I hate Wednesdays

Tuesday night I saw Wyatt run his swather over more of his sister's field of thistles. I seen the cattle in the south pasture, then saw them head to the river. Later I saw Wyatt driving here and there in his sister's field. I figured he was done and catching stray weeds missed earlier. Nope. He was trying to herd the cattle back to the river. I had no clue.

I was working on my loading corral rebuild until dark and didn't get in the house until 9:55 pm. I had two phone messages, including one from Wyatt, alerting me that the cattle were in Wyatt' sister's field.

Oh, great!

It was dark now but I got a flashlight and went out there. I opened the gate between that field and mine. Shining the flashlight I could see some cattle here and there a short distance from my fence. It was way too dark to try to find them all and herd them. I stood by the open gate for a while but they ignored me. Cattle don't travel much at night so I let them be.

I got up at 6 am and went out and herded them back into my pasture. It was a combination of herding them and enticing some with a bucket of grain. Finally after I got one to follow me and the bucket all but four followed me into the pasture. I had to go back and herd the final four. I also found Wyatt hadn't cut all the thistle field as I had to walk through stands of it to herd the cattle.

It has been a week on bloat blocks so I opened the gate to the hayfield. They decided to take a siesta under a pine tree instead.

I went to the river and found where they had broken through the fence. This was a different area from their jailbreak last Wednesday. It was surprising they broke through the fence here as the river bank was higher and the river deeper at this point. I fixed the fence and added quite a number of extra boards. I also got a bunch of dead tree branches and piled up over the fence. I added a few branches to another spot that looked like a possibility. I also got stung several times by a bee or wasp or something so I avoided that area for dead branch picking.

The cattle came to the river, took a quick drink, then went in a line back to the tree for another siesta.

I had a few errands to run uptown and since things seemed to be under control, rode my bicycle uptown. I also stopped by the Picnic in the Park concert and caught the final 20 minutes of the Bluestone Trio music group. I found they were a quartet. Also I found I was not in the mood for the new age jazz they were playing when I was there. Songs that went on forever and didn't seem to have a focus was not interesting to me. Or songs that seemed to be endless repetitions with a slight variation didn't do it for me. The audience was smaller than usual. Even the small kids weren't dancing to the music.

When I got home I found ten cattle in the south pasture, three in the thistle field, and the other seven missing. I herded the ten into the hayfield which was harder than I expected. I then herded the three in my pasture and they then quickly joined the ten in the hayfield. This was easier than I expected.

Then I was off to find the missing seven. I found where they broke through the fence by the river. It was the section where this morning I had added new dead branches to the existing pile by the fence. The cattle trampled the branches and scattered some, then knocked over the fence.

I found one in the trees and tall grass/weeds and herded it to the thistle field. It did not want to stay there and wanted back into the trees. The more I herded it away from the trees the more it was determined to get into them. It outran me and went into the trees.

I went further down the field and then went into the trees. The rest of the cattle must be there and I need to make sure I stay south of them before driving them up to the thistle field. I wandered for a long time over cow trails and did not see a single one of the cattle. Finally I came up to the thistle field and found the seven eating thistles.

This time herding this group was I expected: not easy. When I finally got them close to the the gate they now knew the routine and several went to the gate. At the gate they then saw the rest of the herd in the hayfield which got their attention. Once all were in the pasture they stood along the fence and bellowed at the herd, which ignored them.

The seven could not figure how to join the herd. I let them stand and wonder a good ten minutes or more while I knocked down weeds in the pasture. Eventually I led several of them with my grain bucket to the gate and they then went and joined the herd.

Nothing but jailbreaks on Wednesday.

Dan plans to get a number of the cattle tomorrow and take them home because:

• he is leaving Saturday for his daughter's wedding and will be gone ten or eleven days,
• the cattle are breaking fences and getting out when they want to,
• mom is in the hospital and I can't guarantee I will be here in Montana the entire time he is gone,
• someone needs to be around to check on the cattle.

Yes, you heard right, more bad news on a Wednesday. Mom took an ambulance to the hospital this morning. She is really weak, and she and my brother have had problems controlling her blood sugar the past few days. Her blood sugar has been crashing and she has had readings in the 50s. The hospital tests indicate she has a bladder infection. They put her on antibiotics and she will apparently be in the hospital the rest of the week as they want to rid her of the infection before releasing her.

I am not done with the loading corral rebuild so tomorrow will be a challenge with the cattle. If I hadn't had all the problems today I would have finished the south side. As it stands I am several railroad ties short of finishing the south side. I got one hole dug today and only finished that after dark as I got distracted when the cattle didn't return from a drink at the river in a timely manner. They came back by the time I almost reached them. Time going to them I could have spent more productively on the loading corral.

Instead of hitting rocks and gravel two feet down and having to remove six inches to reach 30 inches deep, for this latest hole for a railroad tie I was hitting rocks and gravel half way down to the 30 inches. Rocks and gravel digging is slow.

So tomorrow looks to be another challenge.