Rose

My racist black cows are still picking on the red cows.  Rose is at the bottom of the pecking order among the red cows.  It doesn't matter that I have two feeders; usually a black cow is at each feeder and one will chase Rose away from the feeder.  A black cow will even take a break from eating hay to chase Rose away.

I would chase the racist black cow away so Rose could go back to the feeder but when I went away a black cow would come back to chase Rose away.

I noticed, that while they couldn't get to all of the weedy bales under the loafing shed, the cattle's attempts caused several bales to tip over in the protected area.  I took one bale and laid it out in an open area under the loafing shed roof.  Rose then came over and ate the good grass among the weeds.  She was able to eat until the cattle ate all the hay in the two feeders and then came over and chased her off so they could eat the rest of the weedy hay.

So I opened the gate to south of the barn and let Rose in by herself to eat the hay in the south feeder.  She ate there the rest of the afternoon until I put more hay out for the cattle after 5 pm.  Then Rose wanted back in with the rest of the cattle.  How much hay she got then - I don't know.

Btw - now that I bought another hay feeder yesterday -guess what? - someone has two feeders for sale on Craigslist today.  Yup.  Same old story.

Ranch Black Friday

This Black Friday I got items for the ranch.  Murdoch's was having 15% off store wide on most items.  Did that include large ag items?   When Donna's daughter and son-in-law visited Murdoch's Friday morning they were told that the large hay feeders were included in the 15% offer.

In the afternoon, after getting some tools at Ace Hardware's Black Friday sale, I visited Murdoch's.  Mid afternoon and their parking lot was full, with lots of shoppers in the store.

Yes, the hay feeders were 15% off.  So I bought another bull level heavy duty hay feeder to match the one I already have.  I used that feeder all last Winter with no ill effects to the feeder from the cattle pushing on it.

The way it seems to work - when I want a feeder or second feeder none are for sale at auctions, in the sale papers, or on Craigslist.  When I have one and don't need another one they are found for sale.  Rather than waiting even longer for a second feeder I bought this one 15% off for $675.  Metal feeders are not cheap.

Snow

The weather forecast said the Winter storm and snow would arrive at 8 am this morning and that is what it did.  I woke up a few minutes after 8 am and saw snow when I looked out the window.  I went outside and opened the gate to the north pasture so the cattle could reach the hay able.

The cattle were in the middle pasture somewhat close to the north pasture fence and eyeing the hay.  They came when I opened the gate with Beulah and Mama in the lead.  They were so excited they ran to the right to the corral and not left to the hay in the feeder. I walked over to the feeder and called them and they turned and came running to the feeder.

Buddy was his cool calm self and was still grazing in the middle pasture.  He then walked to the fence to look at the herd at the hay.  I called for him and after turning around a few time came to me at the gate and then walked over to join the cattle at the feeder.

Several cattle low on the pecking order had to wait to eat from the hay bale as the other cattle pushed them away while they ate.

At the river I could see clumps of snow floating.

Daisy and I pretty much spent the day inside as it snowed until the afternoon and the wind blew strong and will continue to blow strong until 5 am tomorrow.

I did ride 5 miles on my bicycle in the afternoon.  Riding was slower than usual due to the snowy and icy road.

Cattle work, fence work

Monday was a decent day weather wise.  I got more fence work done but did not complete the fence.  The weather forecast insists we will have a Winter storm on Tuesday so this may be the last I do on fences for the year.  We'll see.

First, time was taken up by cattle work.  In the early afternoon I saw that Mama was in the south pasture by herself. Earlier half of the cattle herd were at the river to drink and Mama must have then crossed into the south pasture. She headed to the fence with the south neighbor and I was concerned she would do something bad.  She wanted to join the rest of the herd who were in the other south neighbor's field south of the hay field.  I tried to herd mama but she didn't want to leave the fence and was getting annoyed with me.  She was near the part of the fence I had rebuilt to have more strands of wire and was higher but I was concerned she would go west to the four strand part of the fence which was lower, and then jump the fence.

Then I got the idea of also opening the gate to the hay field in addition to the gate I had opened to the middle pasture.  Mama watched me, and once I opened the gate and called for her, she came over and trotted through the gate into the hay field where she could go and join the herd (who by now saw me with Mama and were coming back into the hay field from the neighbor's pasture).

Since snow is in the forecast, and the cattle have pretty much eaten most of the grass, using the tractor I carried a large hay bale out to the metal feeder in the north pasture.  I'll open the gate tomorrow morning and let the cattle in eat the bale.  Even though the cattle were at the southern neighbor's pasture, they saw me working around the hay feeder and came over to watch me.

The rest of the afternoon I worked on my corral fence.  The railroad post I put in the previous evening was good so I nailed boards to it.  I got two more railroad ties and put them into the ground at the other end of the opening and then nailed boards to them.

Of the 60 foot opening I now have fenced about half of it and have 30 feet left.  Too bad Tuesday won't be like Monday; I would have gotten the rest of the railroad ties into the ground for posts.

'New' 14 ft gate and the back side of the new fence.

'New' 14 ft gate and the front side of the new fence.

Here are the other two sections I built on Monday.  The left darker section was built last year.   This is, as Tammy had called it before she left, my 'redneck ghetto fence'.  The boards were salvaged from a building business's burn pile.

Monday night's sunset as I worked on the fence.

Gate change, etc.

Tuesday morning a Winter storm is coming.  I have my corral fence to complete.  What do I do?  Instead of digging more holes for railroad ties I decided this morning to switch gates in the corral fence I am building.  While the current 12 ft gate is wide enough to drive my tractor through when carrying a large hay bale into that part of the corral, I find I really have to watch out I don't hit my fence.  I have a 14 ft gate and decided now - before I build the fence - is the time to switch gates.

12 ft gate  (bent where Buddy pushed against it in an effort to sniff a couple of cows in pre-heat on the other side).

The problem with the 14 ft gate was that most of the rails on one end of the gate were not attached to the frame.  It is an old gate I bought as part of a group.  My neighbor Curtis has a welder and he welded the rails back to the frame.  He even welded a chain to the frame that I can use to run through an eye bolt to hold the gate shut.

Naturally the gate's hinges would be in a different place so swapping the gates wasn't as simple as 'swapping the gates'.  But eventually I got it done.

Because the 14 ft gate is longer that meant I had to move by two feet the existing railroad tie on the other end.  I got that done before dark.

The previous day I had dug a hole for the railroad tie for the next section.  I had to fill in that hole and dig a new hole two feet over.  I got that done before dark.

I put a railroad tie in the hole and filled the dirt back in.  It was dark when I finished.  Tomorrow I will check to see if I did it right.


I also did a side job earlier.  I noticed I hadn't placed a 'resting post' for a previous gate I worked on this Fall.  So I found a short broken railroad tie piece and dug it into the ground.  This is for a 16 ft gate.  The gate is long and heavy, and over time gravity would otherwise pull one end down closer to the ground.

This evening's sunset.  (I couldn't decide which photo I liked better so I included both).

Feeder, straw, fence

Saturday's projects...

I fixed the wooden feeder.  I still don't know why the boards didn't fit tight this year.  I cut a new board to fill the gap.

I put up barriers to the straw so that when the cattle are in the corral this Winter they won't make a mess of the straw before I lay it out for them.

I also fixed the barrier to the weedy hay.

I started to finish the fence that will split the corral.  This is the last part of the corral fence to do.  I started on it last year but only got two gates and one section done.

The nights now get below freezing and the ground freezes.  The afternoons get above freezing and the ground thaws allowing for a few hours of digging.  Next week the weather forecast calls for below freezing for a large number of days and that most likely will be the end of fence work for the year.  So I have today, Sunday and Monday to finish the corral fence.

Today I didn't get as far as I would have liked.  I had to spend a few hours finding the boards I will use for the fence. The boards I want to use are the salvage boards I got over the year from the neighboring business' burn pile.  So my piles of boards are a miss-mash of different boards and different lengths of boards gotten various times.

Semi-sorted boards by type and length

Once I found four similar sized boards of the length I wanted for one section of fence I had to trim the lengths to be the same.

Then I spent time taking down the old barb wire and snow fence.  I did get a hole dug for the first railroad tie by the time it got dark.  I covered the hole so it wouldn't freeze tonight.  Then I can work on putting the railroad tie in the ground tomorrow without having to wait until the ground thaws.

Corral light and garage roof

A busy day.

I fixed the garage roof.  To patch the tear I used an eight foot section left over from when I roofed the garage many years ago.   If I had the time and inclination right now I would take off and replace the fascia board as the top of it is two levels making it tricky to nail the roofing to it. Why two levels?  I'm not sure.  Perhaps the boards are really meant to be used next to one another and the levels would then overlap.   Also parts of the top of the fascia is soft with rot.

Over the past three days I added a light to the barn in the corral.  Dan and Donna both told me I needed a light for the corral, especially if I have to help a cow calve in the dark.  Two times the cattle got out into the yard in the dark, once with Tammy and once with Donna.  Both times it was a challenge to count the black cattle in the dark when making sure we got them all back into the corral.

Installing the light should have been easy as it wasn't a complicated wiring job. Of course, I had problems, the last being the light wouldn't work.   Thursday morning Curtis helped me with his electrical testing equipment.  Initially the tester indicated current in all the wiring to the light.  Then did the light bulb get damaged since I tested it prior to installing the light?

I wondered about the light switch as it had three connecting screws.  Not knowing I assumed the third screw was a ground connection.  It wasn't.  It was a three-pole switch, useful when one wants two switches to control a single light.  I replaced the switch with a two-pole switch with two screws.  Also one of my hot wire twisting connections wasn't that good.  Initially it was fine but after moving the wire around when checking stuff the connection got loose - further complicating and confusing our debugging of why the light wouldn't work.

But it all works now.  The light lights up the corral very well, much more than the following photos indicate.

The upper two boxes and wire are what I added.

Mounted up high.

I also rode 40 miles on my bicycle on Thursday.

After the storm

I didn't walk out in the pasture to see if any trees where blown over, but from the house I don't see anything fallen.  The cattle all seem to have weathered the storm well.

The high winds of Tuesday night / Wednesday morning tore part of the asphalt roofing off the garage.  The tool shed roof is fine but the garage has a section about 2 ft by 7 ft long torn from the bottom.  I found a leftover section of the rolled roofing from back when I re-roofed that half of the garage roof ten or more years ago.  The temperature Wednesday was barely 40 degrees so the roll is stiff.  I brought the roll into the house to warm up and hopefully Thursday I can fix the roof.   *sigh*  Always fixing something or another around here this year.

The above photo is from my new camera.  My previous camera's screen in the back of the camera cracked and no longer showed images.  The past few weeks I have been taking photos blindly as I had no way of seeing what I was taking.

I decided that with my track record with cameras I wasn't going to spend several hundred dollars on a new camera.  The cameras don't seem to last more than a few years.  So I have been looking for a cheap simple camera.  I was waiting for Black Friday prices when I was at Walmart getting something else when I stopped to also look at their cameras.  They had a half dozen display models of cameras they were closing out.  While I have tried to avoid getting another Canon camera, the Canon Elph 150 IS camera was the best of the closeout bunch.  $79, so I bought it.  It doesn't have the sweeping panoramic mode which I miss.  I haven't tested it in a low light situation which is another feature I like, so we'll see.  It is better than what I had.

Storming

The wind has been strong most of the day but now it is really howling and driving rain hard against the house windows.  Parts of the Valley has lost power due to fallen trees.  I'm fine.

Daisy was outside earlier this evening running around like a wild cat in the wind.  She came in the house briefly and was running around the house before going back outside to run around in the wind some more.  She came back inside once it began to rain.  She was laying near the wood stove until the wind really picked up.  She sat and looked out the window a bit before coming to lay by me and against the computer keyboard.

I hope the cattle found a good place in the trees to get somewhat out of the wind and rain.

In the morning I'll see how things are and if any damage.

Diesel and oil change

This morning I drove my tractor a few miles over to the gas station to fill it up with diesel.   I chose Sunday morning as the traffic was light.  Now my tractor is ready for Winter.

Not your typical sight at a gas station

This gas station sells off-road red dyed diesel which is cheaper as it isn't taxed and is appropriate for my tractor.  The diesel cost $1.88 a gallon.

The other thing of note I did today was change the oil in my pickup.  Normally that isn't such a big deal, but I haven't personally changed oil in any of my vehicles since I graduated from college, got a job and moved into an apartment.  I got into the habit of taking my vehicle in to have the oil changed and that stuck with me over all these years, especially as my last car was so low to the ground.  It has been over 30 years since I changed the oil myself.  It went well other than the oil filter is under the engine near the oil drain plug.  Removing the filter was a little messy for me.

Small chores in warm weather

The weather has been much nicer than predicted.  Over the past few days I worked on small projects put on hold due to my roof project.

1. Finished fixing the pole shed wall.


2. Sorted through, organized and put some of the stuff back that formerly was along the inside of the pole shed wall.  Stuff dad had there and 15 years of me adding stuff. What didn't fit organizationally I hauled over to the hay shed where it fit.  Of course that mean some minor organizing in the hay shed.  It doesn't sound like much but it was time consuming.


3. I worked on putting in the boards that make up the floor into the large wooden feeder.  I don't know why but every year the boards fit differently.  This year, on one side, part of a board barely wouldn't fit while on the other half of the feeder there is a large enough opening I will have to cut a new board to close it.  Moving the pieces around wouldn't fix the problem. I went to trim the one board with the jigsaw.  The screw and blade came off.  Even using the magnet and a flashlight I couldn't find the pieces after 10+ minutes of searching.  Kelly returned from hunting and then helped me.  Within a minute of looking, and using just a small flashlight, he found both pieces in the grass.  Amazing.


4. I patched the fence rail between the hay field and the backyard.  The cattle pushed against it and broke it.  Rather than finding (digging out) another rail I nailed several boards to the broken rail to patch and fix it.


5. I carried the pieces of irrigation pipe still in the north pasture and backyard out to the place along the fence in the middle pasture where I will store them over Winter.  I want these pieces at least out of the way before snow covers and hides them.  Later, after sunset, I heard the cattle rattling the pipes. 


6. Using my tractor I helped my neighbor Curtis move three large pieces of machinery into his building. He got another hot tub to repair and resell and I helped unload it from his trailer and then set flat on the ground.


7. Then Curtis helped me put the new door on my tractor.  Two people made the task go easier and quicker.


8. With my tractor I lifted and moved the metal hay feeder from the corral out to the north pasture.  The weather forecast  may mean I will be feeding hay to the cattle sooner than later.  The feeder is three sections bolted together.  I tightened up the bolts and nuts.  One bolt lost its nut.  The bolt's threads also had gotten damaged.  A new nut wouldn't hold tight, even after re-cutting the threads.  Fortunately I found a new bolt.  With the feeder half way across the pasture that meant lots of walking back and forth to the tool shed.  Daisy walked with me once.  The second time she just sat there and looked at me with an expression of, "Really?  You're walking back out there when we were just there?  Fine.  You go but I am staying here."  She sat in the corral and kept an eye on me until I returned.


9. Plus a few other small tasks.

Roof is done... finally

The forecast called for rain and snow Wednesday.  Thankfully the forecast was wrong.  Well, at least until after dark when a snow band passed through and dropped a quick dusting of snow.  The afternoon was dry and even had sun for a while.  As a result I was able to work on my tool shed roof.

I finishing shingling the roof.  I was able to complete the work using only one bundle of shingles and not two.  I actually needed two shingles from the second bundle to complete the roof's ridge cover but I decided to use a short piece of the old roofing that was in good condition.

The old roofing used as part of the ridge covering.

I would have finished the pole shed wall but I ended up helping my neighbor Curtis.  He bought another fix-up car and needed me to steer the car while he towed it home.  I have one more board to cut before nailing a few boards and then I'll be done.

I used the tabs trimmed off earlier to cover the wider gap along the roof's hump.

Completed ridge.

Completed roof

Dragging it out

It rained all of Monday so...no work on the tool shed roof.

Tuesday the sun shone briefly in the morning before it clouded back over.  But no rain.  Even though I had to wait for the heavy frost to melt, and took time to roll up the rest of the garden hoses once it warmed above freezing, I thought I would be able to finish the tool shed roof.  Silly me, when will I ever learn?

All I had to finish was the small strip of roof on the north side.   But it wasn't that easy.  The strip was not the same width across the roof due to the roof's shape.  The east side was wider than the west side.  I was running low on shingles and didn't want to lay more rows than I had to.

Two rows of shingles would cover the roof - except! for about six feet on the east side.  The east six feet was about an inch too wide for two rows of shingles. The inch that was troublesome was in the gap between the tabs.

My solution.  I cut some of the best part of the old rolled roofing and laid it in the strip. Unless one looked in the gap between the tabs, you'd never know the one row didn't completely cover the new rolled roofing.

The hump in the middle of the roof looks to be a problem but I'll come up with a solution when I install the ridge shingles.

When I got to installing the ridge shingles I only had four three tab shingles left and it was getting late. I cut the three tab shingles into 12 shingles to lay over the ridge.  I quickly nailed them down so I could measure the area they covered so I could then calculate how many more shingles I needed to buy.  It looks like I needed just a few more shingles than is in one bundle.  It figures.

I went to Home Depot to get two more bundles of shingles.  By the time I got home it was too dark to finish shingling.

Later when I was on my nightly bicycle ride I realized I installed the ridge shingles wrong.

 

I had installed the three tab shingles from the left to right.  So when I was in a hurry to install the ridge shingles before dark I also nailed them left to right.  However, due to the prevailing wind direction, I need to install the ridge shingles from right to left.  So.... I'll have to remove the ridge shingles and re-nail them correctly.

Rain is forecast again for tomorrow.   Anything to drag this out.

Major roof progress

It was suppose to rain on Sunday but the rain held off until after dark.  So I was able to work much of the day on my tool shed roof.

Saturday when I wasn't baling straw I worked on the tool shed roof.   I was able to installed the starter course of shingles and then install four rows of shingles.

Sunday I got an early start to beat the predicted rain.  I was able to shingle the entire south side of the roof.  I also shingled part of the north roof where the rolled roofing didn't cover, the 1 foot 9 inch section off to the side of the roof. 

All I have left is to shingle the foot or so above the rolled roofing.  The forecast is not looking good as the weather is supposed to be mostly rain or snow this upcoming week.

This shows the roof 'bump' where several studs sit higher than the other studs.

Completed south side

Baling straw

Donna had lots of loose straw she wanted to get rid of.  I wanted straw for bedding material for my cattle this Winter. On a nice sunny (relatively) warm Saturday, after postponing it a number of times since Summer, we finally baled up the straw.

First we had to move the sheep from this yard over to another one.

The room with the loose straw.

I moved the hay from the room to the door.  Donna fed the straw into her baler.  I took the bales as they popped out of the baler and stacked them in my pickup.

I got two pickup loads of bales.  I stored most of the bales in the barn's attic.  The bales were very loose and tricky to handle.  I had to store four or so bales under the attic's lean-to as the bales were too loose to lift up into the attic.  One bale popped out of its twine as I lifted it.

I put the loose straw out in the middle pasture into two piles.  Beulah and the rest of the cattle were curious and when done I opened a small gate and let the cattle from the hayfield into the pasture.  They went over to the straw, sniffed around it and then gave me a puzzled look as they were expecting hay.

Buddy stood in the gate's opening and rubbed his neck against the post.  This post is a post and not a railroad tie and the post wobbled in the ground, but it held.

Fascia done

The temperature only reached 42 F and there were more clouds than sun; but no rain. First I nailed two of the three plywood boards to the pole shed wall.  I'll nail the last plywood board later after I finish the last supporting board inside the pole shed, which can be done when it is raining.  Then I got the fascia done.  Small progress, but progress.

I had to trim and shape each stud end.  One fascia board did not reach from stud to stud.  Both of the board ends were slanted and I had to trim to straighten the ends.  That meant the board was about four inches short of reaching a stud.  I cut and nailed a 2 by 4 board between two studs on which to nail the ends of the fascia boards.

New and old 2 by 4s.  By this I mean, 3 1/2 inches and true 4 inch.

Then I found that two studs were slightly higher than the others. As a result the roof has a 'bump', especially noticeable as it rises above the straight fascia board. (Where is a crooked fascia board when you need one?!  )  So I had to do more adjusting to reduce the 'bump' so it wasn't as noticeable.  No photos as my camera's battery quit.

I installed the metal drip edge as it got dark.  Come daylight tomorrow I will see if I have any fixes to do or whether I can finally start shingling.

Snow

It snowed this afternoon.  The temperature was in the mid 30s F so the snow didn't stick to anything.  But everything got wet, so even after the snow quit late afternoon it was too wet to work on the tool shed roof even though the roof was covered in plastic and tarps.

I fired up the wood stove and Daisy and I sat by it and fell asleep for a while.

The weather is suppose to be better on Friday.

Minor setback

As usual I didn't get as much done on the tool shed roof as I would have liked. A cool clear night meant a heavy frost in the morning. This time of the year the large trees over the patio shade the tool shed roof much of the morning.

Once I got the plastic and tarps and bricks and blocks and metal t-posts off the roof, I realized I had installed the roof vent wrong.  The lower part of the vent needs to be over the shingles (or in this case the rolled roofing) while the upper part goes under the shingles.  I had the lower part of the vent under the rolled roofing.



In the afternoon the sun was out, and while the temperature was only in the mid 40s, it was warm enough to work on the rolled roofing.  Next week our forecast high temperatures will only be in the upper 30s so if I am going to fix the vent, today is the time to do it.

It was a challenge to get the vent off.  I had nailed it down good and all the nails were under the roofing.  I carefully removed the nails from the rolled roofing from the edge of the roof to a little past the vent.  I very carefully peeled the rolled roofing back.  However I could only safely remove the roofing up to the vent and not past it.  I did not want to crack or tear the roofing and with the current temperature I was right near the lowest temperature needed to bend the roofing.

I decided to go into the tool shed attic to pound up the nails I couldn't reach from above.  What I forgot was that the opening between the two parts of the attic was only this big.  Daisy could fit through but not me.

I used the jigsaw to cut another board to make the opening larger and then I slipped through it to reach the other side and the vent.  The room to maneuver was tight so I took care not to get stuck.

Once I pounded the nails into the roof I went outside back to the vent and was able to pry the vent off without damaging the roofing material.  Then I put the roofing back into place and nailed the vent down correctly.

As a result of the time spent fixing the vent I didn't have much time to work on installing the new fascia.  With more light to see today I found more work was needed before installing the new fascia boards.  While I had straightened the stud ends, I found, at least for the 10 ft section I was working on, many stud ends went a little past the roof edge.  I want the fascia board to be up tight to the roof edge.  The previous work had relied on the asphalt roofing to cover the gap. So that meant more trimming of the stud ends.  All I got installed Wednesday was one 10 ft section.

Thursday snow and rain is forecast so I don't have high hopes of getting much if anything done on the roof.


Below are a few photos showing the earlier work where I had added extra boards to hold the plywood sheets on the pole shed wall.

The color is funky in this stitched together photo from two photos.