Another day after the storm

This morning the sun was out.  The temperature was 3 degrees.

That's a bird on the bottom of the suet cage.

More snow shoveling today.  I shoveled a driving path from the house to the pole shed in the backyard.  I am in no rush to drive anywhere so I planned on shoveling the front driveway to the road tomorrow and/or Tuesday.  But in the afternoon my neighbor Calvin called and said he could plow out my driveway.   I tried to decline saying I would get to it and I was in no hurry but he said he could stop by and plow it for me on his way home.  It was no problem for him to do so.

All right then.

He plowed the driveway to the house with his pickup and plow.  He has a really nice V plow.  Since that went quick I had him plow a path to the hayshed from the garage.  It is nicer when I get hay for the cattle if I go through the NE pasture first.  It saves me from having to drive through the corral with the cattle and multiple opening and closing of gates.

I still have a little snow to shovel in the very backyard so it isn't like I got all lazy and have nothing to do.

I cooked my Christmas turkey today.  The only turkeys left on sale were 21 pounds.  This is the biggest turkey I ever cooked.  Good thing I love eating turkey.   Oh... and Calvin gave me three large packages of meat from the deer he and his son shot this year.  So January looks to be a month of eating meat.

Happy New Year!

After the storm

The wind was gone when I woke up this morning.  There was lots of snow.  Since Thursday we have had 13.2 inches of snow.  I spent all morning shoveling paths through the snow to get to places.  Even though my pickup has four wheel drive I shoveled out wheel tracks in the backyard and NE pasture where the old tracks had drifted in.  Still I got stuck briefly when driving in the north pasture through the snow.  I stocked up on groceries before the storm so clearing more snow will wait until another day when the snow has fully stopped.

The cattle waited patiently as I shoveled snow for me to reach their hay.

Winter Storm

I am in the midst of a major Winter storm.  It started early this morning and is forecast to last until 5 pm on Saturday.

 Winter Storm Warning remains in effect until 5 PM MST Saturday...

* what... heavy snow and blowing snow occurring. Travel will be very difficult to impossible. Additional snow accumulations of 4 to 8 inches, are expected.

* Where... Flathead Lake, Flathead Valley, Mission Valley, and Polson.

* When... until 5 PM MST Saturday.

* Additional details... winds gusting as high as 30 mph will cause areas of blowing and drifting snow. Cold wind chills as low as 10 below zero will cause frostbite in as little as 30 minutes to exposed skin.

As the day went on the storm got worse.  This morning it was cold and a challenge to get hay and feed the cattle. Once I fed the cattle I loaded more hay into the pickup so that in the late afternoon all I had to do was drive into the corral and unload the hay.  This morning I had very cold fingers by the time I was done even though I wore double gloves.  I had hoped the worst was today and tomorrow would be a little better. But as the day went on the wind got worse.  The 20+ mph wind speed now is 30+ after dark.   The wind gusts are up to 40 mph. Tomorrow morning may be a challenge to feed the cattle.

Other than when they ate, the cattle stood either in the loafing shed and just outside of it and out of the wind.  The few cattle standing outside were white from the snow that fell on them and did not melt off their fur.

The snow prediction was 12 to 18 (or more) inches of snow.  Since the wind is so strong it is hard to tell how much snow we have gotten.  It didn't really seem this afternoon that much snow was falling but by evening areas out of the wind had deep snow.  That snow is dense so it may be more wind driven than falling.

The wind is so strong, standing by the front door, I could easily feel the breeze coming around the edges of the door.  And that is with a screened door outside the front door.  I put rags in between the doors to stop the wind coming from the crack under the screened door.  That helped a little.  Otherwise, once I cleaned my wood stove and restarted the fire, the stove has easily heated the house. I love my wood stove.

The wind is really howling.  All sorts of sounds from outside of things rattling.  An old ceramic wall hanging outside my front door blew off late afternoon and shattered.  The temp is 6 degrees and the wind chill right now is -12 degrees.  That is still warmer than the actual air temperature of -15 degrees where my brother lives in North Dakota.

The following photos were taken this morning before the wind got crazy, and when one could see.

Current cattle feeding routine

Instead of taking 3 to 4 days to go through a large bale of the oat, grain and pea hay the cattle had been going through a bale in two days. Since the cattle go through a bale like candy I needed to alter their feed routine or I will end up way short of hay by Spring.   And it wouldn't hurt for the cattle to eat less as they are all fat.

So... rather than putting a large bale in one of the round metal feeders for an all-you-can-eat buffet, I am breaking the bale into sections.  Twice a day - in the morning and then in the late afternoon - I fill the pickup's bed with hay, which I then put into the two wooden feeders in the corral.  This way a bale lasts four days, which makes the extra work worthwhile.

A little over half of a bale left.

The cattle hang in the corral as I load the hay.  I close the gate to lock them in there.  Once I get the hay loaded and the pickup out into the north pasture, I close the gate to the NE pasture and then open the corral gate.

When I started this routine the cattle couldn't wait and came out of the corral to get the hay from the pickup before I could drive into the corral.

Mama is the brown cow on the right side.

Once the cattle are out of the corral I drive into the corral, jump out of the pickup and shut the gate locking the cattle out of the corral.  Otherwise the cattle crowd the pickup and feeder in the corral as I unload the hay and I then have to be careful not to poke the cattle with the pitchfork as I put the hay into the feeder.

Waiting to come back into the corral.

Beulah, Panda and the rest.

Tobey the bull

Here is a 1 minute 13 second video of the cattle coming back into the corral to eat hay: https://youtu.be/9h_vcKUYMLc


Now that I have been doing this over a week some of the cattle realized it was better to wait in the corral by the large feeder.  These cattle were usually the smarter cows and/or cows on the lower end of the pecking order who get pushed away by the other larger cows.  Some cows still come out to the pickup.  These tend to be the impatient and/or bullying cows.  The bull is in this group as he appears to be impatient.  While most cows now want to wait, if one impatient cow comes out of the corral to the pickup, and I wait a few minutes, then much of the rest of the herd comes out as they don't want to "miss out".    Tonight Mama and Red came out, and after much of the herd came out, they turned around and went back into the corral before I was able to drive into the corral and close the gate.   That's how smart those two are.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

With all the recent snow we definitely have a White Christmas and a Winter Wonderland.

Recent snow

The big snow event came and went.  Tonight and tomorrow is round 2 - though this event is supposed to be only a few inches of new snow.  The other difference is we are supposed to have very strong winds, up to 35 mph, then colder temperatures.  The previous snow totaled between 10 and 12 inches.  I am still shoveling snow off the driveway.  I do have paths shoveled to the corral, barn and outbuildings.  I imagine the strong winds forecast will fill those paths in with snow.

The snow has pretty much shut down all my projects on the ranch.

Daisy is taking the weather change well.  Not too much complaining about it to me.  She doesn't spend much time outside now.  So I see much more of her and also have her laying on my lap much more.

Ash from my wood burning stove on the new snow.

Winter weather

After a false start November 1st, then a reprieve, Winter is now here.  It starting snowing early this morning and has snowed non-stop all day, and is forecast to snow into Wednesday.  The forecast predicts 10 to 18 inches of snow for us in the Valley with much more in the mountains.

I have only shoveled paths through the snow to get the mail, get to buildings, and feed the cattle.  By the time I get to the end the beginning is snowed over again.  Daisy only goes outside long enough to either double-check the weather or go to the bathroom.  She is curled up in the mudroom's sink as I write this after having spent most of the afternoon sleeping on my lap.

These photos were taken this morning.  By nightfall there was lots more snow.

Inversion

We are still under a strong inversion.  Each day the temperature range has shrunk slightly from around 30 degrees to the mid 20s.  As you can see below, under an inversion, the temperature doesn't change much during the day.

While we are windless under an inversion, there is certainly a chill in the air as the cold air sinks and settles in the valley between the mountains.

From below the inversion the photos are unremarkable - nothing but grey.  Here are some photos of what an inversion looks like from above.  These photos were taken recently by a guy whose blog I follow.  The photos were taken in the Clark Fork valley, about 100 miles south / southwest of here.

https://montucky.wordpress.com/2017/12/10/a-visit-to-corona-divide/

Broken corral fence board

This morning I found one of the boards was broken in the corral fence.  No idea how it was broken.  It appears it was broken from inside the corral.  The heifers aren't big enough to break it.  Perhaps cow #20 pushed a heifer out of the way and into the board.  No heifers got out of the coral or cows got into the corral before I replaced the board.

I went to get my camera and cow #7's fat heifer calf came over and checked out my tools.

After I finished the work Mama's heifer calf immediately came over to check out my work.

Moon, clouds, tree

Before I went to bed at 1:30 am I went outside to check the weather. The moon was almost full.  There were clouds moving by.  I took a few photos.

Loafing shed complete

This afternoon I finished the repairs on my loafing shed.  I added some metal pieces to cover the gaps in the roof and wall where the roof was rebuilt after it had blown off, and a little beyond where the roof blew off.   No, the pieces don't match.  The loafing shed is old, beat up, this is the backside, and one works with what they have.   It is snowing tonight, so once again I just finish a project in time.

Hayfield gate

Since this back to normal to slightly warmer weather came the snow melted away. (Thank you again for sharing some of your global warming with us. We all out here appreciate it as no one is ready for Winter to start.)   With the nicer weather I went back to redoing some of my gates.  Yesterday I finished the hayfield gate.

I replaced the old barb wire string gate with two 12 foot metal gates.  I put this higher on my to-do list after this Summer I saw Buddy the bull standing at - and kind of over - the gate when the neighbor's bull was across the road.  Buddy could have took one step forward and easily walked through the old gate.  If he only knew.

Even though the left railroad tie is kind of wimpy, I kept it.  I didn't feel like re-doing that side with different railroad ties, especially since I didn't know if the weather would hold.  It is not important for both sides to match, though visually it would be nice.

Once the gates were done I let the cattle have access again to the hayfield.  The first thing they did was go over to check out the gates.

Black Friday

The predicted windstorm for Thanksgiving Day did not happen.  Hurray!!!

Today I did a little Black Friday shopping for the cattle.  Usually Murdoch's Farm and Ranch store's Black Friday event is 15% off.  This year their sale was only 10% off.  So I didn't buy a new 16 foot green HW gate as I don't want to pay more than $150 for a gate, even if it is new.

I did stock up on salt blocks for the cattle to last the next year.   I also bought two Vitalix mineral tubs for the cattle.  I like to supplement the cattle's hay with a mineral lick at the end of their pregnancy.  This year I bought two tubs to length the time they can lick the minerals.  If I remember right a 250 lb tub will last them six weeks.  The sale price was $101 so the mineral tubs are not cheap.

The tubs are heavy.  It took three of us to safely lift the tubs into my pickup.  Two people can lift the tubs but when two of us lifted the first tub the other guy had trouble lifting the tub high enough and started to wobble until the other employee quickly came over to help us.

So I used my tractor to lift the tubs out of the pickup.  For now I will store the tubs in the barn until I use them later this Winter.

After the 8.3 inches of snow melted, the corral is muddy as you can see below.

Lately the turkeys have been hanging around the hayfield.  Other than on Thanksgiving Day when they disappeared.

The sun came out late this afternoon.