The new gates on the Pole Barn that Ray Telford built in just a few  hours this week are great big deal here at Bedlam Farm.

The gates we had are not permanent, every time we had the shearer or a vet come or a there is a sick sheep we had to haul these huge gates back and forth, the animals were eating them and pushing through them.

We have an Open House coming up in a couple of weeks, and lots of people come into the pasture to look at the sheep shearing. The gates were falling apart. During the 7th Open House, the sheep pushed right through the gate and it took an hour to round them up.

All of the solutions we considered were way too expensive. Ray just went and bought some lumber and brought his saw over and built these two new gates and put the other two on hinges. All four are being protected by thick chicken wire, they will no longer be snacks for the donkeys when they are bored.

Maria thought I was nuts, but I had this idea to paint the two  new gates blue, and we had some blue stain in the basement. It took me about four hours to do the one on the left, and I’ll tackle the other one over the weekend.

I know this isn’t necessary, but I like color so I fought the flies and painted one gate blue. Red kept the sheep at bay. It’s strange to say, but farm people will understand how exciting this is, and how grateful we are to Ray. Gates and fences are a great big deal when you live with donkeys and sheep.

Things are  heating up here for the Open House. Bud will be here.

Rachel Barlow will paint one of her wonderful oil paintings. Mary Kellogg is coming and I will read from her new book. Maria’s belly dancing class is coming to dance, and Red and I (and Fate, sort of) will be sheepherding. Several wonderful poets will be reading from their work, I’ll be talking about small dogs, and she sheep will be shorn.

Carol Gulley will be helping Maria keep track of sales in the Schoolhouse Studio.

Maria has assembled a knocked group of eight local artists and we will be celebrating the art and creativity of rural life. And guess what? We will have pole barn gates that just swing open and shut. And two of them are blue!