Gophers and horses

I have now trapped 1400 pocket gophers since I started late 2003.  Woo Hoo!

The horses finally seem to be melding into one group.  Last night they all shared the loafing shed.  The previous night the two outsiders still had to stand just outside of the loafing shed.

I seldom saw cattle lay down and sleep hard in the middle of the day.  When they did they often would curl up like a cat.  These horses lay on their side and several often take a nap in the middle of the afternoon when the group is taking their afternoon siesta in the loafing shed.  The horses that sleep do so just outside the loafing shed and in the hot sun.  And they sleep hard as often they don't move when I move about corral or just outside of it. The horses still get my attention when they sleep like this as I think something may be the matter with them.

In Bob and Jan's yard today their son cut down four dead and dying trees.  Mostly birch trees.   The son didn't want the birch logs so I got them when I came to get the trees branches.  The logs filled over half my pickup box.   I'll dry them a year and split them next summer.

I ended up hauling three loads of branches in my pickup and dumped them in a low area in my pasture.  Now that it has been four or five days since I sprayed the weeds in the NE pastures I let the horses go into that pasture to make it easier for me to drive through the corral and in the north pasture.  I don't have my rancher girl here to handle the gates and to watch that the horses don't go where they shouldn't.

Jan fed me a couple hamburgers as thanks for hauling the branches away for them.  I needed the food as between chopping weeds, hauling branches, and our hot 86 degrees I have been sweating buckets.

I noticed a "new" dent on the side of my pickup.  I don't remember it from something I did.  Hmmmm?  Did someone else bump my pickup?  The dent was on the side behind the rear wheel.  No room to swing a sledgehammer to knock it out.  Instead I used a jack and the pressure from that in multiple places to push the dent mostly out.  It looks better.   Still, my pickup is a working vehicle - and looks it - as it not a show piece or a fancy passenger vehicle.