Not good.
As usual my time has been diverted elsewhere and I only get a few hours a day to work on it - if I am lucky. I feel under the gun as the weather forecast is suppose to change to cool and rainy starting Sunday.
Where has my time gone? Every morning has been spent on the irrigation pipe movement and getting it back up and running. Then breakfast is around noon.
Monday afternoon Dan asked if I could help him sort cattle. He got 11 more cattle and planned Tuesday morning to haul five to the livestock auction. The sorting went well. I got home and started to take off the old rolled shingle roofing. I found they had put nails in every three inches so it was time consuming to remove the nails. I got half of the back half of the roof done when Kelly stopped by. He wanted to show his visiting brother-in-law where I let him hunt. It is bow and arrow hunting season and the brother-in-law has a license. I ended up talking to them a bit.
Tuesday, after moving irrigation pipes, I checked the neighbor's pasture and saw it was eaten down quite a bit. I would have to move my cattle in a day or two. After running an errand I went to check the fences in the middle and south pastures, especially along the river as the river is the lowest I have ever seen it. I also checked the peninsula, both islands, the thumb and the neighbor's fence I maintain for me. I reinforced areas dead trees or branches fell on and sections where the deer cross, and some sections where the cattle broke wires. Three hours later it was time for a shower, then off to attend a lecture about old timers who settled in the area before Glacier became a Park. No roof work on Tuesday.
Early Wednesday morning Dan decided to haul four more cattle to the auction and needed help sorting them from the two he had other plans for. Then irrigation - wait - did Mamma get out of the neighbor's pasture? Yup. The rest of the herd was near the corral and she was running along the neighbor John's fence trying to get back to the herd.
By the time I got over there she exited the neighbor's open gate and was in his yard. I came and stopped her from going down his long driveway to the road. I talked/herded her back into his pasture and then closed the gate. She tried to get through his fence but failed. I walked the fence down to the gate by the river and talked her into following me.
The gate was chained shut with a dog chain too tight to open. Next to the gate I saw how Mamma got through the fence as a staple was off a post and the wire hung loose as it was about 10 feet between posts. The wire was on the outside of the post and as Mamma had pushed against the fence to get the tall grass on the other side the staple popped out (I had checked all the fence posts prior to letting the cattle into Calvin's pasture.)
I pushed the wire down and was talking Mamma into crawling through the fence when John came walking towards us. Mamma saw him and turned and intently watched him. No amount of convincing got Mamma to stop looking at him agitatedly. She ran off as he approached.
Also by this time the herd saw me and Mamma and they all came running over to check us out. They stood on the other side of the fence blocking Mamma from crossing over.
John had a few tools but could not open his gate. I asked why it was chained so tight and he said it wasn't supposed to be so tight. He added the chain when he found someone had cut the wire holding the gate closed some years ago. He was about to cut the chain when I told him not to. I went and got my fence stretcher to use to pull the posts together to allow me to loosen the chain. John had an appointment and had to leave which was good as anyone else other than me agitates Mamma. I would have an easier time if it was only me with her, especially as she wanted back to re-join the herd.
The herd followed me back to the corral. Beulah was getting worked up and I had to keep an eye on her as I walked. Buddy stayed behind to see if Mama was okay and eventually he came and joined us. When I walked back to John's fence I closed the gate on my fence so the herd wouldn't come join us and muck stuff up.
I opened the gate and called for Mamma. She came and went through the gate and I closed it. I didn't chain it so tight as before.
Mamma went to my gate where my herd stood. I opened the gate and after checking the gate out for three or four minutes she came back into my pasture and joined the herd.
After moving irrigation pipe, then eating breakfast around 1 pm, I went and let the cattle into the middle pasture. They had just finished their siesta and had gone down to the river to drink. They came when I called and once the stragglers joined us, I let them all into the middle pasture. They were happy with the new tender grass growing from the irrigation and rest.
I ran an errand, Dan came and got his car and we talked about the trip to Missoula and the livestock auction, and then I had to stop the irrigation as one sprinkler went bad and was stuck and I had to replace it.
I was able to work on the roof from 5 pm until almost 7:30 pm when it got dark. I got the rest of the old rolled roofing material removed. I also took the lower panels off the pole shed wall. The pole shed was built right against the tool shed. The tool shed roof ends at the pole shed wall. Dumb, I know, but that is what I have to deal with. I want to re-do part of the pole shed wall but I'll talk about that later when I describe the re-roofing project.
Thursday. Dan was buying three steers and heifers from John (another John) and wanted help in getting the cattle loaded. John was a friend of mine too. He had fallen off his horse recently when his horse spooked when a bear surprised them. John had gotten a concussion and was to take it easy. John's wife ran the ATV, a female family friend rode a horse and they herded the bull, three cows and the three calves into the corral. Dan, his son Mike, and I separated the calves and got them loaded into John's stock trailer.
We drove to Dan's place and unloaded them easily.
Well, that went perfect.
After John left Dan asked if I could spare 10 minutes while he swapped the tractor's hay forks for its bucket. He planned to be out of town Saturday and that was when the meat processor was coming over to slaughter the large steer for beef. They would use the tractor to move the carcass.
Sure, I can wait.
Then Dan fretted about giving the cattle another large hay bale but decided not to as they still had hay.
Could I wait 10 more minutes as he topped off all of the cattle's water troughs? They had plenty of water, it wasn't hot, but Dan is anal about making sure the troughs are always completely full.
Sure, I can wait.
After the water troughs were full Dan got the idea of separating the one heifer from the red steer that was going to be butchered on Saturday. The steer and heifer were in the upper part of the corral while the new cattle were in the middle part of the corral. He wanted to move the heifer to join the three new cattle.
Sure, I can help.
We moved the new cattle into the lower part of the corral. Mike watched that gate. I had Dan handle the middle/upper gate and I would sweep and herd the heifer. The upper corral "fence" consisted of corral panels hooked together. The steer was very agitated. The heifer stayed close to where the steer moved. When the heifer slipped by I let her go rather than lunging at her.
The next I knew Dan came to help me with the separating. When the heifer was about to slip by to stay with the steer Dan lunged to cut the heifer off. He missed and they both ran along the corral panel fence. The cattle were now very freaked out. The steer got to a water trough and half jumped in it. It tried to climb the corral panel where it met a small wood building. I found out later Dan had the two corral panels at that spot hook end to hook end. I don't know why. Since they couldn't hook together correctly he tied them together with baling twine.
The baling twine on top broke and one panel bent outward. The steer and heifer jumped/rolled over the panel. They were now in Dan's pasture. Ok. Not the end of the world.
Dan and I straightened the corral panel and he retied it with another piece of twine. The three of us then went to herd the two back into the corral. That's when I saw that his outer pasture fence was crap. Six to ten posts had other posts leaning against them to hold the posts and fence in that section upright. Not good.
Dan had a hot wire running along the top of the fence but it wasn't turned on.
Mainly Dan and I herded the two cattle. I concentrated on keeping the cattle away from Dan's poor fence. After a handful of attempts, and going around and around the pasture, we got them through one of the two open gates and into the lower part of the corral. Dan ran and closed the gate.
The steer had then run into another small building. I shut the door trapping it inside while Dan opened the gate to the middle corral and I herded the heifer through the gate. Dan handled the gate and was closing it when I realized the steer was busting things up inside and trying to break though a small opening on the other side. I didn't see that there was a corral panel outside that wall. I called for Dan to run around and stop the steer. He did and told me to open the door and let the steer out. I did. The steer ran out then went through the gate to join the cattle in the middle corral. Dan hadn't completely chained the gate.
Now everyone was all together.
Dan thought about leaving them all together and separating them later. I said he had only Friday to do it. And he had his son and I to help him now. Because the steer got out of his upper corral and knew how to do it, he had to leave the steer in the central corral. Mike would handle the gate to the lower corral; Dan would handle the gate to the upper corral and I would sort the cattle. Whichever gate they ran towards we would let them there while leaving the steer here.
The central corral is very small and not laid out well with many corners. And a metal hay feeder was off to one side that the cattle could squeeze around.
The four black cattle wanted to stay close to the red steer. They went around the feeder a few times. It looked like I could head off one or two black cattle. Dan yelled for me to do it. They ran to Dan's gate. The red steer wanted to run and join them. I could not see how open Dan's gate was as I tripped and fell as I tried to head the steer off. I fell and rolled out of the way of the steer and got up. The steer ran past and Dan didn't get the gate shut. The steer ran through into the upper corral. He ran to where he got out before and jumped up on the corral panel again breaking the twine and bending the panel out. The steer and the two black cattle got back out into the pasture.
Damn.
Dan got more twine and all of us pushed on the gate and he tied it again with twine. The three cattle were along the west fence. As Mike and I slowly walked towards them the red steer decided to try to jump the fence instead of running along the fence. He crashed on the fence and got his back leg stuck in the field fence. The two black cattle tried to jump the fence and one got over while I stopped the other one. The red steer was trying to free its leg and trashing about further breaking the fence. As I tried to get over the fence the third steer ran down the fence a bit then jumped on and over it. By now the red steer got his leg free and the three ran off.
Outside Dan's fence was a driveway leading to a very busy highway. The cattle headed up the field to the trees and top of the field away from the highway. The highway had no gate so I went down in case the cattle ran that way later.
Dan and his son went up the driveway to a gate in Dan's fence. As he worked on the gate a 75 year old neighbor drove up on his ATV to tell Dan about his cattle. They talked for a long time. The ATV left and Dan went back to his corral to get a tool to open his gate as it was wired so tightly shut he couldn't open it.
Then I saw his two remaining cattle run out of the corral into Dan's pasture. I thought he had let them out to entice the three cattle to come back. I learned later he hadn't. Somehow they got out of the corral. A gate hadn't been closed/latched correctly in the chaos.
As I stood guarding the road a neighbor in small white car drove up and told me the cattle were in his yard heading for the highway. He then drove off to look where they went. I had thought Dan and his son were watching the cattle from up where they were. I couldn't see them from where I was down by the road. I later learned they had watched the cattle head to the south and the neighbor's house.
I yelled for Dan but he remained there. Mike was halfway between us. I had him come guard the driveway and I ran up the highway to look for the cattle. The next driveway went into a cluster of houses (mostly trailers) randomly situated among the trees. Cars and pickups were all over all the yards among the trees. What a cluster. I ignored the numerous "No trespassing" signs and walked around looking for the cattle. No sign of them.
As I walked back to Mike the neighbor again drove up. No sign of the cattle. He then was going on the other side of the highway to look for them. Dan was still at his gate so I went tell him. He closed his gate and then we needed to herd the two cattle back into the corral. These cattle were now worked up and didn't want to go into the corral. Around and around we went. The smaller of the two wanted to go along the fence and was looking for a way though/over it. Dan wanted to give up but I told him I wanted to try one more time.
We slowly got them near the gate to the lower corral. I then let them slowly walk and find their way. They went into the corral and Dan yelled for me to run and close the gate. I didn't run. I walked at a steady pace but not too fast to alarm the cattle as I was afraid they could run out of the corral before I got to the gate. I got to the gate and pulled it closed locking the two inside. When Dan got there we moved the two into the middle corral.
Now to find the three.
By now Tom, the state brand inspector, called. Someone called in the cattle to the sheriff's office and they called Tom. He was in the area and drove over. He was busy with other business so he couldn't get his horse and trailer to help get the cattle. He called some buddies who had horses and liked to team rope. They had gotten 13 head of cattle on the loose down near Somers a short time ago. The cattle owner had to have a helicopter find the cattle as a property owner wouldn't let people on his land to search for the cattle. Once the helicopter found the cattle in a clump of trees the property owner relented and let the ropers round up the cattle.
A roper was busy right now but would be available in a couple of hours. Well... we first needed to find the cattle. We got in Dan's car to drive and look for the cattle. None of Dan's pickup's were available. One was broken down and wouldn't start; one was out of town being used by a relative for a day or two, and the last was in the shop for repairs. Talk about timing.
We drove around looking for the cattle. Anyone we saw outside we stopped and asked if they had seen the cattle. No one had. We left Dan's phone number with them. Most people weren't home.
We covered lot of miles and went down lots of driveways. A few properties had good fence; some properties had no fences, and most properties had bad fences. Many properties had numerous "No trespassing" signs.
After many hours we gave up. At least the cattle weren't by the highway. With all the trees they could be near where we drove but couldn't see them.
A few hours after I got home Dan called to say one of the black cattle was spotted in a yard. By the time I heard the message and called him back Dan had handled it. When he got out to his old place one of the cattle was in his field (we had re-opened Dan's pasture gate in case the cattle came back). Dan and his renter was able to lock the one cattle into the corral. It was one of the three new cattle. Their weaning had kicked in and the two in the corral had started bawling for their mothers. The one had heard and came back to join his buddies - exhausted.
Hopefully the last two will either come back or be sighted tomorrow. While they had grass to eat in the wild, there are no streams or water nearby and they will get thirsty.
So... did I get any roof work down today? No. When I got back I had to move the remaining irrigation pipe. I hadn't finished moving the pipes when I went in the morning to help at John's ranch. Jan called for me to come over and I went to help. Once all that was done it was dark.
What a crazy life.
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