Pets, bars, pivots and fences

I feel quite a loss about my post today. I always had something to post about fences or security bars for Theresa's meme. 

These photos show life on the farm yesterday; a beautiful day as the sun went down. 

This fence (security door)  is self-explanatory! 

The neighboring farmer irrigating his maize lands last night 

Wishing you all a wonderful Thursday! 

Good fences. gate maintenance

Yesterday Grant rode up to the top pivot gate posts and did a repair. As he doesn't have his trusty assistant Jacob any longer, I am now the trusty assistant. 

Wires and posts not attached any longer, but lying on the grass

Tools and material loaded in the motorcycle luggage and off he goes

The dogs love being on the farm; I mean how many MORE walks can we fit into a day! 

Throughout all this activity, I was holding drill bits, tape measures, taking photos with my Smartphone and snapping away with the camera! I think I make a good assistant!

This  morning on our 5am walk, Eddie, Skabenga and I checked up to see if the chains were still in place. They were...

I'm linking to the LAST Good Fences meme today. Thanks to Theresa for hosting this interesing meme. I will miss you! 

Good fences, gate project

Along the servitude at 150m intervals are gate posts. The neighboring farmer asked John if he could put these openings in the fence, to allow his pivots through there when irrigating. John says it helps to water the natural grasslands on his property. This grass is cut daily for guinea pig and horses bedding. 

The gate posts which accommodate the pivots when necessary

The half crescent shaped path through the grass - the dogs love it when we take this route 

Crossing the servitude road along the pivot path to the second gate posts

These posts were strung across with 8 gauge blue wire. This was to keep the horses out. Not so, when Missy sees the luscious green grass on the verge beyond the fence, she pokes her head through and munches away. She also discovered that she can walk through the wire, snapping it with her chest, and enjoy a roll in the farmer's fields. (this would be disastrous) 

Note in my header how Missy has her head through the fence! 

The idea is to hang 8mm chain link between the posts. The pivot operators can unhook the chain on one side, let the pivot  through, and when finished irrigating, and bringing the pivot back, hook the chain up again.

Grant is repairing the first gate today. 

A long look down the fence from the top gate posts

I'm linking to Good Fences Thursday here

Good fences, beautiful horses

I'm linking to Good Fences Thursday here

HAPPY THURSDAY TO YOU ALL! 

Barbed wire fencing

Red-billed Quelea on barbed wire fencing 

Taken this morning (among others) on our early morning walk! 

I'm linking to Good Fences Thursday here

Fences, posts, birds and a dog

African Stonechat (female) on fence post

African Stonechat (female) on barbed wire fence

Ancient Eddie, our Jack Russel on the other side of the fence! 

For more fence posts please click here

Here's wishing you all a wonderful Thursday! 

Good fences, friendly dogs

Walking the dogs to the golf course every morning, I pass the house on the corner with two big dogs. (Sandra these are for you!) They bark a little and then watch us go past. Although Skabenga would love to rush to the fence, I keep him on a tight leash. 

However, he did sit quietly while I took the photos below.

I'm linking to Good Fences Thursday here

Good fences; great trip

Traveling home after a weekend in Kwa-Zulu Natal, the aloes were in full bloom. I took dozens of photos in the drive by. 

Fence between the road and a Zulu home (the blue rondawel- round house)

Including the outhouse

Thorn trees and fields of aloes behind the fence

Remnants of face posters from the recent elections

I'm linking to Good Fences.

Have a great Thursday. 

Good fences, sweet little visitor

Once again yesterday morning Abby popped over to visit Granny, and stayed all day. 

What a sweet little girl. 

She loves the cats; visited Ambrose on his sunbed/chair, walked the dogs with me, helped set the table for lunch; ate all her lunch and drank her milk and then helped to clear the table. After lunch, she looked through a book of South African birds and also one of the mammals of Southern Africa (more about this later) Eventually at about 3.20pm she asked to go home. 

Abby striding along the golf course with me and the dogs

Watching Skabenga take a dip in the cold water

Walking back across the course with Skabenga flanking her 

At the gate I was able to get fence shots for this post

Wood as fuel during the winter is at a premium. The local people look for wood daily. These three men had sawn a dead tree and were chopping up the stem into logs and the branches into kindling. Afterwards, the three of them would transport this precious commodity on their heads (although that's a woman's job) in bags or on wheelbarrows. The distance between this spot and their homes is about 3.5kms. 

All they had for tools was a hand-bow saw. But with stamina, perseverance and sheer determination, they would have cut this tree up before mid-afternoon yesterday

I'm linking to Good Fences Thursday here

HAPPY THURSDAY TO YOU ALL! 

Good fences; good healing

On  a day while we walked the golf course, the dogs ran towards the outer fence. I was snapping the resident horse and managed a couple of fence images.

Skabenga hurtling across the fairway towards the boundary fence

Skabenga noses the fence while Eddy checks out the weeds in between the grass

Sniff sniff!

The resident horse in the paddock next door. Unfortunately it stood behind the pole! 

The past week while nurturing and nursing Ambrose back to health, I became quite concerned: his Dad Ginger and Unca Shadow had been shunning him. Perhaps it was the smell of anaesthetic or the dressing OR the fact that Ambrose growled ferociously every time anyone came near him. Ambrose has never been a needy cat - meaning that he's never needed human contact. In fact, whenever we tried to stroke Ambrose, he'd pull away. He's always had enough cuddling, playing and cleaning from his Dad Ginger and Unca Shadow. 

While he was recuperating from the treatment and suffering with pain and discomfort, he allowed me to cuddle and stroke him; even gazing into my eyes as if to say: "why am I hurting so, Mum?" 

Yesterday I was thrilled to see that Ginger was licking and cleaning Ambrose like before. 

Dad Ginger licks and cleans Ambrose while they sat in a sun puddle in my dining room

I'm linking to Good Fences Thursday here

HAPPY THURSDAY TO YOU ALL! 

Good fences, kitty injury

As mentioned in yesterday's post, on Tuesday Ambrose came home with large gashes on his hind legs. Although I managed to disinfect them and sprinkle wound powder, we decided to take him along to the vet in the city.

Ambrose on the back seat of our car traveling to the city yesterday morning early

Fortunately we did, as the large wound on one leg had already become infected. Dr Winkworth put our little kitty out and treated the wounds. He also checked for any pulled tendons or bone breaks while Ambrose was asleep and thankfully found none.

The vet was also pretty certain that the wounds were not caused by any other animals (cats or dogs). Rather he said it looked as though Ambrose had hooked - first one leg on a spike of the palisade fence around our property  - and the skinned the other leg trying to extricate himself. 

Ambrose after the anesthetic - on the back seat of our car traveling home at midday yesterday 

We collected Ambrose at 11.45; he was still very much doped and stayed that way until late  evening. In fact, I helped him up onto his favorite chair as he was staggering around the bedroom, dragging the bandaged leg behind him. At one point he had both front paws in one of the three water bowls so I made the decision for him to lie on the chair.

Still very woozy from the anesthetic and not at all a happy chap 

The stretchy bandage is like his yoomen dad had on his hands for three weeks. The vet says that this bandage will not stay on too long; Ambrose will probably pull it off in a day or two

Dad Ginger snuggled up to his favorite son. When I checked on them later last night, Ambrose had his head leaning on Ginger's back and seemed to be resting well! 

Shadow didn't know what to make of all this and just stayed out of the way

The palisade fencing surrounding our property. Ambrose and Shadow are usually very adept at running along the top. They move quite fast with two legs (on one side of the body)  on the square pole in between the forks and two legs on the ledge running along lower down. We rather think Ambrose was caught on the forks jumping over in the next yard. No-one will ever know

I know they are lethal-looking forks but the cats have always avoided being caught on the spikes. Perhaps Ambrose will stay in our large garden or use the wall between our house and Angus on the other side of our property

I'm linking to TexWisGirl today.

Thanks for all the kind wishes for Ambrose on Face Book! 

Mmmm. Don't expect this to be the last post about Ambrose' narrow escape; I'm sure he'll be posting about it this Sunday! And being Ambrose, he won't tell us HOW he was injured - rather he'll focus on the trip to the doktak and probably how brave he was just to impress the other pets reading his post that day! 

HAPPY THURSDAY TO TO ALL!