Delayed shower, cattle and raft

A nice summer day, but crazy (as usual?)

Before eating breakfast and taking a shower I decided to pick the goat's beard weeds growing in the yard, corral area and NE pasture before their yellow flowers closed for the day. I haven't done this for a few days and needed to 'nip them in the bud' before they went to seed.

I seen some of the weeds have started to pop up in the north pasture. While picking those weeds my neighbor, Mr. D., came outside to move his lawn watering hoses before mowing his lawn. We had a chat over the fence about gophers and weeds. He mentioned that shortly after he moved here - many years ago - the County came around and would poison the gophers. He, his northern neighbor, and dad all had the County poison their gophers. Mr. D. said that dramatically cut down the number of gophers, but eventually they came back.

In today's mail was a reply from the nursery I purchased plants from last year, most of which died. They sent everything back from my previous letter saying I also had to include the shipping label for the kiwis I ordered. I couldn't find the label earlier, but their letter mentioned the kiwis were shipped in a box and not a plastic bag like the rest of the order. Bingo. I found the box and label.

I had to re-send all the other labels and info back to them. Because the one year guarantee is approaching for the kiwis I had to re-mail everything to them as soon as possible. Therefore I drove to the main post office to mail the letter to them today. What a hassle dealing with this nursery. I just checked the "Garden Watchdog" web site at Dave's Garden and found this nursery had a score of only 23 out of 100. Many, many negative comments from people. I wish I knew about the Garden Watchdog site before I placed my order.

After leaving the post office I seen a sign advertising an auction at the fairgrounds. I found it to be an antique auction of furniture, pictures, and statues. That's it. It wasn't an estate sale or similar type of antique auction. The auctioneer was unfamiliar to me and had a slight Southern - and non-Montanan - accent. I wonder if the stuff really were antiques or if they were some knock-offs. Only about 30 people were in attendance. Nothing I was interested in so I left.

Bob and Jan were outside so I stopped to talk with them. Bob had a rough week health wise. While mowing on his riding lawn mower a tree branch stuck him and scratched his eye affecting his vision, Shortly after that he completely lost his hearing on the same side of his head. It is unknown as to why his hearing was affected. His foot is still slowly healing but a different doctor didn't agree with what the first doctor was recommending to do to help the foot heal.

After talking with Bob I ate my breakfast at 2:30 pm, then checked my gopher and pocket gophers traps. I dug up an area and planted another arborvitae shrub. Eventually they will grow and block the night lights from the RV dealership next to the highway. They don't annoy me like they use to. Either the dealership adjusted the lights to shine down more, or I have gotten use to them. It use to be really dark at night but over the years people have been adding lights in their yards and businesses.

Since I had weeded yesterday around my garden pea plants, and the peas were desperately trying to latch onto anything to help them stand up, I got some fencing and placed it next to them. Next year I will try to plant the peas in one row instead of two rows. One roll of fencing is too long for one row, and the other row is too short for one row. I ended up using both rolls but it doesn't look pretty.

Then I shaved and took my shower.

While riding my bicycle along my road near dusk I seen a large deer. It moved away from the road back further into my pasture. It was very tall as only its legs were covered by the tall grass.

Also when riding towards dusk I noticed some goat's beard seed balls in my pasture. In the morning when I got my mail I had ridden the road along my hayfield and couldn't see any. I don't know if they puffed open this afternoon or whether the mid-day sun's harsh light hid them among the grass.

And the cattle... when Dan was here I had commented how well behaved this years group was compared to previous years. Today when I was along the river I saw a few of them on the small island. No wonder I hadn't seen them in the south pasture earlier today. I was surprised to find them on the island as I expected they wouldn't cross the river until the water level dropped further. That was how the previous years cattle handled it. The river flow is 360 CFS today. This is well below its peak flow, but still relatively high. I haven't seen the cattle come back to the salt blocks this evening so they still must be exploring the little island.

The other day I had seen a middle aged couple floating down the river in an inflatable raft. They had a tricky time along a few of the bends near where I was standing. The river had played musical chairs with logs and branches during high water. They had to work to avoid being pushed into some of them. I thought their raft might puncture when it went against a couple tree branches sticking straight up out of the water near one side of the river. First she grabbed a branch to try to keep the raft away from the branches then he did the same as the current spun their raft around. Even with their effort the raft brushed hard against the branches.

Then the channel splits. I told them which channel was wide and shallower and which was deep and narrow. I think they were trying to go down the wide and shallow channel but the narrow and deep channel is the main channel and they were swept into it.

Near the channel's entrance they ran into the tree debris pile and leaning trees that were on one side of the channel. He used his oar against the trees to try to keep the raft from crashing into and along the debris. His oar got jammed amongst the tree branches and he lost hold of the oar as the raft continued in the current. He grabbed other branches to stop the raft. I think the raft almost tipped or maybe took on water. He was able to pull back the few feet so he could wrench his oar loose and then they were swept down the channel and out of sight. Some excitement for them.