Nursing

Baby is still nursing.  I think that is why the females from the "Gang of Four' seem to be jealous of Baby.

As you can see even after five months Momma seems to have plenty of milk.

Here is a 1:34 video of Baby nursing.   Momma is pretty calm, even when Baby is hitting against her milk bag.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOl33oqQyWg

Feeder guard

To stop Momma from climbing into the feeder from one side I nailed a board to block her while allowing the cattle to still reach the hay in the feeder.  Simple but effective.

I didn't nail a board on this side as I want easy access to add hay to the feeder.  Monday night Momma hung around this side wanting to access the feeder.  I blocked her and let Baby have her spot even when Momma tried to slip between Baby and the barn.  After trying to wait me out Momma gave up and went back to her usual feeding spot.  If Momma continues to misbehave I'll have to add a board to this side.

Well check

With the Winter thaw I lifted up the board covering the corral well.  The frozen ground on the surface doesn't extend down below.  As you can see gravel has fallen onto the stand I had built for the pump.  Good thing I decided not to install the pump last Fall.

Here is how the stand looked when I quit work last Fall...

Here is how the stand looks now.

Daisy decided that even though the ground was a little icy and a lot wet she had to come over and see what I was doing.  She was careful and had no mishaps.

Hay on the head

My uncle Larry emailed that he missed seeing photos and stories about Baby, Momma and the other cattle.  I guess I have been caught up in the love of Daisy.


Sometimes the cattle are in such a hurry to eat they don't let me fill the feeder before they start.  Adding to that is that I had a half dozen bales of hay that were packed together hard.  If I wouldn't break the hay apart the cattle would violently shake it to loosen it up. That could be fun to watch except that sometimes they would shake the hay out of the feeder into the muck.

When I broke apart the hay bales pieces of loose hay fell on the cattle's head as they ate.

Baby got the worse of it as she was the closest to me.    "What you looking at?!"

Does the hay on my head make my butt look fat?

Baby dropped a ball of hay on the ground and then ate it up.

Here is a 1:02 long video of Baby eating hay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvnkSa2y9Lk&feature=youtu.be



Two of the heifers from the "Gang of Four" still push Baby around.  Quite a number of times I hang around after putting out the hay to protect Baby.  They must have rammed her in the ribs hard quite a lot as sometimes all they have to do is swing their head around and look at Baby and she backs away from the hay.  They then move in and take her spot.

A few times the mean girls get impatient and when I am sweeping up loose hay in the barn they will try to push Baby away from the feeder.  I have to step out and tell them to back off, which they do and Baby comes back to eat more hay.

Below is after I told the mean girls to back off and let Baby back to her spot for eating hay.  Baby is deciding whether to go back or come over to me.

Pantry is complete

I bought a door kit for the pantry doors instead of buying the parts separately.  It cost a few dollars more for the kit even before replacing the door hinges.  The hinges in the kit were gold colored and Tammy insisted on brushed nickel hinges.  So I had to take off the doors to switch the hinges.  Which was just as well because...

The door kit for our pantry was not stained when we bought it from Lowes.

Tammy and I decided on Golden Oak as the stain we liked.


It has taken longer to stain the doors and door jam (frame) than I expected.  Then again, I have never stained any wood before, so what did I know?!


The first to be stained was the door jamb.  In case I made a mess of things it would be good to practice on the jamb so it wouldn't be noticeable.

The staining of the jam went well.  Two coats of stain applied by a brush and it was done.


Then it was on to the doors.

In the meantime I spoke with a knowledgeable employee at Lowes about post stain sealers.  He also clued me in to use a pre-stain treatment.  That was tricky to use as one has to immediately stain before the pre-stain treatment could dry after applying the pre-stain treatment,   Working around the windows were time consuming so I was rushed.

The first photo below shows the first door I had stained next to an unstained door.
The second photo shows the first stained door on the left next to the second door I stained on the right.  Yes, the door on the left is the same door in both photos, albeit upside-down.  Context is everything.

The difference is that for door number one I used a soft cloth to apply the stain.  For two reasons: one, people I spoke with claimed to use a cloth instead of a brush to apply the stain and two, I thought it would be easier to use a cloth to apply a stain around the windows.

It was time consuming to carefully go around the windows and I found the stain at the start would dry by the time I got to the end.  It then was hard to touch up or smooth out the stain and I ended up with a few darker areas and a few areas of blotchy looks.

For the second door I used a brush.  Each door has two coats of stain but the brush ended up applying more stain to the second door and it became darker. 

So I had to go back and apply more stain to the first door so they would match.  I was done with using a cloth except to touch up around the window corners.  So I had to carefully apply more - very light - coats of stain with the brush.  Because the new coats were so light I had to apply multiple coats.  I didn't want to risk making this first door darker than the second door.


As you can see, I placed tape on the windows which turned out to be a waste of time.  The windows were still covered in the shipped protective plastic.  Also, some times the tape was against the wood and prevented the stain from reaching it.  I took the tape off for the later coats of stain.


When talking with my uncle Curt the end of November I was confident I would be done with the pantry doors easily by Christmas.  That was before I started staining.

Slowing me down was that I did the stain inside the house as it was too cold outside.  Due to the limited room I could only work on one door at a time.

Day 1: one side of one door.
Day 2: the other side of the door.
Day 3: the second coat on side one.
Day 4: the second coat on side two.

Day 5: side one of the second door.

and so on.  Each coat was another day.

Days went by.

Once I finally got the doors to a similar shade of stain it was time to apply the polyurethane coat of sealant.

You know the drill: two doors, two sides, two coats -- multiple, multiple days.

It would have been nice to apply the polyurethane sealant outside as it had a strong smell as it dried.

As you can see multiple coats of stain left the stirring stick dark.  The other side of the stick was used to stir the polyurethane sealant.

Once the staining was finally complete it was time to permanently install the door frame and doors.

The rough opening wasn't completely square so I had sand the upper right side to get everything to fit perfectly.  A side effect is that the shelves didn't not fit once I permanently installed the door frame.  If you remember I had installed the shelves while waiting for the doors to be done staining.  Because I had now squared the door frame the shelves on one side no longer fit.

After a little more cutting and trimming they did.

Because I moved the shelves repeatedly I had to touch up the red walls with paint.

Because my hands are never clean - even after washing them with soap - I had to repaint the white shelves several times as merely washing them did not remove my dirty finger prints after handling the shelves.


After a few bonks and cuts on my head due to the re-mudding and re-painting...

I was done.  I finished the work on Saturday.  Tammy complains it took me 20 months to finish the pantry but I don't think it took that long.
 

Here are photos from the beginning of the remodel...

The final result (against an unpainted wall):

It looks a little better now don't you think?

January sunset mountains

The sunset the past four to five days have been very nice.  I took some photos tonight just before the sun slipped away.  My Canon camera failed to capture the rich colors of the sunset.  I may have to get another camera as I am unhappy with this one.

This is the Swan Mountain range.

I zoomed in on the Glacier Park mountains through Badrock Canyon gap.

Hayfield

Once again... a bonked head

I went back to working on the pantry.  Even though I was careful I once again hit my head on a shelf bracket.  The same bracket as last time. 

@#$%! 

Yes, the blood ran again.   The cut wasn't as deep so I didn't completely soak a towel again.  Tammy only put one butterfly bandage on the wound.

Then the next time I worked on the pantry I wore a baseball hat.  Good thing as I bumped my head once again on a shelf bracket.  A different bracket this time.  The hat protected my dumb head this time.

It will be nice to be finally done with the pantry work.

Frosty trees

The inversions are in full force and the mornings to mid days are very foggy.  Here are some photos from Friday morning.

The blood starts flowing when

The blood starts flowing when one hits their head on a shelf bracket.  Especially me as I think my blood is thin.

Today I worked more on the pantry doors.  Yesterday I took my uncle Curt's suggestion and sprayed foam sealant into the gap between the wall and door jam.

Today I cut away and scraped the foam sealant that bubbled out beyond the door jam.   On the outside around the doors I will add trim boards to hide the gap and foam.   On the inside I don't plan on adding trim board.  Instead I decided to mud over the sealant to provide a smooth look.

I was almost done adding the mud when I hit my head on one of the shelf brackets.  Ouch. 

Then, to prove that I don't have any short term memory, a few minutes later as I stood up I hit my head on a second bracket.  This time I hit my head harder and the blood quick began to gush.  Tammy got me a towel to hold to my head to stop the blood.

Here is the blood that fell before I got the towel. (Even though I was still holding the towel to my head I should have held the camera closer since in this view it doesn't look like much blood.)

Most of the towel was soaked by the time the blood stopped flowing.

I already had gone through one cycle of washing the blood out of the towel when I thought of taking this photo.

The cut on the left side of the photo was the blood gushing scratch.  The right cut was the first scratch.

Tammy put this patch on my head and then made tacos for supper.   The blood started to flow again by the end of supper and Tammy was grossed out by my bandage.  She doesn't like seeing blood.  I couldn't see it.

Yup.  This is what it looked like.  It's not that gross, is it?  You wouldn't have any problem sitting next to this guy while eating your supper, would you?  Nah.  Didn't think so.

So I had to change the bandage.  I noticed the cut was large enough to leave a scar.  I don't have any butterfly bandages.  I rode my bicycle in the rain over to Bob and Jan's house and Jan put some butterfly bandages on my cut.  Whether they will help with the scar... time will tell.

So the completion of my pantry doors is pushed back ONCE AGAIN!!   They'll be finished soon I swear.