bank accounts were a bit fuller, and the farm looked great!