Less multi-tasking?

Other than swimming in the river I have been spraying weeds in my north pasture. I have over a quarter of the pasture sprayed. In areas that I thought were mostly weed free now from the spraying I had done last year I found lots of barely above ground knapweed. In these areas the cattle seemed to take a liking to them and ate them down to the ground. So, a bad news / good new thing. The young knapweed looks so innocent as it tries to blend in with numerous dandelions in the same situation. But I know better.

No more painting although I got around to cleaning the paint brushes used with the red paint. The bristles are now pink after much cleaning.

I tried to weed more of my strawberry patch but even with Thursday night's quarter inch of rain the ground is dry and hard. (The neighbors' hay is finally baled - but not yet gathered from the field). I ran a sprinkler on part of the strawberry patch for a few hours to wet the area and loosen the soil. But I haven't had time since to dig and pull grass and weeds.

I noticed tonight when watering my garden deer tracks in the garden soil. So the deer killed by a vehicle wasn't one or the only one raiding my garden.

The deer carcass I moved away from the road is now in two large pieces and disappearing rapidly as the carrion eaters are more comfortable away from the road and traffic.

Now that the fields have been cut the owls have returned. They are screeching and hooting nightly for much of the night. As long as they get the mice I am happy.

I still pick up apples from the ground every day and feed them to my cattle. They developed a taste for the apples and tonight they lined up along the fence when they saw me in the fruit tree and garden area. These cattle are not dumb and catch on quickly.

I should have gotten my camera as the herd was pretty cute all lined up along the fence with many having their heads over the top of the fence and trying to look as sweet and innocent as possible in order to guilt me into giving them apples. It worked. I'm such a sucker. I even pulled a few smaller apples from the trees to give them more.

The herd still has their ninja magic. The other night they were moving about in the NW part of the hayfield. I went in the house for a minute to get something and when I came out the whole herd was gone. If they were going to the river I thought I would have seen a line of them walking that way.

Well, they were at the river as I later saw them all coming back from there.

Jim and Debbie told me a story about my cattle when they were in their pasture. Usually my cattle are well behaved but one evening near sundown they decided to play "king of the hill" on the large dirt pile in their pasture. Only one could stand at the top with the others all around on the sides. Soon there was jostling for others to be the "king". Shortly thereafter the whole herd got into a fight and everyone was fighting with everyone and dust was everywhere. Four or five took their fight way beyond the dirt mound and for quite a while according to Debbie. I missed it all. They seemed to have gotten over it as I haven't seen them fight for a long time now.

Sometimes the cattle aren't too smart. Usually they go to the pasture to take their siesta under the pine trees. This afternoon under the hot sun they laid under one transmission tower out in the hayfield. No real shade from that structure.

With the cattle in the hayfield I brought in my pocket gopher traps. Saturday night when talking with Jim and Debbie they mentioned their dirt mounds and what a pain it made mowing their lawn. Sunday I put five traps out to catch their pocket gophers. I noticed the other neighbor had fresh dirt mounds and Jerry was happy to have me put a trap in his yard. Now to catch them all.

One of Jerry's sons got married this weekend and family was all here. Now his grandson from his next door daughter is getting married in Hawaii this week and nine members of the family flew today to Hawaii for the wedding. Jerry stayed behind to watch their three dogs.

Joyce and Edley had their 50th wedding anniversary party Sunday afternoon. I stopped by, had some cake and ice cream and met family members I hadn't met yet. This afternoon with the neighbors, gophers, etc. the time slipped by and I almost missed the party as I arrived only during the last half hour of it.