Cherries, apples, gophers, cattle, corral

I made a cherry pie this morning from the cherries I had picked a few weeks ago. I had planned on making the pie at the beginning of the week, and had the dough for the pie crust made on Monday, but that was before the craziness with the cattle. The cherries that I had stored in the basement really needed to be used. They were getting dried or old.

I never made a pie from pie cherries before so I had to find a recipe on the internet. My pie came out ok. I think I can do better. I am not sure if having fresher cherries or modifying the recipe would be a way to improve the pie.

I watered my garden and my small bushes. I noticed my pie apple tree had a large branch drooping to the ground as it was loaded with apples. I got a couple posts to support the branch until the apples are picked later. I also thinned some apples from the tree and picked off the ground the apples that had blown off the tree. No sense letting the deer find and get them when I could feed them to my cattle.

I brought in all but one regular gopher trap. It appears they are staying underground now for the year. Still, I left one trap as it appeared one hole had recent activity. I cover the holes with dirt and I wonder if the gophers come up and reopen some of them to keep an air flow into their tunnels?

Steer #3 was in the north pasture again this evening. I herded him back into the middle pasture. At first he ran towards the north fence before I got him turned around. By the time I got him to the middle fence the herd had come over. They were in another part of the pasture but naturally seeing some activity they came over. Now, why can't they come over to me when they get out of the pasture?

I have plugged up a number of the openings in the middle fence and #3 couldn't find/remember the one he came through. He looked and looked then decided to jump the fence. He got tangled briefly in the wires. I had to then fix the fence.

Another day of only an hour or two of work on the loading corral. Where does the day go? I need to pick up the pace.