Much of the day again was taken up with weed pulling. I finished going over the south pasture and also moved further in the hayfield. I am now up to the south power line tower. The further south I go, the more weeds, the more multiple stalk weeds, and larger seed pods ready to open. At this rate it will take me three full days before I reached the south property line.
Where I have already pulled weeds in the hayfield, I got most of them. This morning I seen some yellow flowers in the picked area. The flowers were on tall, thin, spindly stalks as they had to grow fast and tall the past day or two to grow as high or higher than the surrounding grass. Still, even these weak plants can produce lots of seeds.
I filled a little under two plastic grocery bags with seed pods today. Yesterday I filled one and a quarter bags.
This morning the breeze was from the east. The worst possible direction when the seed pods open as my neighbor's field seems to be nothing but goat's beard weeds. Grant commented that if the seed pods open during an east wind I am done for. He is right. That neighbor's field must have a billion seeds. Nothing I can do as goat's beard is not a Montana noxious weed so one doesn't have to control them. Thankfully today was cool and only a few pods opened here and there.
Hole
When searching for weeds in the south pasture I came across a large hole with a large mound of dirt outside it. The hole was on the edge of the rain shadow of a large pine tree near the south property line. I am not sure when it was dug, but no more than two or three weeks ago. I seen paw prints on the soft dirt outside the hole, but they were made earlier as the recent rains have mostly washed them out.
Since Grant works for the MT Fish & Wildlife department I asked him this morning when he was checking the bee hives. From my description he felt it could either be a fox, coyote, or badger hole. Somewhat late in the year for a new fox or coyote den, and since I had seen a badger a few weeks ago in the hayfield, the odds are it is a badger hole.
Badger will dig after gophers and pocket gophers. I have no gophers in the south pasture. The pocket gopher mounds are no where near this hole. Maybe it is a badger den?
Birds
While pulling goat's beard weeds in the hayfield I had some small bird chirping at me. I have seen these little birds other years when pulling weeds. They must have their nests on the ground somewhere as I never have come across them. The birds can sit on alfalfa plants so one can hear their "chirp. chirp. chirp." and not see them.
Today the bird sat on the north power line tower and "chirped" at me. Initially it was neat to hear the bird. After 10 minutes of constant 'chirping' it got annoying. Another nest must be along the west fence as I heard chirping when nearby.
Later I heard a different bird warning call. I looked up to see several large birds circling above the hayfield floating on thermals. In all I seen 5 of these birds. Two at a lower level, two at a higher level, and the last bird well high. While I could tell they were very large birds I couldn't tell if they were eagles or hawks.
They circled over the north hayfield before their circling took them northward. Looking for gophers or pocket gophers from my traps I imagine.
Gophers
My two new conibear traps are now "broken in". Both traps were tripped with one empty trap and one dead gopher.
When walking out to check my traps I could see at a distance three gophers running from the "subdivision" that I had cleared and shut down last week. Hmmm... I found that three of the "subdivision's" holes were reopened. After removing gophers from several traps I moved those traps back to clear out this "subdivision" once again. With all the gophers (46) I have trapped in the past two weeks I am a little surprised to find them expanding to reclaim that "subdivision". I guess it is a nice area, else their existing holes are crowded with gophers.
Chris
Just as I finished pulling weeds late afternoon Chris rode by on his mountain bicycle. He stopped to talk. I haven't talked with him in over three years as his daughter is now two. I'm not sure if his daughter was even a "gleam in his eye" when we last spoke. I did know he had a daughter as I talked with his mom a few times the past few years.
We caught up on the major events in his life and where he is working now. Before I got cattle his parents had pastured their two horses at my place during the summers. I showed him the new corral fence work I had done this spring.
Chris makes beer and I gave him a small bottle of my beet wine. Chris said he can make mead using honey. So if I get a lot of honey this year, we may make mead. Bees, do your stuff!
Cattle
The cattle are doing fine. Yesterday some were in a bad mood as they were pushing one another. They weren't wrestling testing their strength like steers do. They were pushing one another as if to say "Get away from me. Get out of here. Don't crowd me. Don't touch me." They seem to be in a better mood today. Overall they are happy cattle.
Tonight I heard a banging of metal. Huh? Then I seen one of the cattle near the stack of irrigation pipes. *sigh* I'll have to walk by there tomorrow to see if they knocked some pipes off the pile.
When I am nearby in the hayfield pulling weeds some of the cattle stand near the fence and watch me. "Pulling out green edible stuff! What, is he crazy?" ...perhaps.
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