Catching up

The cattle have behaved themselves for two days now. Hurray! I did get concerned as I crossed the river from the north pasture to check the fence on the other side of the river. Some of the cattle saw me and were quite interested. I quickly went into the tall grass and trees on the other side of the river and out of sight of the cattle.

I found a spot where the old fence was down. This was along the river bank where the bank had eroded. After piling dead tree branches on this section of collapsed fence I checked on the cattle. It seemed as if one was trying to walk around the fence and was attempting to walk along the river bank to go upstream to get from the middle to the north pasture. It failed as the river at this point is a combination of middling deep and has a current at that point. *whew* Another escape attempt thwarted.

In the evening I noticed the herd returned from the river. I could hear bellowing from the river area. Usually it is Street's cattle as the mothers are calling for their kids. But after my cattle's antics earlier this week, I am not sure now. I tried counting the cattle and was coming up one or two short. Eventually I had to go out in the middle pasture and count and found all of them.

Otherwise today was a number of small catchup projects:

• checked the fence as I mentioned earlier


• talked with my cousin Jen


• put away and stacked odds & ends of lumber


• checked the gopher traps for the first time in several days


• filled in the area between the newly paved road and my mailbox as the County had bladed a large area of dirt and gravel away from the old road surface prior to the re-paving work. After they finished the paving work the County did not fill in the areas between the road and the mailboxes. The post office vehicle has to drop down off the road to reach the mailboxes.


• repaired my broken bicycle rack


• installed the battery into my RV and started it for the first time this year,


• started on my corral rebuild. I took apart an old broken gate and started to take apart a few sections of the loading corral. I did this until dusk and the mosquitoes came out.

I also tried my camera. It activates and I can see the menu and that sort of data on the LED display or in the viewfinder. I do not get any images though. The screen is black. It doesn't look good for the camera as it appears to be dry now. Still I took it apart again to dry some more in case it is still wet inside. Naturally one of the screws got jammed and the head stripped. I was able to get it out eventually so I could get my camera apart. One annoyance after another with the camera.

I also got my train ticket to/from Seattle for my cruise in September. I planned on going several days early so I could go sailing with my cousin Jen, but between waiting for a callback from her, Gary waiting to hear back from a step daughter about a graduation date, and Amtrak having a fare sale, the Thursday seats were now few and expensive. Gary and I got the last 2 cheap seats on a Friday.

I booked my tickets after midnight and that is when I learned there was only one cheap seat left. I left a message on Gary's answering machine about his need to book his ticket as soon as possible. Gary is an early person so he was able to get the last cheap seat. Gary called me at 8 am to let me know and kiddingly was disappointed he hadn't woken me up as I had woken him up the night before as I had called him late twice.

So that's done. If I had time to make a list I could have the satisfaction at crossing a "to-do" item off the list.

I'm going to skip tomorrow's hike as my toe is still raw/sore, and I need to work on my corral rebuild. It needs to be ready for the first of the cattle on the 26th.