Snow dusting

We got a dusting of snow today.  Winter is coming.  In the following photo you can see the darker area where I last drug the disc last week.  I haven't drug the disc since the disc's hydraulic cylinder broke.  The replacement part should arrive next week.  Just in time for the predicted freeze from an arctic air mass.

The new cattle are settling in.  The cow still occasionally moos.  I fed them some of the apples I have left.  They like apples.   Buddy came by this morning and spent time outside the corral where the new cattle stood inside.  Introducing himself. He seemed happy.  I think he smiled at me to thank me for bringing a few new females to add to his harem.

The stock trailer is still drying out from when I washed the manure out yesterday after hauling the cattle.

Two new cattle

Today I bought more cattle.  I bought a bred cow and her last year's bred heifer.  They were bred to a black bull.  The cow is 3 1/2 years old.

In the back of my mind I thought I could support one more cow and was open to getting one.  I should have enough hay for this Winter.   There was a Craiglist ad for these two cattle.  Also included was the cow's heifer from this year.

I don't need or want a heifer calf.  If I got the heifer I would have to keep her separate from Buddy until April or so next year.  Even then the heifer may still be a little too small for Buddy to breed as he has gotten pretty big.  So I interested Dan in the heifer and he bought her to go with the four steers he bought from me.

All the cattle are very nice stock.   If the calf was a steer I would have kept it until Spring.  Since cattle prices are so low right now, now is the time to buy if one follows the "Buy low, sell high" strategy.


Tom and Pat (the owners), their son Chris, Dan, Donna and I loaded the cattle into my stock trailer.  The owners and their son had the cattle use to treats and that helped in loading the cow and bred heifer into the trailer.  I placed them in the front half of the trailer and closed the divider to keep them there.

The son and I had to re-position their temporary corral panels to encourage the calf to also get into the trailer.  When herding the cattle I used Dan's sorting stick as I forgot mine.  The cow and calf each kicked once when being herded and the stick allowed me to keep my distance when sorting.

If I used the trailer's back sliding door it had a lip and I felt that would make the trailer entrance even higher.  So I swung the back door open.  I had backed the trailer up to the loading corral.  To close the door that meant driving forward a little bit.  To prevent the calf from bolting out the back of the trailer and getting away the son and Dan slid one corral panel behind the trailer and moved it forward against the trailer as Donna drove my pickup and trailer forward. Once we had room I swung the back door closed as the corral panel was slid to one side.

Everything went well and everyone agreed the cattle loading went better than expected.

I went to Dan's place first and unloaded the heifer.

The loaded cattle with the calf in the back.

The heifer on the left meeting her new buddies (my four steers I sold Dan earlier and who are getting fat).

The steers were all curious about the new girl.  One steer tried to mount her already.  Boys will be boys.

I am keeping the cow and heifer in my corral for a while.  This will allow them to get used to their new home and new friends.  Also, so the cow and heifer don't go wandering off to look for the cow's calf.

Overall all of the cattle are calm and easy going.  The cow does moo occasionally. Even now as I write this post. Probably calling for her calf.

My cattle coming in to see the new cattle.

Mama, Rose and Big Red.

Beulah and the new cattle.

The cow.  She is named Sugar. Probably because of the little white around her udder.

Greeting one another through the corral fence.

My cattle greeting the new cattle.

Sugar.

The new heifer.  Donna thought of naming her 'Spice'.

The Swan Mountains near where Tom and Pat live.

Since Tom and Pat no longer will have any cattle they sold me their seven corral panels. I got them for a good price so I also bought the bent one and the one missing one 'leg'. Tom and Pat once had a calf get its head stuck in the leg and they had to cut the leg off to free the calf.

Tom and Pat are interesting people and both are talkers like me.  They were selling their cattle as he is 85 and she in her late 70s and they no longer wanted to care for cattle over Winter.

Tom is a motorcycle aficionado. He had a half dozen old racing motorcycles he restored (and still restores) and rides.  He has a beautiful old Ducati motorcycle and a Norton motorcycle from the 1960s.  For his 85th birthday Tom he said he took his Ducati out for a ride and (briefly as he is now 85) rode the Ducati 85 mph.  Both Tom and Pat look (and act) younger than their ages.

All of his motorcycles have small seats that really only fit one person.  If you are very young and skinny you can maybe squeeze your wife or girlfriend in very close behind you on the small seat.  And she would have to hold on to you very tightly to keep from falling off.

What a life.

First hay bale

Today I put a large hay bale out for the cattle.  The first of the season.  I used a large bale of last year's leftover hay.

I hauled the bale to the western side of the north pasture.  This area needs the ground to be fertilized.  And I've noticed in the past where I had placed large hay bales the next year the grass grew thicker and better.

When I opened the gate to let the cattle out of the corral they expected me to toss another small bale in the wooden feeder.  I had to lead them out and over to the west side of the pasture where the bale sat.  Once they got close they ran the rest of the way to the feeder.

I had to haul the metal feeder from the east to the west side of the pasture.  Here is the feeder before I rolled it the rest of the way over and tipped it over the bale.

Afterwards I checked the neighbor's fence where Panda had gotten through.  She hadn't broken any wires.  On one post the middle two wires were missing their staples.  I think she then was able to slip through the fence.  That may be why she couldn't find her way back through the fence.

Jailbreak in the dark

No snow yet.  The cattle are still grazing in the pasture and in Calvin's field.  Tomorrow I planned to look at Calvin's field to see how much there is left to eat.  Might be time to give them a large hay bale.  As usual the cattle beat my plans by a day or two.  This evening around 7 pm Curtis called as a car drove up my driveway.  The woman in the car said she saw a black white faced cow on the road.  It has gone to Rusty's yard and seemed to want back on the road according to her.  She last seen the cow heading down the driveway to John's place.

I called Donna for help then went out to look.  As it was 7 pm it was pitch black outside with no moon.

Rusty's pickup was in the driveway with its lights shining down the long driveway.  Rusty and Curtis were out.  Armed with a flashlight I ran down the driveway to John's house to let him know why I would be wandering in his field with a flashlight.  No sign of the missing cow.

John's wife said John told her he had seen four of my cattle in his field before he went to bed. She seen only the one cow. She tried to close their gate but couldn't due to the gate leaning into the ground and grass.  Neither called to let me know.

I closed their gate.  Then I went back to Rusty and Curtis to let them know to keep an eye out for up to four cattle.  Donna arrived and we went back to get my pickup to use the pickup's lights to look for my cattle.

I turned the barn light on.  Some cattle mooed outside the corral in the north pasture.  I got a hay bale and put it in the wooden feeder.  More cattle came.  Once all came I counted and recounted and recounted.  No matter how many times I came up with one cattle missing.  At least Buddy the bull (who is white faced) was here. The white faced cow was also here.  Donna thought she saw Panda.  Maybe the missing cow was a broco faced cow.

I drove back to John's place.   Standing at the end of his driveway was Panda.  I went to open John's gate.  Panda was agitated.  She didn't like being blinded by my pickup's lights.  She ran past the pickup and Donna and went down to where Rusty had his pickup in the driveway.

I decided to take chance and try to let her go down to almost the road where there was a opening in the fence over to Curtis's driveway.  From there I could herd her through my gate between me and Curtis.

I let Curtis and Rusty know to let the cow go past them.  I followed Panda.  I tried walk briskly and not run.  When we got nearer the road I trotted to try to get past Panda so I could herd her to the right and through the fence opening.  After I started to trot Panda began to run to keep ahead of me.

Panda turned through the fence opening.  Instead of making a hard right she continued through Jerry's yard and along the road.  I decided to follow along and not make her go to a hard right.  Maybe I could herd her to my driveway.

Past Jerry's yard Panda walked on the road. She paused at the gate to my NE pasture.  She was still ancy.  I moved closer to open the gate.  As I moved closer Panda continued on to my driveway.

Now approaching down the road was a vehicle.  Hopefully they could see me and my flashlight. Being black Panda would be hard to see on the road.  Then behind me Rusty came with his pickup.  Once Panda she reached my driveway she turned in.  Once she got in to my yard and back to something she remembered she immediately got calmer.  Donna followed us in my pickup.  I closed my driveway gate.   I walked down to the coral gate.  This time Panda did not freak out when I walked past her.  After I opened the gate Panda walked into the corral.  The rest of the cattle were still eating hay.

I closed all the corral gates and am keeping the cattle in the corral overnight.  I went out to the north pasture and closed the gate to Calvin's field.  Tomorrow I will haul a large hay bale out to the north pasture and let the cattle eat on it.

Curtis and Rusty thought this was fun.  Me, I'm glad it turned out well, though I could have done without the excitement.

Disc problems

I have completed pass number two in the hayfield.  I have a few more passes to complete before the field is ready for planting.  This is taking much longer than I anticipated, both because I can only go so fast and because I don't get a large block to time each day to pull the disc.  I think back to being a software developer when I lamented that I could write so much more code if I didn't have so many meetings and distractions.

Also slowing me down is that I lost a part from my tractor the day I finished the second pass.  One arm of the three point hitch has a threaded rod that is used to adjust that arm's height so both arms match their height.  Sometime when discing the rod unscrewed from both sides and is somewhere in the field.

I think I lost the rod the last day but am not 100% positive.  I can tell from the fresh dirt where I pulled disc the final day.  I searched that area plus some area around it that was from the previous day.

Nothing.

While the rod is long and thick, some of the field has been gone over more than twice and has lots of loose dirt.  Perhaps the rod is completely buried.

Curtis has a metal detector.  Over three days I walked in a tight grid pattern the area of the hayfield in question.  The last afternoon in the cold, damp, and snow flurries.  The metal detector went off frequently.  A second pass of the metal detector: nothing.  If the detector signaled twice I kicked at the loose dirt to reach hard ground.

Nothing.

All that effort and I didn't find the rod.

It was hard to search as it has started raining again recently and the field is muddy.  As I walked my mud boots collected mud making my feet heavy.  I also would gain a few inches on the bottom of the boots until I kicked the mud off, only to attract mud again.

The rod will turn up.  Maybe when I disc again.  Maybe when I harrow.  Maybe it will work its way out of the ground over time.  I prefer to find the rod sooner than later.

Fortunately I don't use the three point hitch very much.  Today I wired the two pieces of the three point arm together.  Then I pulled the disc again.   It rained again last night but I decided to try to pull the disc this afternoon.  The lower areas were wetter and the tractor would bog down until I revved the motor.  A few times I had to raise the disc up until I started going again.  I only disced for an hour until I gave up for the day.


Earlier I had added a few railroad ties to the disc to make it cut into the ground deeper.

The wired three point arm is on the right side.

Woodstove crack

My wood stove developed a crack last week.  I drilled a hole at the end of the crack to stop it from spreading.  Curtis brought his portable welder over and welded the crack together.  I had trouble getting the chimney collar off so he welded the stove up to the collar.

Later when the weld cooled it started to crack from the collar.  So this time I took the collar off and the next day Curtis welded the crack all the way.

When the weld cooled it cracked again.  We could hear, then see, the crack forming as the stove cooled.  So Curtis cut a small piece of scrap metal.  I drilled through the stove and bolted the metal over the crack.  That should fix the problem.

The crack and my drilled hole to stop it.

Crack spreading into the weld.

The second weld before I laid the plate over it.  I smoothed the weld.  The 'wet' part is the liquid woodstove glue used to attach insulation pieces to the woodstove.  I felt it couldn't hurt to try to do extra to seal the crack and not just rely on the metal piece.

The finished result.

Curtis had earlier tossed the metal piece in his woodstove to darken the shiny metal to match my woodstove's color. My camera's flash heightens the difference.  Without the flash the metal piece more closely matches my woodstove.

I have used my woodstove a few times and everything seems to work fine now.

Curtis wouldn't take any money for his help.  So today in gratitude, for this and other favors Curtis has done for me, I spent three hours helping Curtis tear out carpeting in a burnt house Curtis and his business partner bought for investment purposes.  We also removed a few appliances and other items not to be burnt.  They are getting a local fire department later this month to burn down the house to use for their fire training.  Curtis and I hauled to the landfill two full pickup loads of stuff.

Bicycle light crash

The evenings are now getting dark when I go for my end of day bicycle ride.  Today I fixed my bicycle light.  The batteries were old and corroded and even the plastic shell holding the lighting unit had corrosion sitting in it.  So I replaced the light with another one I had.

Tonight when cars were nearby I turned my bicycle light on.   I was over two miles from home when I encountered several new small potholes.  Even with the light on I didn't see them and I went flying over my bicycle handlebars and slightly to the right side.  So much for having a light - I see better without one.

I got entangled in my bicycle and hit the ground hard.  I lost my hat and bicycle computer.  I had to use my bicycle light to find them in the ditch.  My nice florescent yellow coat now has black on it from sliding on the pavement.

As you can see I bumped my head.  I didn't lose consciousness.  I also got some road rash on my gloved hand and mainly my right knee. My head bump is sore but my scraped knee is the most annoying.

I rode home with no problem.

Northern jailbreak

My neighbor Calvin called me around 9 am this morning.  He saw four of my cattle in his pasture.  I went out there.  He had six of my cattle: Buddy, Beulah, Mama, Number 7, Panda and one other cow.

They broke two fence wires and got through the fence.  I fixed the wires.

The rest of the herd was along my fence in another location and wanted into Calvin's field to join the others.  They hadn't seen how these six got through the fence.  Since I cut Calvin's field this Summer for hay, he doesn't have a lot of grass for the cattle to eat.  But there is enough to last them a little while.

Since Buddy and Number 7 were in Calvin's field, one of these two were mostly likely the ones who broke the fence.  Even though I patched the fence, the barb wires here are old.  If Buddy wanted to he could break them again.  Once Buddy knows of a way though a fence he doesn't forget.  With rain forecast every day this week I didn't want to go out daily to herd cattle from Calvin's field, especially in the rain.

Calvin didn't mind if the cattle were in his field now so I got my corral panels and set up a 'fence' to keep the cattle away from Calvin's 'stuff' that he stores in his field.  I used his old trailer as part of the fence.

Of course by the time I finished the corral fence the cattle all had come over to the 'stuff'.  Since it looked like I was trying to keep them from something, they wanted to be over there even more.

I left an opening in the corral 'fence' to herd the cattle through.  They didn't want to go.  We went around in circles as they had stuff to use to keep from walking in a straight line.  I got Curtis to help me keep the cattle from going in circles and in no time we got the cattle through the corral 'fence'.

Later I checked Calvin's fence for missing staples and wire clips for this fence's wood and metal posts.  Then I opened the gate between Calvin's and my fields.  By now all the cattle were more interesting in taking their siesta time.  Later in the afternoon some grazed in my field and some in Calvin's.

Laying in Calvin's field by the gate.

Why did the cattle want in Calvin's field?  The grass is greener in my field.

So this took up my morning.  After eating breakfast and replacing a worn bicycle tire and fixing a flat, I got back to discing my hay field.  I'm still working on the second pass.  I never seem to get a full day to work on discing.

Election judge

I was a chief election judge again this election.  Ted, Terry and Joan came back as election judges.  William did not.  I had left a phone message for him, then when I tried again to call him his phone had been disconnected.  I sent him an email.  No reply.  That is, no reply until 4 pm the day before the election when he called to apologize for not contacting me earlier.  He wanted to work at the election.  I called him back, left a voice mail me on his answering machine but he never returned my call.  So I convinced Donna to be an election judge.

We were busy but not overwhelmed.  There was a long line outside when we opened the polls at 7 am but after we worked through that line I don't think we had a line over more than a half dozen people at a time.  Still, the stream of voters were mostly steady and that helped the day pass quicker over the 15 hours we were at the voting site.

No machine or other problems this time and the election went smooth.

My only problem was the following.  Our polling place is in a church.  Each year - from prior to me working there to the present election - the judges took down all religious material for the election than replaced everything after the election.  Apparently they wanted no controversy about the separation of church and state.  No one ever complained one way or another, and neither did the pastors during my time.  The church doesn't have a pastor right now and apparently the church members complained about the last election and got the election dept to agree to not take the religious materials down for this election.  But no one told me.  So I got chewed out by a church official on election day when she saw we had taken down the religious posters and moved the table with all the religious material into a side hallway.  An election dept official apologized to me for forgetting to tell me about the new policy.

First pass done with disc

Today I finished the first pass of discing the hay field.  Only took me three days.

The middle of the hay field has a slight dip.  I imagine it was from when the field was last plowed.  Also the cattle made a path in the dip when going from one end of the field to the other.  This further increased the dip.  The dip was narrow enough the disc glided over it.  Since the sun had set, and it was getting dark by the time I finished the first pass of the field, I decided to do circles over the dip.  The disc seems to cut a little more when I turn a tight circle.

So I was going around and around and around and around to cut through and fill in the dip.  Donna had stopped by the house while I was doing this and she had no idea why I was driving in tight circles.  She remembered from years ago down the road when a farmer who was plowing his field died as he drove his tractor.  He slumped over and the tractor ended up driving in circles until someone found him.  So she thought something happened to me and she came out to check on me.

Nope.  I was just being me.  Driving in tight circles for a goofy reason.


After I parked the tractor for the night Kelly came up.  He had shot a nice buck and wanted to drive out to my pasture to retrieve it.  We lifted the deer into his pickup bed and drove to the hay field to gut and clean the deer.  In the hay field I don't have to worry about the cattle getting into the guts and innards.  Usually by morning it is all gone as the coyotes and/or birds eat it quickly.

The flat tire

I added dense heavy wooden blocks for weight on the disc so it would cut deeper.

The grooves in front of the tractor are from the initial pass. I overlap each time by half a 'row' to get a good cut.

A little left to do

Even disc'd underneath the towers

As seen from this one pass, the disc just fits between the legs of this tower.

Sunset and a little left of the field to disc.

Accidental photo

Starting to disc

I thought I would have my hay field dug up by now.  Back in September Wyatt said he could plow my hay field in October once the grass and alfalfa were killed.  Then I would drag a disc over the field to break up the dirt clods, then a harrow to make it smooth and fine.

Well, Wyatt - though laid off, is still working in helping the company to shut down the plant.  This will continue into December.  So he doesn't have time to plow my hay field.

But he said since I sprayed and killed off the alfalfa and grass, that dragging a disc would be sufficient.  He lent his disc a few years ago to a woman down the road and would get it back so I could use it.  I checked a few times and he still hadn't gotten the disc.  Finally he said he had another disc out in his back field.  We measured the disc and it would just fit through my gates.  My gate is 16 ft and his disc is a little over 15 ft.  First he had to put in a hydraulic cylinder and replace the hoses.

Once I took a shower, washed two loads of clothes and then picked up and stacked a pickup load of logs, I got the disc this afternoon. While I still have a few more pickup loads of logs to get and stack, cutting up the field before Winter is more important.

The disc barely fit through my gates.  I had to be really precise in pulling the disc through the gates.

After I got the disc through the first gate I noticed one tire was flat. The tire is old and had sat in the sun.  The thread came apart.  The tires are only really needed when lifting the disc up and transporting it.  With the tire flat, even with the disc lifted all the way up. the back row on that side slightly drags on the ground.

So I am pulling the disc now to cut up my hay field and will wait till later to pull the wheel off and have Wyatt replace the tire.  In the video below look at the tire on the right side to see the tear.

The disc is very noisy.  Very noisy.   Squeak!  Squeak!! Squeak!!!   I don't think it had been used in a long time.  I shut my tractor window and turn the radio up.

The disc cuts the ground but I find I will have to pull it around my hay field many times to cut up the ground good.  In my original plan where Wyatt first plowed the field I imagined I would have spend only two to three days to disc and harrow the field.  From what I got done in three hours today it looks that it will be much longer than that. 

Brown: sprayed.  Green: not sprayed.

Here is a 30 second video of the disc in action:  https://youtu.be/uQd3V3DnOsM

October precip record

What a wet month!!!  I am so over rain!    Normally we get 1.01 inches of precipitation in October.  A relatively dry month.  The (now old) record was 3.40 inches back in 1914.  This year we had 4.86 inches of precipitation!!!  We waayyy exceeded the old record. I say 'precipitation' and not rain as part of the amount is from one inch of snow.

The days without precipitation can be easily counted on one hand.  A few times during the month the roads would briefly get dry but that's about it.  The second to last day of the month the sun came out and it was blinding.  The river has risen quite a bit since the rain started and is quite high for this time of year.  Starting a fire in the wood stove can be a challenge as everything is so damp.

As a result I didn't get much done in October.  I got my firewood split and most (all that I wanted to) of the downed pasture trees cut into logs.  I believe I cut into logs thirteen large trees.  I also cut parts of at least a half dozen other trees. I'll finish cutting them next year.

I'm currently stacking the logs in the back yard so they can be split next year.  I have more logs than what can fit so I plan to stack the rest of the logs in the pasture.  Also slowing me down is that I am taking the bark off the logs that I can.  Most of the logs have loose bark but the last few trees to fall have their bark still firmly attached.

Prior to October my goals to complete before Winter included:

1. Split firewood and cut trees into logs
2. Plow my hayfield
3. Re-build a fence between the corral and the hayshed.
4. Remodel the house room with the wood stove.

It doesn't look like I will get all four items done as I am still working on item number 1.  November is forecast to be average temperatures but a 33% chance of higher than normal precipitation.