Loading corral gate 1

A couple days ago I hung another gate in the corral.  This time I placed a gate on the loading corral.  Since I have the railroad ties in place on the corral's north side, and I have plans to rebuild the east side of the loading corral after moving the head gate back eight feet, I could hang the gate now.  Better hung than leaning against a fence.

For people who complained about my older metal corral gates, they never had to open/close this wooden loading corral gate. It rests on the ground for the most part and requires strength to lift and move it.  The wood is old and going bad.

I found a photo of the gate I replaced taken in 2008.  Keep in mind the gate has deteriorated since then.  The gate is in green.

Here is a photo of the gate I took today.  It is 10 ft long.

Here is the newer gate after I hung it.  It is 12 ft long.  I had to borrow a 3/4" wood bit from Wyatt in order to drill through the railroad tie to bolt the gate to the tie.

The newer gate, the old east fence with the head gate on the right side, the two 10 ft railroad ties I dug out of the ground in preparation of moving the head gate back to the newly placed 8.5 ft railroad ties, one fence section that I removed, the opening created by the fence section removal as I plan to move the head gate back one fence section (8 ft).

Two fillies

The people who earlier brought two horses to the ranch finally brought more horses.  They kept talking about bringing two mother/daughter pairs and then kept missing dates when they said they would bring them.  Finally they showed up today.  Instead of the two mother/daughter pairs they brought two fillies.  They may bring the mother/daughter pairs later and then take one back.

Let's see. At the beginning of the season I thought they would pasture five horses.  They showed up with two.  With plans for four more.  That would make six.  Okay, I can handle one extra horse.  Instead I have four.  If they bring more, that would be eight.  Minus one would be seven.   What happened to five?

I've been wanting the five as two horses are taking a long time to eat down the tall grass in my yard.  Thinking the other horses would be arriving soon I had the two horses in just the corral and back yard.  Once that was eaten down I let them into the yard the end of last week.

Here is a case for "the grass is greener".  Look at "Cowboy".  Grass is up to her belly but she wants to eat the grass on the other side of the fence.  Why?  I guess it is just because she can.

This was the first ride in a trailer for these two fillies.  I am used to cattle.  When you open the trailer door get out of their way as they rush out of the trailer.  These two fillies didn't want to come out.  They stood and looked and sniffed the air but would not come out.

Cheryl put a rope on them and tried to lead them out but they wouldn't come out of the trailer.  She tried enticing them with a cookie treat.  Nope.  With hay.  Nope.  She tugged on the rope.  Nope.  Her husband and I just stood around and chatted and watched.

Finally the grey horse tentatively stepped out of the trailer.  The brown horse wanted to come out but just didn't feel confident in stepping down from the trailer.  She would look and put a foot down but as soon as her foot dropped below the trailer she pulled it back in.  She would walk to the other side of the trailer and try and fail again.  Back and forth and back and forth.  "Stepping into air" scared her.

Finally she stepped a little farther, and with Cheryl now holding a rope on her, went past the point of being able to get her foot back into the trailer - though she tried to get her foot back in the trailer.  She kind of stepped and fell out of the trailer, and once her feet were all on the ground, ran over to her grey friend.

I've seen people load horses into a trailer quicker than these two came out of the trailer.

Cheryl wanted these two fillies to get to know "Cowboy" and "Fancy" over a fence as she felt Cowboy would chase the two fillies around until they got acquainted, and that the fillies knew their place in the pecking order.  So I put Cowboy and Fancy into the NE pasture until this evening.

The two fillies were initially skittish with their new surroundings.  By the time I came out in the evening to work more on moving my head gate, the two fillies were quite comfortable with me and often would come over and sniff me and check out what I was doing.

Cowboy and Fancy spent most of their time by the hay shed and seemed to be ignoring the two fillies.  At the end of the evening, when the two fillies were on the other side of the barn, Cowboy and Fancy were ready to come back into the corral.

But when they went over to the water trough and came close to the two fillies, it hit the fan.  Like Cheryl predicted, Cowboy chased the two fillies around the corral.  Fancy got worked up too and sometimes would help with the chase.

I guess old lady Cowboy and grandma Fancy didn't care to share the corral with these two teenage girls.  The girls wanted to be friends but the old women were not in the mood.  The fillies would approach the older horses a number of times only to be run off.

I was putting an electric cord away in the barn and Cowboy ran right up to me and got in my face.  Later when I admonished her for chasing the fillies she looked back at me and gave me a dirty look.  She looked to be blaming me for bringing these fillies into her area.

For the night I left all of them in the corral. I didn't want them running around the yard all night sorting their differences out.  Tomorrow I will let them into the yard to continue eating the grass down.

The grey filly is called: Shufflebeans.   The brown filly is called Fire- something.  I forgot her correct name.

Tree Stump 7

Since I had burned with Tammy, and later with my uncles and aunts, the six stumps I had dug earlier this Spring, I thought I was done with tree stumps for the year.

Well... remember the partially dug stump I fell into a few times while burning tree stump number six with my uncles and aunts?   I was in a dilemma.  The hole around the stump wasn't large enough to burn or remove the stump, but it was deep enough that I was concerned one of the cattle would accidentally fall into it.

One afternoon last week I decided to dig the stump out a little more as I had some stuff to burn and I thought I'd dig a little more in case the stump would catch fire.  This stump didn't have too many side roots and I ended up digging it almost out.

Chopped side roots by the stump hole.

I decided to pull the stump out with my pickup instead of trying to burn it.  I wrapped the stump with a heavy chain, put the pickup into 4-wheel drive, and then expected to feel a tug as the pickup pulled the stump out.  No tug.  When I got of the pickup to look I found the stump was almost all out of the hole.  The stump did split into two as I pulled it out.   I had thought the stump may break into its two main root sections and wrapped the chain around each major root.

That night I had an empty hole in which to burn my miscellaneous stuff.

The next day I filled the hole back in with dirt. Now I don't have to worry the cattle may fall into the hole.

Corral gate number 2

When my uncles visited me earlier this June, they helped me replace one of my 12 ft corral gates with a sturdier 16 ft gate.

With their help the gate replacement was done fairly quickly.  The newer gate had bolts attached to it.  Fortunately the bolts were long enough to just pass all the way through a railroad tie that was 9 inches thick.  I borrowed a long wood drill bit from Wyatt and we drilled holes through the railroad tie.

The new gate length was just the length of  old 12 ft gate plus the small walk through gate next to it.  Therefore all I had to do was remove the old gate and then the walk trough gate.  I didn't have to adjust the post on other side of the walk through gate.

I finally removed the walk through gate last week.

We mounted the gate a good height above the ground. However the gate does drag on the ground over halfway into its arc.  I dug the ground down along its arc and created a small ditch so now the gate touches the ground only at the very end of its opening arc.

I think I know why the gate starts well above the ground and ends on the ground.  Even though we measured the railroad tie to ensure we had both bolts mid way on the railroad tie, the tie itself has a little bit of a lean.  Though small, the lean is just enough for a 16 ft gate to touch the ground when it fully open.  You can see the lean in the following photo.

While I worked the horses would come over to check me out.

Wheel on corral gate

I bought and installed a wheel on one of the corral gates.   This will make it easier for Tammy to open and move this gate, as before the gate would drag on the ground in part of its arc.  I have to give thanks to my Uncle Curt for suggesting a wheel to make it easier for Tammy.

I found two styles of wheels.  One style apparently slips under the gate and is fixed.  The style I chose attached via a clamp so one can adjust the wheel's height for the ground level.  The wheel also swivels which is a help when moving the gate over uneven ground.

The wheel works great and it is easy to move the gate now.  Tammy can't wait to try it out.

Cattle, water and tree

On the neighbor's land, their little pasture is either under water or is eaten down to little of nothing by three horses, a steer and a heifer.   Last weekend the owner took the horses out but left the steer and heifer with plans to remove them once they found a place for them.  It needs to be sooner than later.

The other day the steer had to eat the grass sticking out of the water to get something to eat.  The steer reminded me of a moose eating.

While the heifer wasn't in the water, she was no less hungry.  I found her eating the bark from a tree.  Today I saw her out in the water eating grass.

Cold Spring

It was not my imagination.  According to the National Weather Service, across the Northern Rockies it was the coldest Spring since 1975.

“Records were set at Missoula, Kalispell and Butte each for the fewest number of days above 70 degrees and for the lowest average high temperatures,” a Weather Service advisory states.

In Kalispell there were only nine days above 70 degrees this Spring, the lowest number on record since 1899.

The average temperature for the season was 47 degrees, the second lowest on record; the 46.9-degree average in 1955 is the record.

And it was a record-setter for Kalispell with the lowest average high daily temperatures from April 1 through June 20. Kalispell’s average of 57.6 degrees surpassed the previous mark of 58.8 set in 1955.

The cold was accompanied by above-average precipitation. Kalispell’s 6.64 inches of spring precipitation was the 11th-highest on record.


George Carlin used to make a joke about the phrase, "military intelligence".  The same joke could be made about the phrase, "global warming".

Yesterday the temperature was a scorching 80 degrees and today it reached 76 degrees. I can't remember when it was last this warm.  I tried to take advantage of the warm temperatures as the forecast is for it to go back to 60-something degree temperatures starting Friday.

The weather service's long range forecast for June through September is for colder than normal temperatures for Montana.  If so, it will make a year and a half of colder than normal temperatures.  Already there are rumblings that all the snow in the mountains from last Winter won't melt this year before Winter comes again.  Guess those glaciers may not melt after all from 'global warming'.

South pasture gate

Last week I rebuilt the gate for my south pasture.  I had to do this before I let the cattle into this pasture as the broken gate would not hold them in.

Here is what the gate looked like before I rebuilt it.

Yup, it needed fixing.  Both posts holding the gate had rotted and once the ground thawed this Spring the posts and gate fell over.   This is also an example of my pasture gates.  They are strands of barb wire held in place by boards, or for this particular gate the two squares I had built and nailed to the wires.

My goal was to replace this gate with one of my metal gates.  I thought I would be using one of my 14 ft gates but when I measured this broken gate I found it to be 16 ft wide.  Oh.  I then realized that I wanted at least one gate in each pasture to be a minimum of 16 ft wide and this was one of those gates.

I went back and took inventory of all my gates and what sizes they were.  Not counting gates on the perimeter of the ranch (i.e. gates to the neighbors properties) I planned to have 15 gates.  I had 17 gates. But with my 16 ft rule, and my corral which will have 16 ft gates on three sides, I need seven 16 ft gates.  I have four.

To solve this dilemma I decided to pair two 12 ft gates with two 8 ft gates.  A 20 ft gate opening exceeds 16 ft.  Since it not symmetrically pleasing I decided to make one of those 20 ft gates the gate I was rebuilding in the south pasture and far from the house.

I know this adds up to six 16 ft (or greater) gates and not seven, but I'll solve that in the future when I find two 8 ft gates to be used for one of my corral gates.

Now that I finally figured the gate configurations out, now to assemble the tools and stuff I need.  That took a while as some gates and posts were not easily accessible.

Finally I loaded up my wheelbarrow and headed out.  I am loath to drive my pickup in my hayfield so as not to smash the grass down.  And to go through the pasture meant I had to pass through the middle pasture where all the cattle are.   Since Tammy, my rancher girl and gate handler is back in Minnesota, I decided to use my wheelbarrow.

I decided to use one of my old 8 1/2 ft railroad ties for the 12 ft gate.  For the 8 ft gate I decided to use a large post.  That didn't work as once I dug the hole for the post I discovered that the post was 6 inches too short for this gate as the lag bolt placement was at the top of the 8 ft gate.

Back to get another railroad tie.  I found a tie that was a half a tie.  Why it was half a tie?  I don't know.  The tie came that way in the pile of ties I had gotten at an auction.

The extra railroad tie was one of many things I needed to get or exchange back at the tool shed or hay shed.  I went back and forth between the gate and my buildings so many times I tried not to take the same route so as not to smash the grass down to create a trail.  I estimate the distance as a 1/5 of a mile, and as many times I had to get or exchange something, I walked many miles while rebuilding the gate.


The next wrinkle.  I didn't care for the gate location.  My original plan was to replace the gate when I got around to rebuilding the entire fence.  Then it would be easy to move the gate.  Even though I wasn't rebuilding the entire fence, well... that didn't stop me from doing what was right even if it meant more work, which wouldn't be a surprise to my Uncle Curt as he had learned when he planned to help me move my head gate in the corral.  He just shook his head when I decided to dig out and replace several railroad ties with shorter ties instead of taking a chainsaw to the 10 ft ties and making them shorter.

I move the gate's location about 60 ft to the south.  This new location is closer to the middle of the pasture than the old location.  I couldn't move the gate any further south to the true middle as the land dropped down in a very big dip and I didn't want the gate on a slope or at the bottom of such a large a dip.

The photo shows has the gates at the new location and to the right of the wheelbarrow is the old gate location.

Instead of 'patching' the old gate location with barb wire, I rebuilt the fence to my new standards between the new and old gate locations.  This meant five strands of barb wire instead of four.  All wooden posts were replaced.  The following photo shows why.

When I first took over the ranch for dad, he had no extra posts.  To help the posts that were weak and rotted I used tree branches.  I guess it wasn't a bad decision as the branches lasted seven to nine years - longer than I expected.

I worked long hours on these gates, especially since on the first day I spent so much time getting ready.  I started on Tuesday and the forecast was rain to arrive Wednesday and last to the weekend.  By the end of Tuesday I had only the 12 ft gate hung.  I am pretty proud of this gate as it is the best gate I have hung.  The gate is level and doesn't touch the ground in any part of its arc. The gate also stays in position wherever it is in the arc.

Wednesday had no rain until after dark.  I got the second gate hung, replaced all the posts and got four of the five barb wire strands in place.  It was too dark to hang the fifth strand.  Barb wire is a pain to work with when you can see the barbs.  Handling barb wire in the dark... ouch!

It rained most all day Thursday.

Friday, between the rain, I got the fifth barb wire strand in place and threaded the stays on the rebuilt fence sections.  While I used a wire stretcher to hang the barb wire and make it tight,  it is eight ft between posts and stays are an added insurance against cattle breaking through the fence.

When done with everything I found a problem.  I was a little too strong in stretching the barb wire, and in twisting diagonal wire supporting the railroad ties.  The tie for the eight foot gate was leaning back and the distance between the two gates had increased.  While the distance was till acceptable, I was worried that the railroad tie over time would continue to pull away from the opening.

My solution was use the wire stretcher to pull the top of the tie back and then place a diagonal board to help support the tie.  I did this on Saturday.  It helped, but I found the tie still sprang back somewhat when I released the wire stretcher after placing the extra board.  I had stretched the barb wire between the ties pretty tight as it took four attempts of stretching the wire as the wire either broke or my 'tieing' the two pieces of wire together would come undone under the pressure.

This photo shows the stretching of the tie before I placed the diagonal board.  The yellow at the top of the left tie is the wire stretcher with the wire going down to the bottom of the right tie as I didn't want the right tie to bend under the pressure.

The finished product.

The photo shows how the right railroad tie leans back at the top.  Darn.

56 ft of new fence. 20 ft of gate.  6 ft of supporting fence on each side of the gate.   88 ft of fence done.  Many, many more feet to go.

Pasture tree

We had a little rain today. And a little sun later.   When the sun came out I felt so hot I had to take my flannel shirt off.  And the temperature today only made it up to the mid 60s F.

Here is a south pasture tree when the sun came out.

Tree Stump 6

When my uncles and aunts visited me in June we burnt a tree stump for an authentic Tall Pines experience. This was the fifth tree stump I burnt this year, or the sixth stump I removed this year when I count the one stump I dug out.

This stump didn't have a main tap root so I ended up digging around side roots to be able to dig down to expose much of the three main tree roots. I wanted to get rid of most of the stump through burning so I ended up digging down about five ft.

I cut away many of the side roots to enable me to dig further down the main roots.  The photo below shows the side roots I chopped off.  One time, as I chopped the bottom of a side root, the force cracked the top part of the root.  Once I finished cutting through the bottom of the root I felt very wet on my jean pants leg.  My pants leg was soaked from thigh to the bottom of the pants from liquid sap that came out of the cracked tree root.  This from a tree stump that has been dead for over 15 years, and of which I had burned to the ground level eight years ago.

Here is the stump before I burned it.  To burn it I filled the hole with odds and ends of scrap wood.  Due to the large size of the hole the stump looks smaller in the photo that it actually was.  The pile of side roots in the previous photo is smaller than the size of the tree stump in the hole.

Here is the tree stump hole after I burned the stump. The second photo, taken when I partially filled the hole with dirt, shows how a nearby tree's live root that ran along the hole was burnt from the heat of the bonfire.

Here is after I filled the hole back in with dirt.  In the background is another tree root I had partially dug around.  More about that later.

This a partially dug tree stump right next to the one I burned.

I partially dug around this stump to see if the two stumps were connected under ground. They were not.  This stump provided amusement several times to my uncles and aunts.  Two times when I moved around the hole of the burning tree stump to add more wood, or adjust the wood burning in the hole, I forgot about this stump and hole and in the darkness I fell into this partially dug hole.  I didn't get hurt but I did tear a new hole in my pants when I landed on the stump.  As you can see, the one end of the hole is relatively deep.

"He's down! He's up!  ... He's down again!   He's up again!" were what my relatives called out to great amusement once they got over their initial shock at seeing me suddenly disappear into the ground.

I also temporarily lost my shovel in the fire.  When I tried to hook and pull over one of the partially burnt stumps, the stump held and the tip of my shovel handle came off in my hand and the shovel fell on top of the burning stump.  I was able to reach into the fire and grab my shovel handle and retrieve the shovel before the handle caught fire.

I also caused my aunts anxiety when I moved closely around the hole to check on the fire, test the stump strength or add new boards, especially the side with the side roots dug out.  You can kind of see it on the right side of the photo above that shows the hole after the stump has burnt.  I sometimes would step on the ground on the middle of the right side.  One of my aunts and I shared a bottle of wine and after I walked too close to the fire for their comfort they cut me off the wine.

My uncles were in charge of tossing extra stuff on the bonfire.  Larry got so into throwing stuff on the fire I had to slow him down so we'd have stuff to add to the fire later on when it began to die down.

The fire...

This is one of my favorite photos.

My uncles and aunts are "early" people and not a "late" people like Tammy and I.  Tammy and I would get started on our bonfire sometime between 10 and 10:30 pm and we would burn until around 2 am.   This bonfire with my uncles and aunts started around 8:30 pm and we quit and were back to the house at 11:15 pm.

Still, we got the job done as with only one burning all but a small piece of the stump was burned.

The following is a photo I took of the moon over the corral after we got back to the yard. I didn't use a flash when taking the photo.  It appears one of the heifer's eyes showed up - perhaps due to the light from the RV in my back yard.  The heifer is standing next to the large wood hay feeder.