Weeds, missing trap, jailbreak, other annoyances

Weeds

I got outside to pull weeds earlier this morning: 9:30 am. The flowers were open and the dew was on the grass. My shoes and pants legs got soaking wet. The dew was gone about the same time the flowers closed for the day: 11 am. With all the flowers open I started from the north end and worked south. While I have gone over this area numerous times, this was the first time when the flowers were open. I found a number of goat's beard weeds scattered here and there.

Yesterday I thought I had three full days of pulling left before I gone over all the field at least once. Today, after a full day of weeding I think I have three full days left. *sigh* I picked almost two full grocery plastic bags of seed pods.

Gophers

Since the eagle/hawk circled over me in the hayfield when I pulled weeds ("Hey! Open the traps to release the gophers so we can eat!") I figured I should check on the traps after eating my lunch. Some traps had gophers, some were tripped with no gophers, some were set and empty, and one was missing. *argh!* I staked my traps well after losing the first two. I lost this trap because it had no chain to hold it. It was a leghold trap I had bought at the auction. In place of a chain was a wire. Or two wires fastened together. The stake and half the wire remained.

I don't know if the eagle/hawk carried off the gopher and trap, or since this is a leghold trap the gopher dragged the trap back down the hole with him. Some holes are large enough for a triggered trap to fit. I have had to pull out gophers and traps that were held tight by the stake. I started to dig out the hole but it quickly went down deep, and who knows how deep.

Another trap gone.

Jailbreak

While I was checking my pocket gopher traps I noticed one of the Holstein steers was in the south pasture. What?! I could see part of the herd was along the north fence. Is there more cattle than this one Holstein in the south pasture?

The Holstein was running along the south/middle pasture fence. It was calling for the herd; that's how I noticed it. By the time I reached the gate it was halfway back to the river. I called it. Nothing. As the herd was still along the north fence I opened the gate then went into the pasture to herd him back.

As I approached him to circle around to herd him, the steer began to approach me. Oh. I turned and walked to the gate. He followed. Part way. Then he got distracted by eating grass under a tree. *sigh* By now I could see his Holstein brother was coming across the middle pasture. I started herding him and he wasn't too keen on the idea. His brother was now at the fence so I had to keep at him to head towards the gate.

It was going slow but steady when I noticed the rest of the herd coming. Coming to the open gate. Great. I added a little urgency to the herding of the Holstein. That, seeing the approaching herd, and finally noticing the open gate, and he ran through the gate. I rushed to close the gate before the herd got the idea of coming through it. *whew!*

The herd gathered around me. I took this opportunity to count them to see if there were any more jailbreakers. They kept moving and I kept counting. Over and over. Once I counted 28 twice, I knew that was correct.

I wanted to check the fence to see how the Holstein got through it. But I didn't want the herd to follow along. I waited till they got bored and a number of them laid down. While waiting a number of them wanted to sniff and lick me. Mostly my cattle as they are more used to me. Several then started to lick my pants legs. My pants are loose around the knees and the next I knew several tried to tear my pants off. "Now girls! Behave yourselves!"

It was only a short distance before I found the fence break. As an inner fence it is only three strands. A middle strand had been patched with a old rusty piece of wire and this is what broke. I did a quick re-wire job on it by hand until I can get time tomorrow to wire it correctly.

My heifer is smarter than Dan's Holstein. When my heifer got out, even though I did a quick re-wire job, she knew where to go to get back through the fence and re-broke the wire. Dan's Holstein couldn't remember where the broken wire was in the fence even though he walked right by it several times.

Other annoyances

I am trying to straighten out my final bill for the cataract surgery last January. I know what my deductible is for my health plan and the hospital and doctor's clinic each sent me a bill although they are part of the same hospital group. Their bills have duplicate items and different items. The numbers don't add up.

Then today the clinic said the were going to sic a collection agency on me if I don't pay. And here I had been trying to get them to send me a bill to my home address as they had been sending bills to my mother's place where I had stayed when I had the surgery. Lately I had been trying to get them to explain the different bills to me and they hadn't called back. One hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

I had to call my health insurance company to see if they paid everything. Oh joy. They said they had. I left it to the hospital and the insurance company to speak with one another to find out who is wrong.

Also, I had ordered some trees and shrubs from a nursery last year. All but a few things died. That is what happens when they finally ship the stuff in August. The 1 year guarantee is about up. I ordered online so I scanned the shipping labels into the computer and sent the original order back to them for their guarantee. Oh, no... the guarantee isn't good over the internet. I have to physically mail the shipping labels back to them along with a description of what is bad.

Etc.

Tonight as I was riding my bicycle back from getting the weekly papers I was startled to see a dark shape overhead. I was riding on the road along my property when a silent dark shape came from above and my left. A huge owl floated down then folded its wings before dropping in the grass in the ditch, else just on the other side of the fence in my hayfield. It was too dark to see exactly as I kept moving along on my bicycle. I guess the owls aren't gone after all.