My sixth sense kicked in yesterday that the cattle may cross the river any day now. I think my sixth sense was a combination of the river level and noticing a slight difference in their grazing pattern. Today I checked and found a majority of them at the NE end of the island.
While at the river I checked the water temperature and found it to be ideal for swimming. As our high temperature today was 91 F, I went for a swim.
I found an interesting rock in the river.
I found a dead fish. It was a decent size fish and seemed to be about 9 inches or more long. The fish was by a bunch of underwater sticks. The fish appeared to have two holes in its side. The river current is not strong so I doubt it got impaled on the sticks. The fish was slippery and it was with great effort that I was able to hold it. I wanted to take it to my neighbor Bob as he is a fisherman and he could tell me what kind of fish it was. However the river bottom is not level and I stepped into a hole and that jarring movement caused me to drop the fish. The water was deeper here and the current stronger and the fish quickly sank out of sight.
Seven cattle had seen me by now. They were in my south pasture and came over to the fence where they could get closest to me. They were still a ways away but I didn't want to give them an idea of where to adventure to next. So I got out of the water.
Later five more cattle came to join the seven. They came up from the lowland where the cattle initially cross to the island. A few minutes later the other 9 came to the NE part of the island. They wanted to join the five on my side on the high bank. But between the high bank and the river being a little deeper this is not a place to cross and they couldn't. But still I was worried one would be a knucklehead and try.
So I went over to the south pasture fence. The cattle on my side of the river came over to me and therefore were no longer directly across from the island. We were on the north side of the NE end of the island. Finally one of the nine figured out they could cross the river on the north side of the NE point of the island. The rest followed. I could see the smaller ones work to cross against the river's current. All made it. Of course there was some bellowing by both groups. I am not sure if it was encouragement, disapproval on getting separated, or bragging on how they crossed the river.
They all came to stand by the fence across from me. No one was hungry. No one was tired. They all stood or milled about or watched me. Number 3 licked my hand as I put it out on the wire for her to smell it. That gets the cattle used to me. A couple cattle gnawed on either an old, old wood pole fastened to the fence or on an old wooden fence post. Both had the orangeish color of moss or lichen or being in the elements for decades.
The mosquitoes were eating me alive so I left them to go check gopher traps. I actually caught one gopher. I knew a few were still up and around as I heard a couple of them chirp their warning today and actually seen one run to its hole yesterday.
Still, I am finding trapping them difficult. I lay the trap and cover surrounding holes with dirt. They seem to be avoiding the traps. I don't know if they are getting ready for hibernation, whether they are few and far between, or whether they are getting smarter. They usually don't re-open the surrounding holes. It is like they pick up and leave, else use a hole or two I hadn't found. Yet, if I move the trap I find most of the holes re-opened several days later.
Sometimes after setting a trap I will find a whole new set of holes a relatively short distance away where there had been no holes earlier. I suppose clearing the pocket gophers out isn't helping as that is giving the gophers room to move.
I don't know. They will be going down soon for the year. On the plus side I don't have to check and reset traps every day. On the minus side is I haven't gotten rid of all of them.
Another reason I know the gophers are not hibernating yet is that yesterday I saw a nice looking eagle circling and circling low over my pasture above the gopher barrens. A nice sight.
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