Hay, irrigation, hamburger and bicycle

Today I finished my hay gathering for the year.  I finally found time to get some small square hay bales from Wyatt.  They can be useful, especially when I am feeding them to the injured cow and calves.  I couldn't wait much longer as his hay is selling fast.

I got 80 bales over three pickup loads.  The first load was 39 bales but I found it harder to unload the top bale into the barn as the bale was higher than the barn door.  The other loads were 31 bales and 10 bales.  I tried to get the bales hauled and stacked in the barn before the temperature got hot and I ran out of energy.  I had room in the barn for more bales but Wyatt wanted to make sure his 'horse ladies' had enough hay.

39 bales

Less than 10% of my pastures have trees.  But it seems that each time at least one irrigation line has a tree or tree stump where the line should go.  Today when I skirted a tree the sprinkler was located right next to the tree.  I had to swap a 40 foot section with a 20 foot section to move the sprinkler location.

Tonight the calves and heifers were at it again.  They kept tipping the long line over at I tried to move pipes.  I set the sprinklers upright and after I got another pipe I found the line tipped over again.  One time they waited until I was about to insert another piece of pipe.  After one or two times it gets old fast and they did this for a dozen or so pieces of pipe.  So lots of yelling by me before long.

The cow with the bad leg is still limping bad.  The bull calls out multiple times a day for his cows.  His cows ignore him now that they got what they wanted from him.


This morning I called my meat processor with the amount of 93% lean versus 85% lean.   He informed me I had two more trays (about 100 pounds) of hamburger from the first cow.  A rack of trays holds seven trays and I had nine trays.  His workers overlooked the two extra trays in the freezer when I picked up the hamburger.  In a week I will have another cow of hamburger and now I have an additional 100 pounds to sell.  I am drowning in hamburger.


The Monday auction had a bicycle I was interested as a second bicycle.  I went and checked it out and made sure everything worked.  I really liked the bicycle.  The problem: the frame size appeared to be one size too small.  There are adjustments that can be made, but until I rode the bicycle after the adjustments I wouldn't know if they would work.    The bicycle sold for $230.  If the frame fit I would have paid that or more as the bicycle was worth it.  But that was too much for a bicycle that may not fit right.

It has been three days since my last crisis.  The longest period in over a month.  Maybe things are settling down.