North pasture gate and fence rebuild

Back in the end of May and beginning of June (when Blogger was not forwarding posts in emails) I replaced a gate and rebuilt part of the north pasture's north fence.

The previous gate was a barb wire gate.  It was both loose and then tight in spots and hard to open and close.  The fence was just five strands of loose barb wire.  Most of the wooden fence posts were rotted and were only standing because the wires were holding them up, and the wooden fence posts were keeping the wires apart.  Steel posts were added to patch the fence and nothing was on an eight foot interval for posts.  In other words the fence needed to be rebuilt.

Last year I bought a 16 foot metal gate at an auction.

The old gate wasn't in a position I considered the best so I moved the gate's location.  This part of the pasture can be rocky and I ended up digging through rock and gravel for three of the four railroad tie fence posts.  I had to use a metal bar to break up the ground to get the rocks and gravel loose.  Normally I can dig a hole for a railroad tie in 15 minutes but these holes took forty-five minutes to an hour of hard work.

Rocks dug out to put the railroad tie posts in the ground.

Before I had to rotate the cattle back into the north pasture and stop the fence work, I also rebuilt the fence from the gate to an area closer to the river (where I had rebuilt that section of fence over ten years ago).   I replaced all of the 5 and half foot metal posts with six foot posts.  Only a couple of wood posts were reusable.  Surprisingly the only original post that was on the new 8 foot post interval was one of the two good wood posts.

46 fence posts for 368 feet.   Re-stringing or adding new strands of barb wire took an hour and a half per strand.  The rebuilt fence has 8 strands of barb wire.

I still had the fence from the gate to Calvin's yard left to rebuild.  I thought once I rotated the cattle out of the north pasture after five days I would finish the fence rebuild.  But then all the cattle and hay crises started to happen the end of June and all of July.

Old fence yet to be rebuilt

When I cut Calvin's field in July I noticed that where the rebuilt fence was located, the grass in Calvin's field grew all the way to the fence.  In the old five strand fence yet to be rebuilt the cattle put their head through and ate a little of the grass on Calvin's side.

Finally(!) on September 20 through the morning of the 23rd I finished the fence rebuild from the gate to where Calvin's yard starts.  38 fence posts.  I replaced all these fence posts.

Old fence to be rebuilt

New rebuilt fence

A nice tight evenly spaced fence is a beautiful sight.  And peace of mind.

Two of the old metal fence posts were 8 feet long.  They looked like they were 5 and 1/2 feet long as they were pounded into the ground deeper to be the same height as the 5 and 1/2 foot posts.  One of the 8 foot posts had a dead tree root over the post's triangle stabilizer.  That was a challenge to remove so I could get the post out.  There was no tree nearby so that post most have been in the ground for many years, maybe even back to 1941 when the ranch was created.

8 foot metal post hole

Where Calvin's pasture ends and yard start is not a corner post for me.  Even though the original five strands of barb wire continues on, you can see how the three new strands of wire tilted the new post when I stretched the wires tight.  And that was after I tried to not stretch the wires too tight to keep this from happening.

Now that the fence rebuild is finally done... another thing crossed off my to-do list before Winter.

South pasture gate

With the cattle still in Calvin's field I took the opportunity to add another gate to the south pasture.  The gate is at the south corner between the pasture and hayfield.  That now makes three gates in the south pasture / hayfield fence: north corner, middle, south corner.  It is handy to have gates in the corners as the cows go there when they don't want to be herded out of the field.

Jan's tree

One of Jan's aspen trees died this Summer.  Today I finally found time to cut it down for her.

And it was a job to cut this tree down! The tree was near power lines and tall enough that some branches could reach the lines if the tree fell that way.  I was not 100% positive I could cut the tree to fall away from the lines.  So I climbed up an extension ladder and carefully cut off branches before cutting near the top of the tree to lower its height below the power line height.

When I cut the tree trunk I was able to push it to fall away from the lines.

Even though the tree has been dead all Summer it wasn't dry.  And the wood was dense.  That made for hard and slow cutting.  I had sharpened the chainsaw chain prior to cutting the tree and had to sharpen the chain again after cutting the tree.  I cut the tree trunk into smaller logs and those logs were heavy.

It doesn't look like it would take that long, but I spent four hours cutting down and then up the tree.  A cold front came during this time.  The wind really blew, the sky got cloudy, and the temperature got colder.

I had three tanks of gas left, and after cleaning up Jan's tree, I cut some of my fallen trees in the pasture.  I have lots more fallen trees left to cut up!

Cow, calves, sunset

Now that the calves have calmed down, and eaten most of the partial hay bale I had set out, it was time to let them into the NE pasture and grass. As one of the calves has as her mother cow #60 - the cow with the injured leg - what to do?  Well, cow 60 is mostly healed.  She is walking very well.

Look at how nice her leg has healed!

So I let cow 60 out of the corral to be with the other cows.  Then I could let all the calves out of the corral and into the NE pasture.

Before I let cow 60 out of the corral I gave her and some calves apples to eat.  Later I gave some calves more apples.  Cow 60 is looking on from outside the corral in back of the photo.   Daisy - who I earlier saw at a neighbor's house - is helping with the apples.

Daisy had a busy day with me.  After feeding the calves, Daisy came with me to the south pasture to check on the pocket gopher traps.  When I left to work on a gate Daisy disappeared.  When it was time to go back to the house Daisy was still nowhere to be found.  After I ate a full breakfast and returned to work on the gate Daisy came from the pasture.  He came with me while I worked on the gate.  Once we were done late afternoon Daisy was ready for food and then to sleep.


This evening's sunset.

Calves and fence work

The calves are a little calmer.  At least one calf lost her voice.  She opens her mouth and no sound comes out.  The rest are hoarse.  They aren't mooing non-stop anymore.

In the morning everyone was relaxing in the warm sun to a cool/cold 30 degree start to the morning.  The mothers are laying just outside the corral.

With the extra panels from my weed hay corral downsize I now had enough corral panels to stretch across Calvin's pasture.  With my pasture grass short, and my inability (reluctance) to pasture the cattle in my hayfield this year, I decided to put in the effort to pasture the cattle for a little while in Calvin's pasture.  It is some effort as I have to set up 20 corral panels to block the cattle from getting into his extra vehicles, buildings, and stuff in the east part of his pasture.  Most years I don't bother.

Since the grass is dry and short where I put the line of corral panels I shouldn't have a problem with the cattle pushing against the panels.  But these are my cattle, and I have Maria, so I pounded in steel fence posts to reinforce the corral panels.

The cows came running when I opened the gate and called them.  Toby the bull took his time sauntering over.  The calves were not happy their mothers were now farther away.


With the cattle in the north pasture, and now also Calvin's pasture, I am taking time to work a little on the south fence. The cattle had been reaching through the fence to try to eat from the hayfield.  The barb wires held and did not break.  But all that irrigating earlier made the ground soft and while the wires didn't break, the fence posts were stressed.  The one gate has a slide bolt to lock the gate closed.  The bolt slid into the end post.  Over the Summer the post leaned further from the gate until I had to put a chain around the gate and post to hold the gate closed.

I replaced the end posts with railroad ties as end posts.  Something more substantial and less likely to lean in the future.

You can see my fence evolution over the years.  From wires "x"ing the end posts along with a few two by fours, to now just nailing up some boards less than 8 feet long from my board pile.

I am working on another gate in the south pasture.  Here is tonight's sunset as I worked.

Weed hay corral update

My friend Patti in Wisconsin, when not swatting mosquitoes, sent me one of my photos back with comments.

I fixed and adjusted my corral panels around my weed hay.  I took the panels apart and drove my tractor down there. With the tractor's bale spear I moved and somewhat stacked the hay to make a smaller footprint. I would have preferred a larger footprint so that the hay might decompose quicker, but the cattle nixed that plan.

I went from 13 panels down to 7 panels.  Formerly I usually had one steel fence post for each panel.  Now I have two fence posts for each panel.  Each post is wired tight to a panel.   Maybe - just maybe - this will keep the cattle out.

There is some weed hay outside the panels.  I don't think the cattle will eat much of it as most of it is wet, muddy, or manure covered.

Calves weaning start

This morning I finished the north pasture fence rebuild (more on that in another blog post another day).  So I brought the cattle into the north pasture and corral, and with Donna's help, separated the calves from the cows.

The video of the cattle is 38 seconds long:  https://youtu.be/5qBaeJz2e5c

Separating the calves from the cows went well... except that two calves were missing.  The cows had come from the pasture that also holds the weed hay.  I walked out and found a heifer and two calves among the weed hay inside the temporary corral.   The heifer is Maria's calf from last year, and the black calf is Maria's calf from this year.  Maria is probably too fat to get under the corral panels when the cattle lifted them up.

The corrals panels were beat up and moved about from the cattle's attempt to get inside the panels to the weed hay.  All the steel fence posts were still in the ground though some were leaning.  A few fence posts were now outside the panels.  A number of wires that held the panels to the posts were broken or pulled apart.  I'm sure Maria got Toby the bull to lend his muscle to help her in her attempt to break inside.

Once I let the heifer and calves out of this corral they ran to the north pasture and their mothers.  Maria's calf was thirsty and drank from her.  Red's calf just wanted to be near her mother.  I had to wait a little bit, but once the cattle came near the corral I was able to get the two calves into the corral.

Of course it wasn't long before the crying started.  By the mothers.  The calves were thrilled to get a smallish bale of hay.   By evening most everyone, cows and calves, were joining in the chorus.

It's going to be a noisy next few days.

Pear tree

After all these years of growing my pear tree, this year the tree produced more than a handful of small hard dry pears.  So much so most of the branches are bending down from the weight of the pears.  I found the tops of some of the bent branches had no pears and most of the leaves were missing.  Must be from those darn deer!

OMC haybine

OMC = Owatonna Manufacturing Co. from Owatonna, MN.   While their beginnings go way back to 1888, they have long since gone out of business and parts are difficult to find.


Fifteen years or so - long before I had a tractor - I was given an old OMC haybine by a guy down the road who had no further use for it.  He said it worked but needed new bearings.  I pulled it home with my pickup and parked it in the north pasture.  There it sat all these years.

Earlier this month, after I baled my hayfield. I decided to move the haybine to the corner of the north pasture to be more out of the way.  I also hooked up the PTO to see if it worked.  It did!!  I was a little surprised that it ran so well.  Maybe the bearings don't need to be replaced that soon.   I do need to get new tires as the sun all these years have not been kind to the haybine's tires.  And I need to grease it.  And test the hydraulic lift as the hose did not have a coupler that fit my tractor.

I'll probably keep the haybine and not take it to the scrap recycling yard as I had been thinking.  It doesn't hurt to have a backup machine.

Here is a 19 second video of the haybine in action: https://youtu.be/b0qUQ4YwrBQ

Chimney ash and beaver dam

Usually I clean my wood stove's chimney by August.  It was a beautiful day today and I spent the afternoon cleaning the wood stove's pipes and chimney.

The injured cow and two calves finished eating most of the grass in the yard and this evening I let them into the NE pasture to eat the grass there.

Chris has been combining the field across the road.  Last week I had partially breached the massive beaver dam which was flooding the field Chris farms.  I checked the dam late this afternoon and found the beavers had completely repaired the dam.  The beavers have been busy!   I breached the dam again.  Each of the previous two years Chris had gotten his combine stuck while combining.  A few weeks ago I warned Chris the beavers rebuilt their dam bigger and better, so be careful.


The original beaver dam from last week.

Stock trailer floor and harrows

It was a beautiful day today.  After taking Daisy to the vet this morning I got a few other long waiting projects done.

Several boards in the stock trailer floor are rotting.  I know in the photos it looks like more boards should be replaced but they are still good - for now.

After finishing the stock trailer I unchained the sections of harrows that I had chained together this Spring.  I put the harrows away.  No sense leaving them lay around and then have a cow or calf step wrong and hurt their leg.

Injured leg cow walk video

I took a video Sunday of the cow with the cut leg walking.  As you can see she is doing much better.  She puts weight on her leg and can move faster now.  She still has a noticeable limp and most likely always will.  The leg is the one she stops and licks in the video.

Video is 1 minute 19 seconds long: https://youtu.be/fwfphSaPtMA

Celtic festival

Saturday afternoon Donna and I went to the Flathead Celtic Festival. (http://flatheadcelticfestival.com/)  The festival was a low key informal festival but we had a great time.

We watched some of the Highland athletics.   I didn't participate in any events.  It appeared wearing a kilt was a requirement and I forgot mine at home.     And in a few of the photos you will see that the men do wear shorts under their kilts.

All the events seem to be a mix of strength and technique.


Weight over the bar

Also known as weight for height. The athletes attempt to toss a 56-pound (4-stone) weight with an attached handle over a horizontal bar using only one hand. Each athlete is allowed three attempts at each height. Successful clearance of the height allows the athlete to advance into the next round at a greater height. The competition is determined by the highest successful toss with fewest misses being used to break tie scores.

Scottish Hammer Throw

This event is similar to the hammer throw as seen in modern-day track and field competitions, though with some differences. In the Scottish event, a round metal ball (weighing 16 or 22 lb for men or 12 or 16 lb for women) is attached to the end of a shaft about 4 feet in length and made out of wood, bamboo, rattan, or plastic. With the feet in a fixed position, the hammer is whirled about one’s head and thrown for distance over the shoulder. Hammer throwers sometimes employ specially designed footwear with flat blades to dig into the turf to maintain their balance and resist the centrifugal forces of the implement as it is whirled about the head. This substantially increases the distance attainable in the throw.

The first photo has the man swinging the hammer.  You can see the hammer in the air in the last three photos of this group.  It took me a lot of photo tries to capture the hammer in the air.

Caber Toss

A long log is stood upright and hoisted by the competitor who balances it vertically holding the smaller end in his hands. Then the competitor runs forward attempting to toss it in such a way that it turns end over end with the upper (larger) end striking the ground first. The smaller end that was originally held by the athlete then hits the ground in the 12 o’clock position measured relative to the direction of the run. If successful, the athlete is said to have turned the caber. Cabers vary greatly in length, weight, taper, and balance, all of which affect the degree of difficulty in making a successful toss. Competitors are judged on how closely their throws approximate the ideal 12 o’clock toss on an imaginary clock.

Here are two videos of women doing (or attempting) a caber toss.  Several women were able to successfully toss the pole end over end.  I didn't capture those successful tries on video as I was watching and videoing the weight throw at the same time.

24 seconds: https://youtu.be/c2UX_TPE6TI

18 seconds: https://youtu.be/DnVpeZxbIwQ


Weight Throw

Also known as the weight for distance event. There are actually two separate events, one using a light (28 lb for men and 14 lb for women) and the other a heavy (56 lb for men, 42 lb for masters men, and 28 lb for women) weight. The weights are made of metal and have a handle attached either directly or by means of a chain. The implement is thrown using one hand only, but otherwise using any technique. Usually a spinning technique is employed. The longest throw wins.

Here is a 25 second video of a man tossing a weight.  Notice as he spins a second time both feet briefly come off the ground.   https://youtu.be/KRosgep8ioE


Sheaf Toss

A bundle of straw (the sheaf) weighing 20 pounds (9.1 kg) for the men and 10 pounds (4.5 kg) for the women and wrapped in a burlap bag is tossed vertically with a pitchfork over a raised bar much like that used in pole vaulting. The progression and scoring of this event is similar to the Weight Over the Bar. There is significant debate among athletes as to whether the sheaf toss is in fact an authentic Highland event. Some argue it is actually a country fair event, but all agree that it is a great crowd pleaser.

Now, this is an event I should be able to do!

Music

We also listened to two musical acts.

Tra Le Gael

  http://tralegael.com/

This Flathead Valley band played traditional Celtic music.  Most of the time we heard them playing in the background as we watched some of the Highland Games.
Here is a 2 minute 24 second video of the band playing a song: https://youtu.be/jodUvePPY3U


Top House

  http://tophousetheband.com/

  https://www.facebook.com/tophousetheband/

(Their cover of the "Stand By Me" song on their Facebook page is a fun video.)

The band is from Missoula, MT.  They are an excellent band!  The lead singer in the middle is also a marketing major.   The fiddle player I - amusing - thought could also be a computer science guy and on their web page it says he is a graduate assistant in the University of Montana's computer science department.  I had a suspicion... since is as nerdy looking artsy looking guy.

Galway Girl: 2 minutes 37 seconds: https://youtu.be/xXaATkun9xQ

Dublin: 56 seconds: https://youtu.be/yzuvrE6EQfM

500 miles: 32 seconds: https://youtu.be/2sqHK7tNmjM

Renegade: 2 minutes 26 seconds: https://youtu.be/UzUbco52EhM



After I got home I discovered one cow in the hayfield.  Yes... of course it was Maria.   She broke one fence barb wire, and broke the wire holding another barb wire to a fence post, and crawled through the fence - even though she is fatter than a pig and looks like she can give birth to twins tomorrow.   She must have been in the hayfield a long time as she was ready to go back to the pasture so her calf could drink.  I fixed the fence.

The grass in the hayfield is greener than the grass in the pasture.