Weight, fencing, and warmth

I know now how much a backpack sprayer full of herbicide weighs. 42 lbs. That is about the recommended weight when one goes hiking and backpacking. The difference being a backpack has a waist belt and much of the weight rests on one's hips. The backpack sprayer does not have a waist belt so all the weight rests on one's shoulders. It takes an hour, to an hour and a half, to go through a container of herbicide. Thursday I sprayed two containers of herbicide in a row. By the time I finished my shoulders were tired.

I am still playing cat-and-mouse with the gopher in the hayfield. He is still plugging the holes with a trap with dirt. Tonight I found that a hole he plugged yesterday with dirt was reopened after I moved the trap. One smart gopher.

I am up to 70 gophers trapped this year. I will easily exceed last year's total of 82 as the gophers don't go into hibernation until the end of July. I have a month to eliminate more. I hope to get rid of them all before next year's breeding season but that is a tall order, especially I will have to rotate the cattle back into the pasture where the gophers are mainly located and will lose days of trapping because of that.

I finished putting the last three steel fence posts in the south pasture's fences. Of course after I am out there I found another fence post that is a candidate for extra support. The cattle came over to "help" me for each of the fence posts. I was able to do a headcount and all 30 are there. So the one that slipped into the river the previous day got back out.

Since I was in the "fencing" frame of mind I added five steel fence posts to the north/middle pasture fence where the cattle had broken old fence posts this year. Fencing, like most things on the ranch, never ends.

Tonight a front came through with thunderstorms. The storms were mainly elsewhere in the Valley but the entire Valley got wind. Sustained winds of 25 mph. The strong winds were kind of eerie. I know, having lived in North Dakota and Minnesota 25 mph winds should be matter-of-fact. But not being exposed to them for 6 years, these winds seem eerie. The wind was blowing dirt from fields around me adding to the strange feeling.

It sprinkled rain for a little bit. Not enough to have an effect. This is unfortunate as it is drying up and we really need rain. Thursday high was a record high of 92 degrees. Now didn't we have a record low of 31 degrees a few days earlier? That's Montana.

Yesterday afternoon and last night was miserable. I felt like I was back in Minnesota. Clouds and a minor front came through and raised the humidity. In the afternoon with the 91 degrees our humidity rose to 32%. It was miserable. I wasn't the only person to feel this way as my hiking group all agreed that Thursday was too hot and humid.

Then at night, with the cloud cover, our low temperature stayed warmed at 55 degrees and the humidity rose as the temperature fell so the humidity rose to 80%. I woke up several times during the night to get water to drink as I was hot and thirsty. I tossed covers off my bed until I only had sheet to cover me. Being so warm and humid it was hard to get to a deep sleep. I had to get up early for Friday's hike and I only got 5 and 1/2 hours sleep before waking at 6 am sharp, well before the time I set the alarm to wake me.

Way past my bedtime. I felt asleep while proof reading what I wrote. At least the temperature is not as not and humid as last night.