Harrowing the pastures is done

Monday I finished my harrowing for the year.   Well, all but where the extended corral is located.  When that is taken down in June that spot will be harrowed then.

Harrowing took some time this year.   First it was slow to start because I decided to fix one of the damaged harrow sections.  On the section shown below, one of the side (up and down) pieces was broken off.   I have lots of broken harrow section pieces from years past.  I got one of those side pieces for this harrow.   To put this piece on I had to straighten the top side-to-side piece.  When doing so half of the piece broke off.  Argh!!  So I had to replace the entire piece.  Also, the middle side-to-side piece was half broken.  So I replaced that piece also.

Making this repair work slow going was that I had to remove the teeth of the pieces to remove or add the side-to-side pieces from the up-and-down pieces holding them in place.  These harrow sections are old and the bolts holding things together were stuck and hard to remove.  I still must have some strength as some of the bolts twisted into two pieces when I tried to unscrew the bolt's nuts.  So I had to find replacement bolts and nuts.

But as you can see the 'rebuilt' harrow section looks good.  Now that harrowing is pretty much done, this piece held together.   But as usual the tree roots that sometimes run along the top of the ground did a number on a different harrow section.  

The middle section on the right side got damaged / partially broken up from the harrowing this year.  The following photo is before I started to do the harrowing.

At one point I had to move the large metal hay feeder sitting in the middle pasture.  After I did so, I completed the harrowing of the middle pasture.  Then at the end of the day I saw that I was missing a piece from my tractor's 3-point hitch.   The next day I looked and looked where I harrowed the field after moving the metal feeder.  (Moving the metal feeder had nothing to do with the loss of the piece.)  After a few go-rounds I finally found the piece. Here is where I found it.  I screwed it back onto the 3-point hitch.

Also slowing things down is that before harrowing the middle and north pastures I hand raked the manure next to and under the trees in the pastures away from the trees and the roots at ground level.  Lots of trees.

The pastures all now look good and the manure is all broken up.

Now on to other projects.

Time to separate Haynes

This morning Donna saw that Haynes was getting interested in one of my cows.  He tried to mount her but fortunately she wasn't in standing heat - yet.  The first cow to have a calf this year had her calf a month ago - 30 days ago.  The cow Haynes was trying to mount was the third cow to have a calf this year - on March 14 - not even 30 days ago.   Normally cows don't come into heat until 45-50 days later.  But in 2020 I had a cow come into heat 34 days after having her calf.  Guess what, she then had her next calf early - January 30, 2021.  I don't want that to happen again.  So Donna and I herded Haynes into the south part of the corral to be by himself until June 1.

Corral board and one calf breakout

Today I saw the cattle had pushed off again the one corral fence board they like to push off.

I re-nailed the board back to the railroad tie.  I added a couple more nails.   The railroad tie should be solid, but not as much anymore due to the nails going in and out of it.  I may have to find a big screw to fasten the board, or a bolt that goes all way through the railroad tie.  Another item for my 'to-do' list.

Later in the afternoon I heard another cow mooing.  Yup.  Another calf slid under the extended corral fence and was in the north pasture.  Little Buelah's calf this time.  A few back-and-forths and then the calf went through the gate and back to his mother.

Two calf breakout

This morning I heard a cow mooing when I went out to check for any new babies.  No new babies.  But I found the reason for the mooing was that two calves were outside the extended corral.  I think the calves had laid down by the extended corral panels, and when they got back up they rolled and came up outside the corral.  The corral panels are low enough cattle can't go under them, but calves can if they lay down a certain way.

I had a job herding the two calves back into the extended corral.  I have one panel that has a gate one can open.  Some back and forth with the calves while watching that no cows came out of the open gate. Then I got the calves to go through the gate and back to their mothers.  The calf with the mooing mother immediately went to drink from her mother.