It's the time to plant more trees in the spring. However, the only area we have to plant is the forest, which has been open to goats and cows for grazing. We we wondering how to save the young saplings from the goats, the cows are not really that worrisome. But the goats don't spare any sapling. Protecting 60 new citrus saplings from goats was a real challenge.
We mulled with the idea of protecting each sapling with some thorny bushes, but in my heart of hearts I knew it would be difficult to monitor, and would sooner or later get destroyed by the goats. Suddenly it struck us that we should cordon off the entire area instead. We would still leave ample forest space for grazing, and after a year or two we could open it up to the goats again.
Not wanting to spend any money on this fencing, we started looking for 'desi' ways to build a fence. We gathered all the wood which had been cut while pruning trees over the last few years and used them as the posts. We had some extra barbed wire lying around. And we decided to use date palm leaves and sarkanda (Bulrush) stems for the covering of the fence.
Voila! We have a nice animal proof fence - forget the goats, even the dogs cannot enter this area now. We will use this space to host our hens as well, which will be arriving in a couple of weeks from Keggfarms, Gurgaon.