Ranching

Sleep, squirrel, snow and hay

Friday night Donna and I attended a bull riding event.  

I think less than half of the 34 contestants stayed on their bull 8 seconds.   More time was taken in getting ready for the next bull rider.   A few times I yawned.  Donna thought I was bored.  Actually I was a little tired.  When I got home at 10 pm I watched the local news and weather.  I don't think I made it through the next commercials before I fell asleep sitting on the loveseat.  I woke up over two hours later at 12:30 am.  Daisy who went outside when I was watching the news was eager to get back in the house.  After checking on the cattle's water trough, I went to bed.

You'd think I would get up earlier than usual the next day.  Nope.  Daisy woke me up to go outside at 6:50 am.  Even though I had slept for 8 1/2 hours I quickly fell back asleep.  I checked and called for her a half hour later and she was nowhere to be found.

At 7:50 am I was awoken to a loud bang against the living room window.  I got up and looked.  A squirrel was on the ground digging in the snow for any missed sunflower seeds.  Apparently the squirrel had jumped for the suet cage and missed.  Even with 9 1/2 hours of sleep, I quickly fell back asleep.

Fifteen minutes later I was awoken to a softer bang against the widow.  This time I found the squirrel wrapped around the suet cage and trying to eat suet as the cage swung here and there.  I knocked on the window glass and scared the squirrel off.

I waited and the squirrel made its way back up the shrub.  When I saw which branch it planned to jump from to the cage I decided to get up for the day.  I trimmed the shrub lower.   I'll learn tomorrow if this finally works.


Today I put out two more large hay bales for the cattle.  Since I had left the tractor's bucket in the back yard and not the corral I was able to easily put it back on the tractor.  I scraped up the remainder of the last snowfall from the yard and driveway, then drove out to scrape clear another area for the two hay feeders.  The previous area was mucky with water from melted snow and manure.

I moved snow from a large pile in the yard out to the NE pasture.

Ooops.  So that is where my fence is located.  Another repair job this Spring.

Bird feeder and a squirrel

This past Summer a squirrel was run over on the road nearby.  I hoped that was the squirrel who tried to eat my bird's food last year.  Today a squirrel showed up at the feeders.  Darn!

This afternoon I woke up from an unplanned nap to find a squirrel sitting and eating in the 'umbrella' feeder seen below.  None of the birds had eaten the black sunflower seeds since I put them out weeks ago so I am not too upset that the squirrel ate all the seeds.

But then - after another unplanned nap -I found the squirrel trying to eat from the suet feeder.  Last year I had trimmed the shrub shorter and also raised the suet cage slightly when I found that squirrel could leap from the shrub to jump on the suet cage.   This year I found the squirrel standing on a shrub twig of a branch and holding onto the suet cage and trying to eat the suet.

After I chased the squirrel off into and up the pine tree in the background I worked on the suet cage.  I attempted to raise the suet cage higher.  Standing precariously on ladder in the snow and up against the house wall I tried to raise the wire holding the cage.  Too much pressure and the thin wire broke.

I didn't fall.  I got a different thicker wire and hooked it up to the roof on the house roof overhang.

Then I trimmed the shrub down even shorter.  I'll see tomorrow if this is enough to keep the @#$% squirrel from the feeder.

Preparing for the storm

The weather forecasters still insist we are going to get lots of snow and wind.  It hasn't happened yet.  Today must be the lull between the snow events.  The temperature warmed up above freezing today and by the end of the day it was raining lightly.  While rain in the Winter is not so good, the longer it rains the less it will snow.  Daisy insisted on going outside several times tonight.  Each time when she came back inside the house she expected me to rub the water off her wet fur.

Today it was time to put out two more large hay bales for the cattle.  I still have the - now - 16.6 inches of snow to clear so I put the bucket on my tractor and pushed snow.  First I had to distract the cattle with some small hay bales so I could enter the corral and get the bucket from there.

First I cleared the yard and the driveway then I cleared a path to the large bales and out to the pasture.  I had been just driving through the snow in the pasture, and probably still could even do so with this additional snow, but I wanted to use the tractor to clear a large area for the two hay bales out in the pasture.  I prefer to have an area free of snow for the hay rather than plopping the bales down in the snowbank.  And using the tractor I made an area large enough that the cattle don't have to stand in the snow to eat and have room nearby where they can lay down to rest.

I pushed most of the snow for the hay bales east of the bales.  If the wind blows as predicted it may be a little bit of a wind block for the cattle when they are eating from the bales.  The downside is the snow hill mostly blocks the view of the cattle from the backyard and corral.

The wild turkeys like it when I clear the yard.

The snow is piling up in the backyard.

Tree pruning

Now that it is Winter, once again I pruned my two apple trees.

In the next few days I will prune my neighbor's apple tree.