Dang Cows!

Yesterday, hubby and I went out to the property. For a couple weeks now, we've had problems with a herd of cows breaking our newly placed irrigation system. Last week when he went up to fix another break, he built a little cage around the two valves the cows kept breaking. That has worked wonders and the cows have moved on but one valve was still leaking and the lines needed to be checked for placement. Oh man, it was so windy yesterday. I bet we had gusts in the afternoon of 25-30mph. I had to finally take refuge in the car to keep my contacts from grinding the dust in my eyes.

Back to the task at hand... while Richard fixed the pipes, I walked the lines. The first two were pretty good but the third was all out of place and needed a lot of fixing. Obviously it had been tripped over by many cows. The rest of the lines needed about 25% of the placements fixed. The bushes and trees are all doing fairly well. I'd say we maybe only lost one plant to the cows tromping although several had been squished. It looks like all of the tree lines are doing well. The Service berry lines have quite varied responses to their environment. Some are doing well and some look quite dead and then there is every variation in-between. We may need to replace up to 20% of those. Here's a look at how they're all doing.
This is a service berry. Those who helped plant may remember a couple little tiny things that we planted to just give it a chance. Yah, this is one of those.
This is one of the nice healthy Service berry plants that already has its flowers.This one didn't turn out too clear... dang wind! But it shows how animals eat the tips off.
Dad found a good use for the cactus... holding the line in place!
Cow-patties do a good job of that too.Here is the Elderberry leafing out. All of them looked pretty good. There were a couple that looked all dried up and hopeless but then I saw one that had a bud leafing out below the dried up part.
This a such a cute flower on this cactus that Richard was protecting. Almost looks like daisies. There are lots of things beginning to flower on the property. In a couple weeks, it will look so beautiful with all of its different flowers. You'll have to come out and look close though cuz it's all smaller than the sage.