Getting ready

Wednesday I am traveling via train to North Dakota to see my brother for a while.  Naturally I am not done with my Fall work here, but then I always have something to do or that needs to be done around the ranch.

Today I finished my weed spraying for the year.  Even if I stayed here I am done spraying weeds for the year as I used up all of my herbicide.  This year I have covered the most area ever.  I got everything but one quarter of the south pasture completely sprayed.  I got twice as much sprayed as my previous total area.  As I do see improvement over the years in the areas I have sprayed I am looking forward to less weeds next year.  That is if the thousands of thistle seeds from Wyatt's sister's field don't sprout.

I know I will have weeds to spray next year nonetheless as today I used the last half tank of herbicide on the NE and north pastures; pastures I have sprayed repeatedly in the past and several times this year.  And yes, I still found some weeds growing.

Other projects...

Painting.  I didn't get it done.  I pretty much got the major areas painted.  What is left is the trim and the extended area of the garage built when cars got longer.  I have to replace the sides of the extension as the wood is bad.  I finished painting the back of the garage today.  I think I have enough paint - though it will be close.  I probably will have to get one more gallon as I imagine there will be some areas that need a little extra paint.  I noticed today a few areas that needed more paint on the garage as the wood had sucked the paint in.

I am up to 197 pocket gophers trapped.  Even with this upcoming break I expected to exceed 200 gophers for the year.  My traps are up to the power line transmission towers and if the weather is decent in November I have hopes of maybe finally reaching the end of the hayfield.

I have half my garden in.  The corn, beans, bell peppers, cabbage, broccoli, squash, cucumber, pumpkin, beets and some of the onions.  I got some of my tomato plants pulled and have a good number of green tomatos.  More than I need.  And I haven't even pulled half my tomato plants.  I hope to get the rest of my onions and some of my potatoes dug tomorrow.

I picked the rest of the apples today.  There were not many of my transparent apples left.  The hornets were gorging themselves on many of the remaining ones.  With few transparent apples left, the hornets were working on the pie apples.  The last of them were a large size and red and not so sour to eat.  I filled a couple of 5 gallon pails with the pie apples.   Here's to them not going bad the time I'm gone.  I can make lots of pies out of them.

Jan will give me a ride to the train station so today I hauled their little trailer of tree, garden and yard trimmings and dumped them in my pasture.

I got my replacement backpack sprayer (model 64) from the RL Flomaster company.   They replaced the one with the crack in it with a new sprayer.  Yay!  Fed Ex delivered my new sprayer this morning.

Still plenty to do tomorrow before I even start to pack.  This is like this every year.  I have stuff to do right up until the time I leave.  The only time I wasn't doing stuff like this was the year the bad winter weather delayed my trip to North Dakota for a number of days.

Crescent moon 2

Here is a photo of Wednesday's moon.

Last night's moon. A little change each day.

I also took a photo of the sunset through the ridge trees.

Painting progress

Along with running uptown several times on errands, checking gopher traps and spraying weeds, I found time to do more painting on Tuesday.

I finished the east and west peaks of the garage, painted a small bit on the north side of the garage, then carefully painted along the house's roof line on the east peak before starting on the peak.  Wednesday I will finish painting the peak and that will be the last of the ugly old green color on the peaks of the house and garage.

I don't know... my place is looking nicer and nicer. I just may have to give up my membership in the 'white trash' club. 

Corn! It's whats for supper

From my garden tonight.  Yum!

Crescent Moon Over Trees

The view after sunset tonight.

Red cloud sunset

Here is a photo of tonight's sunset.  Today was a change from Sunday.  On Sunday it was mostly cloudy all day then at night all the clouds left.  Today it was clear all day until a few clouds wandered by towards evening.

It froze last night as the temperature got down to 27 degrees.  Our first hard freeze of the season.  Much of what I didn't cover in my garden was affected while the rest was fine.

Fall stump smash pepper

A cold front came through Saturday evening and the full effect was felt Sunday. I didn't get much done Sunday. The warmest it got was 60 degrees. The wind blew. Off-and-on it would sprinkle rain briefly. The wind took some leaves from a few of my trees.

Yuck.

The day wasn't good for painting. I decided to try spraying one tank of herbicide on the weeds in the south pasture. That didn't go well as after 2/3s of the herbicide was sprayed it began to rain for real. I took shelter under and behind a large pine tree. I kept dry and didn't get too cold. The wind blew harder and moved around slightly so I had to move around also to try to keep out of the wind.

So much for spraying herbicide.

I decided to retrieve my pail of water I had left back when I had a bonfire on several tree stumps. I took my shovel along to fill in the holes left. I took an ax along as one stump had a side root that didn't burn.

I filled the first stump hole in with no problem. The second stump was a different story. I found the stump had burned down to below ground level and to where the stump separated into multiple tree roots. The more I dug the more tree roots I found. The stump hadn't been larger than normal but the roots were numerous and covered a large area.

I ended up digging and chopping almost half the roots from the ground. I dug to a depth of my waist when I stood in the large hole. Even though I tossed the dirt where I thought there were no roots, a few times I had to move some of that dirt because the roots went there.

I scraped/smashed my finger during the dig.


I dug on the tree roots for over three hours. I lost track of time. I came back to the house when it was getting dark only to remember the weather forecast was for it to freeze tonight. It is down to 37 degrees currently. I had to cover some of my garden. If I can make it through the next few nights the forecast is for it to warm up again.

I picked a few garden items. I was surprised to find some animal (a mouse most likely) ate the bottom off my largest green bell pepper. And also the seeds inside the pepper.

Slipping into Fall

While the weather here is perfect and is still summer like, there are signs Fall is not so far away. I recently seen some green tree leaves getting a yellow tint to them. Now one of my apricot trees went full bore into Fall colors.

In the foreground is the apricot tree. The tree to its right and back is another apricot tree that apparently is not ready for Fall. The tree/bush to the right and beyond the second apricot tree is my buffaloberry bush. This year I got a handful of buffaloberries. They are a bit sour and seem to be more suitable for jams than for munching on.

Sprayer leak

My RL Pro Flo backpack sprayer still leaked today. I got a magnifying glass and found the source of the leak: a small crack near the bottom of the plastic tank. This is strange as the tank is made of a heavy duty plastic. How the crack formed is a mystery. Nothing has hit the sprayer to damage it.

Once I found the crack I looked at the location inside the tank and the crack looked larger inside the tank than outside.

The sprayer has a lifetime warranty so I called the company's (Root-Lowell Manufacturing Co.) 1-800 number and their service representative told me to send them the sprayer so they can look at it.

I still had the original box the sprayer came in so I packed it all up and sent it back to them. It cost me $20.67 to send it via UPS to them in Lowell, Michigan.

Here are photos I took showing where I marked for them the crack's location. The sprayer in the photos is placed upside down to better show you the spot.

So I only have my little hand carry sprayer to spray the rest of my weeds.

Floating weeds

Each day I try to spent a little time painting and a little time spraying weeds in my south pasture.

The other day while spraying weeds I came across a small hole in the ground. Thinking it was a mouse hole I sprayed it, kicked a little dirt on it and went on my way. Being outside I hear insects buzzing about all the time so I didn't notice the hornets until one stung me below a knuckle on my left hand.

I swatted the hornet away and it left its rear end and stinger in my hand. I quickly pulled it out. That may be why my hand only swelled up on two knuckles and not my entire hand like the day before when a hornet stung the back of my right hand.

My hands are pretty much back to normal but for several days they were swollen and itched like crazy.

Today's challenge was my RL Pro Flo backpack sprayer. I have had it since June 2007 with no problems. Today it started to leak. A slow drip, but when it dripped on me it added up and got the clothes on my lower back wet even on a warm day. And it dripped herbicide too! I had to wash my back with soap when I got back home.

The sprayer is made in Germany. The bottom is where the air is inserted into the tank via a pumping action. The plastic pieces fit tightly together and a band is tightened around them. I don't know what changed that it started to leak. It started leaking when I started to spray my second tank for the day.

I took the pieces apart and found no signs how it would leak. I re-put the pieces together and added a little putty to a few spots. I see tomorrow if this fixes it.

The afternoon breeze was from the south today. When I was in the pasture spraying, the wind would occasionally gust and when it did it it blew the thistle seeds from the pasture to my south. One time a strong breeze make it it look like snow was floating by. That is how bad the weeds are on the property to my south.

The brother of the woman who owns the land plowed the weeds under last week. He spent two afternoons doing so but with so many seeds quite a number still lay on top of the ground ready for the wind to take them.

It was discouraging. Here I was spraying to get rid of my thistle weeds and a thousand seeds came floating over to my pasture ready to create new weeds next year.

Security Ambassador

I saw this guy with this shirt when I was at the Spokane Riverfront Park.

Security Ambassador?!

What the heck is a Security Ambassador? A fancy word for a security guard?

Airport trip

Friday August 28 I drove to Spokane, Washington to pick up my girlfriend Tammy. For her visit this time it was way cheaper to fly into Spokane than Kalispell. Hundreds of dollars cheaper. And what is a four hour 250 mile one way drive over three or so mountain passes?

Tammy arrived just before 12:30 pm Spokane time. As that is Pacific time that gave me an extra hour to get her. Or something like that.

During the drive I stopped to take a photo of a sunflower growing in the ditch along a highway outside of Hot Springs, MT. Unfortunately I had my car's sun visor turned to the side to block the morning sun to the east. My car has automatic seat belts and as I opened the car door to get outside the seat belt's moving attachment came against the visor and broke it off. Plastic. Bah.

This is a $20 photo as that was what it cost me to replace my visor.


After I picked up Tammy we stopped at Spokane's Riverfront Park for a visit.

As the park is downtown Spokane parking is at a premium. I found a spot on the street. I had some coins for the parking meter but only for a short time. I asked a parking lot attendant for change for a dollar but he only had bills and no change. He did give me some pocket change, and combined with my and Tammy's coins, we had enough money for 50 minutes.

The park was nice. Lots of greenery and shade trees.


The falls were nice, but after seeing all the falls in Glacier Park, these were underwhelming.


The pavilion structure from the 1974 World's Fair was still there and looked interesting, but upon a closer look it looked shabby.


There is a carousel that looked fun if you were a kid or had kids.


The same for a large wagon.


Welcome to the big city. Crime must be problem.


Also another big city feature. Odd art.

After wandering around the park we walked a bit downtown. Typical big city tall buildings with not too much to see.

A street musician was playing the the blues as we walked by. The harmonica is amplified on that little speaker. I like the Blues. Tammy doesn't. We kept on moving. Besides, I didn't have any change left to give him.


There really wasn't much else that interested us and we left Spokane. Before doing so we looked for a souvenir magnet as Tammy collects them from places she has visited and this was her first visit to Washington State. Finding a magnet was a chore. We couldn't find any gift or souvenir shops. We tried a gas station or two and they referred us to a grocery store who referred us to a drug store who referred us to a dollar store who referred us to Walmart. Yes, that's right. Good old Walmart. To get a local souvenir we had to go to Walmart. Granted their selection wasn't much but at least they had something.

We must have spent over an hour looking for the magnet and drove a number of miles. Did I mention the temperature under the clear sky was 98 degrees according to one sign we drove past? Oh, and that my car's air conditioning didn't work? And with all the traffic and multiple lanes and strip malls and box stores I was more than ready to leave Spokane and Washington State.

With the hot weather I got interested in having a Dairy Queen blizzard but the DQs were always at interstate exits we didn't go on or couldn't get to in time due to the traffic. Frustrating.

As we drove out of Spokane and the short distance out of Washington State we noticed a number of odd looking water towers. They looked to have little water tanks on large legs.


Our next stop was Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.


We drove downtown and our first stop was at the visitor information center. We discovered that pretty much what there was to do was look at the lake.


Downtown looked nice but after 5 pm on a Friday it was very quiet. We walked along the lake downtown and on the world's longest floating boardwalk. Or so they say.

We found a gift store store (where's Walmart when you need it? ) that sold magnets and Tammy got one from Idaho to add to her collection. At least we didn't have to search as hard for a magnet this time.

After a drive along the lake to a dead end...

Oh! There's the interstate highway we need!

...we then found the interstate highway entrance and were on our way home.

The speed limit on the Idaho and Montana interstate highways were usually 70 and 75 mph. Being a flat-lander and from Minnesota Tammy wasn't used to these speeds and on winding mountain roads. ("What? Are we in a race?") My car door's inside handle got lots of use from Tammy holding on to it throughout the mountains. Her arms also got a good workout.

If my car didn't have bucket seats we would have been practicing COHD (Come Over Here Dear!).

Yes... I used my brakes. That is part of the reason I had to take my car in to get a brake job yesterday.

Lookout Pass is on the Montana and Idaho border.

When I drove to get Tammy I noticed how warm it got once I crossed Lookout Pass into Idaho. Going the other way we noticed a noticeable - and much appreciated - difference when it got cooler once we crossed back into Montana.

This photo was taken along the Clark Fork River in Montana once we left the interstate highway. This a route I keep telling my uncles in Washington to use when they come to visit me. They never do. They never listen to me. Rick being the latest Uncle to ignore my directions (although he did write them down - he showed me.)


A deer sauntered across the highway right in front of my car unconcerned that vehicles were barreling towards it at 70 mph. It sure gave us a fright.

We saw the sun set in Montana and it was plenty dark by the time we arrived home a few hours later.

Once again.. to the paint

I did get some painting done today after I... took my car in to have the brakes fixed, rode my bicycle to get some groceries, baked an apple pie, watered my garden, checked the gopher traps (only two caught today versus yesterday's six), sprayed a tank of herbicide on weeds in the south pasture, and talked with Dan about my cattle when he called. *whew*

I painted white under the roof overhang this is up in the middle of the house roof. This is the last peak I had to do on the house, though not the last painting to be done on the house. It is easy to forget to paint this area as it is a small roof peak left over after the bedroom addition was built on. It turns out I hadn't scraped the cracked and chipped paint off and I had to do that first. The problem was I couldn't find my scraper. The last time I used it was on the garage. I almost always leave it on the porch but it wasn't there, nor anywhere I could think of looking. I found another smaller scraper and scraped the paint.

I also found a spot under this peak where the hornets get into the house attic. Lots of them were going in and out and I 'painted' a number of them. Now I need to repaint some of the red fascia as it got clobbered along with the hornets. My hand is still swollen and itches after getting stung by the hornet the previous day so that was payback.

I also painted white under the roof overhang on the garage. I did both peaks. I have the front and back sections of the garage left to do tomorrow.

I used up the can of white paint and opened another one. Same story: lots of mixing of the oil on top into the paint to make it white. And the same story on paint thickness. I trust, like before, it will thicken up after a day.

It was getting dark when I quit painting so tomorrow I will have to see how it all turned out and what I need to repaint.

I was covered in paint when done for the day. The 'fun' of painting over my head.

A perfect day weather-wise today.

Tammy's absence was noted when I painted and when finishing up. It wasn't the same without her painting along with me.

Deer damage

Here is what the deer did to my garden last week.

And not just deer. Bugs got to my broccoli.


My poor, poor garden.

On the bright side I had some corn from my garden tonight and it was yummy!

Day of disappointment

Today I got the check and final weight number for my cattle as I didn't get up early Sunday morning for their weighing. The cattle's weight and check amount were less than I expected.

Most every year my cattle gain about 200 lbs over the summer. One year the total was 185 lbs but that was because I had them a few weeks less and it was a very hot and dry summer. This year the average weight gain was 130 pounds. What?! This year has not been hot, I had the cattle longer, the cattle had plenty of grass and access to the hayfield and alfalfa longer than cattle in prior years. The cattle all looked bigger and like they were gaining plenty of weight. It is a mystery. I wonder if the scales used when I bought them and sold them were accurate?

Well, not much I can do about it. The result is that this year I lost money on the cattle. Yup. A first for me. In the past I didn't make much but I always made money on the cattle.

If the cattle gained weight how could one lose money on them? It comes down to the prices were higher in the Spring, the price per pound decreases the heavier cattle are, the dairy buyout this Summer put downward pressure on the cattle market, the drought in parts of the U.S. also put downward pressure on the market, and lastly the economy has people buying less meat which also put a downward pressure on cattle prices.

So... I am disappointed and pretty bummed out.

To add to my day my car needs brake job. The brakes started grinding metal on metal on my drive back from Spokane yesterday. Lots of mountains and winding roads and braking between here and there. I believe the kicker came to be at the stop at the bottom of the long hill near Hot Springs. When I drove my car this afternoon the brakes grind even when stopping at 10 mph. My mechanic is busy and couldn't get to my car until a week from today. But he said if I left my car there he would try to get to it earlier if he has time. So tomorrow I will do so.

Last night the weather forecast was for an overnight low of 32 degrees. So I covered some of my garden. My thermometer had my low as 34 degrees while the official low at the weather station down the road was 30 degrees. I saw no sign of frost this morning nor frost damage to my garden. Deer damage is another story!

Because of the threat of freezing I had brought my paint and herbicides into the house overnight. This morning as I was taking them back outside I dropped the bottle with the herbicide's sticker agent. The cover cracked and came off and I had sticker solution on my porch. It was a major pain to clean up.

Even though I don't have cattle now I still pick up some of my neighbor's apples as I plan to make an apple pie or two. Some of the bad or small apples I toss in my hayfield. This afternoon as I was getting and tossing the apples I didn't notice the wasp. The back of my right hand is now swollen. Odd that one's hand can feel numb and itch like mad at the same time.

Last week I had left a phone message with Wyatt that his sister's "field of Canadian Thistle weeds" were now going to seed and her "field" was quite white. Today Wyatt was out there plowing it under. The problem was the breeze blew all the dust and loose seeds onto my property as he plowed.

Last night, as the cattle are now gone, I had closed the gate between my north pasture and my north neighbor's pasture. He has weeds that have gone to seed. Using my shovel I spent a half hour knocking a good number of them down.

Weeds. Weeds. *argh*

I decided to spray one tank of weeds before getting to painting. I made the mistake of first going around the hayfield. I had sprayed the field several times this year, the past time after the hay was baled. So I expected little in the way of weeds. Nope. The thistle - which I have sprayed multiple times each year - was alive. Usually the thistle does go away after repeated applications. Unfortunately the thistle in my hayfield is in the best and densest part of the hayfield and the thistle's root system there is strong enough to recover and send up new plants.

The new weeds since the last spray job, combined with the scattered and large area, made a job that takes a little over an hour to go through a tank of herbicide last almost two and half hours. By the time I was done spraying it was getting dark and cool.

No painting got done. Tammy is gonna kill me. At least I bought a can of spray paint for my small windmill, a new can of primer, and painter's tape for tomorrow's painting.

All gone

I sold my cattle. After checking with two livestock auction places in Missoula and Butte (who were very helpful in offering to help me line up transport for my cattle) I sold my cattle to the broker - Rich - who last month asked to buy them from me.

Rich came out last week to look my cattle over and was very impressed with them. He remarked at docile they were. He was able to walk among them to look them over and they didn't shy away. Yup, these are the best cattle I have ever owned or had pastured here by someone else.

Rich came and got the cattle Saturday afternoon. My grass was drying up rapidly and no rain was in sight. The cattle have behaved and not gone wandering or breaking fences, but why chance it? Besides, the cattle were at an ideal weight to sell.

The cattle were used to me feeding them apples from my white five-gallon plastic pails. Saturday when they were about to take their usual noontime siesta I went with a pail and they all followed me back to the corral.

After eating the apples I gave them, and checking the corral out, they settled down for their siesta. I stayed out there a bit and a number of them came and checked me out. One washed my arm and another licked one shoe clean.


It wasn't too hard to load the cattle. At first I had a little trouble getting the cattle into the loading corral. All but one followed me and the pail of apples into the corral. However they ate the apples so fast that when I went out to get the last heifer into the corral the herd followed me out. So I had to go back in before the entire herd came out after me.

I was stuck. Wherever I went the cattle followed. I couldn't get out to get the last heifer and she stood outside watching me and the other cattle. Finally I called Rich over and he herded her into the loading corral with me.

The cattle were leery of getting into the stock trailer, and after we got the first few into the trailer, they turned around and came back out before we got the rest of the cattle down the loading ramp to the trailer. So we had to start over.

It took two trailer loads to take the cattle, but it is done.

Like other years I catch myself days later looking in the pasture for them. I do miss them.

Photo 1: Emily and another heifer playing peek-a-boo with me.
Photo 2: checking out the head gate.

Photo 1: quality cattle. She how straight her back is?
Photo 2: ignoring me during siesta time.