Rain, home upgrade, auction, freeze

It was raining this morning, and as I about to settle in for a rainy day the rain let up. Then I found that outside my house it felt warmer than inside the house. The in-and-out temperatures were about the same but moving around instead of sitting may have made a difference.

With the cattle gone I took down the extra wire I had placed on top of a few sections of the hayfield / yard fence.

I trapped several more pocket gophers. As it was wet I decided to leave be the traps without the gophers or any sign gophers were there (such as covering the backside of the trap by sealing its hole with dirt). If no sign of gophers within 24 hours that usually means no gophers in this tunnel complex.

I checked in with my neighbor Daryl about the activity at his place. The reason he hasn't worked on trapping the beavers and removing their latest dam is he is replacing his double wide trailer with a modular home. The new place is a little larger and means the garage must be moved. Also one tree had to go. Big project.

Daryl and another guy and I attached a cable to the aspen tree the beavers had chewed through a week or so ago in their failed attempt to topple it. With his pickup Daryl drug the tree across the creek. He needed the tree trunk in order to move his garage. A contractor will move the garage but they said the inside walls need to be braced to prevent them from collapsing during the move.

Dan was by today to settle up the pasture rent and get the two salt blocks he brought this summer to add to mine for the cattle. We talked over selling the cattle and recent livestock auctions. In hindsight it appears selling the cattle to the cattle broker was the right choice at this time. His brother took some cattle down to the Three Forks auction Monday (the auction we all initially planned on sending our cattle to) and he was disappointed in the price his cattle brought. I checked the market report on the auction's web site and they must list a narrow range as the price I was told Don's cattle brought were lower than the range listed on the web site.

A few nights ago we had our first real freeze as the low was officially 30 F. While I covered much of my garden I didn't cover the zucchini plants. The frost wilted the plant's leaves except for a few here and there that happened to be covered as they were next to the watermelon plants I had covered. Everything I covered survived just fine.

Even with the freezing temperatures I found a goat's beard seed ball in my front lawn. I occasionally see other goat's beard seed balls when out riding around. Enough already! Weeds... quit for the year!