Clothesline fix

Now that Google seems to have fixed their photo linking problems, after fixing their post forwarding problem from the previous day... I can make this post.


Monday I fixed my clothesline.  I last repaired the clothesline the end of May and beginning of June in 2011.  (https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2011/07/clothesline.html)

I didn't realize it at the time but the wooden posts seen below had not been treated.  Even though I had poured concrete around the posts, that did not keep one post from rotting.  I believe water soaked down into the concrete surrounding part of the post.  Last week as I was taking laundry off the clothesline I brushed against one post and discovered the post was only being held upright by the clothesline and also the wire attached to the building.

2011

Old post and railroad tie for new post

Old post being held up.

So I removed the post, dug out the concrete around the rotting post in the ground, and installed a railroad tie as a new post.  Since I have now a railroad tie as a post I didn't put new concrete around the tie to hold it in place.

I hadn't planned on completing the fix on Monday but since I was on a roll I kept going.  But I made a mistake.  I attached the clothesline ropes before I attached the post to the building.  Because the post was now a railroad tie and not a round post I had to modify the attachment wire so that is why I waited.  By the time I modified the wire the clothesline ropes had pulled the tie in a little bit.  I tried using the tractor to push against the tie to hold it upright but the pressure from the tie rolled the tractor back slightly when I took the tractor out of gear.  I eventually got the attachment wire kind of snug to hold the tie in place.  Not perfect, but good enough.

Cow with healed leg walking video

Today I put out another large hay bale.   As the cow with the badly cut leg from last August walked by I took a video of her.  All that doctoring paid off as she is walking pretty good.

33 second video of cow 60 walking: https://youtu.be/Y0QM-tq2XxY

Tree stump 15 bonfire, and more

The cattle realize there is no more weed hay to eat.  They no longer go into the south pasture.  They either graze in the middle pasture or eat the hay in the feeder.  They are not happy with the feeder hay as late this afternoon they held a "strike" and stood at the middle/north pasture gate and mooed at me for a long time.  I used the tractor to go get the beat up panels that had 'protected' the weed hay.  I had to use the west gate I had installed this Summer as the cattle were near the east gate.  Eventually the cattle went back to eat more hay from the feeder.

No more weed hay

Since I had the forks on the tractor to haul the corral panels, first I did a test to see if I could pick up tree branches from a pile of branches no longer needed for a stump burn.

Success!

This is tree stump 12.  Weed hay all burnt.   The red arrow shows a side root that was not burnt.  I used the tractor forks to pry it out of the ground.

This is tree stump 13.  I was able to pull this side root out of the ground with my bare hands.  Hulk... strong.

Last Monday night I burnt tree stump 15.  This is a stump I found after I dug out tree stump 4 in the Spring.  When I used the tractor to push dirt back into the tree stump 5's hole, I also scraped a nearby hump of dirt and found another tree stump.  Later I dug around the stump to find out how large the stump was.  It was large.  And solid.  I only dug down a few inches as I planned on digging the stump out next Spring.

Well... I had a bale of weed hay to burn and I thought I would see what effect it would have on this solid tree stump not dug out of the ground.

The same night I also had put a weed hay bale on stump 12. That is the fire seen in the background.

Two days later - no weed hay bale and still smoldering.

The stump is still smoldering this afternoon - even after yesterday's rain.  The stump is in effect gone.

Tree stump 14 bonfire, new chair and more

It rained last night and off and on today.  Very wet.  A little surprising, but four of the five tree stump bonfires from yesterday were still smoldering this afternoon.

The cattle spent the day in the middle pasture, either grazing or at the feeder with the hay bale.  I didn't go out to look, but there must be no more weed hay to eat.

I hauled in my pickup a couch Jan bought today.  I met one of the new neighbors who recently moved into the rental house south of me as he helped me carry the couch up the stairs, through doors, around corners and through another door.

"Over Under Sideways Down"

Of course with the new couch old furniture had to go.  I only took one chair and refused to take the other chair.  I don't really have room for the chair, but...  Daisy likes it.

Here are a few photos from when I burnt this tall grass earlier this week.  Since I am not letting the cattle into the hayfield this year I burnt some of the tall grass to get rid of it.

I thought all the tree leaves had fallen earlier this week.  I guess not as the rain brought more down.

Lastly, here are photos from another tree stump bonfire.  From Oct 17.   This rotting stump was in the middle pasture as I have burned all the stumps I want to burn in the south pasture.  This stump is an old stump, which means it became a stump before I moved here, unlike the south pasture stumps which became stumps over the past decade.

I burnt the second (and last) red coat that has long since seen its better days.

The next morning much of the stump still could be seen in the ashes.  But over the next week I kept the fire going each day by adding a small pile of branches on the hot ashes.  Eventually most all the wood in the photo below was burnt.

Below you can see why I wanted this stump gone.  In the photo are (were) five stumps.  Three stumps are close enough together to make it a hassle to drag a harrow around each one in the Spring.  I plan to keep the tall stump for the cattle to scratch against.

Eventually the stump burned up, or at least enough of the stump to no longer be a concern.

More weed hay and bonfires

This morning this is what remained of the two weed hay bales I had burnt last night.

I poked at the bales and loosened some layers.  By late afternoon most all of the bales were burnt.

 Here are better photos of the bent corral panel.

This is what remains of the weed hay as of this morning.

In the morning the cattle were doing their siesta on the east side of the middle pasture.  Usually they hang around the bale of hay in the feeder.   As I returned from checking on the weed hay they headed out to the weed hay.

Later in the afternoon I found the cattle were still at the weed hay.  No more bent panels as I had left the corral open.

This is all that remained of the weed hay bale.

The cattle were not happy I was loading and taking away much of the weed hay remnants.

I also tossed some tree branches in the pickup.   My plan was to burn the weed hay on a bed of tree branches over five old rotting stumps I had found in the morning.  I'll post those photos another day.

As I piled the hay on the rotting stumps and began the burning the cattle came back to the middle pasture.  Some cattle went to the good hay bale and the other cattle cleaned up the parts of the bale that had fallen off as I carried it across the pasture.   By the time I finished the burning the cattle left and went back to the weed hay.   What's up?!  I could see there was plenty of the good hay in the feeder.  I walked over for a closer look.  I found the hay was from Calvin's field and was the tall swamp grass.  The cattle can and do eat it, but it not their favorite hay.  It appears they prefer what little that remained of the weed hay to Cavin's hay.  I'm glad I hardly have any weed hay left.

Weed hay panel bend, and tree stump bonfires

The cattle were at it again.  Yesterday when they still had their bale of good hay the cattle visited the weed hay and tried to get in.  Today after they finished off their bale of hay they went for the weed hay before I could get a new bale of hay put out for them.  This time they bent a panel around a bale of weed hay.  One can't quite see it in the following photo but the panel against the weed hay bale - not just the corral - is bent at a 90 degree angle.  Yes, the PANEL itself is bent at a 90 degree angle around the bale of hay.  The cattle bent the panels so hard that on one panel the chain holding a pin used to pin the panels together broke.  The chain - which had been welded to the panel - was pulled off the panel!

As you can see I have less weed hay.   Yesterday and today I have switched tactics in getting rid of the weed hay.  The bales are no longer full size.  I have used the tractor to take a few bales and placed them on tree stumps and burnt them.  It worked well last night as the two bales were almost all burnt up by this morning.

I switched to this tactic when I discovered one of the rotting tree stumps I had burnt had plenty of stump left.  All the other rotting stumps I had burnt appeared to have burnt all of the stump.  Not stump 12.  A small part of the stump rose above the ashes, even after I had burnt the stump several times.  When I dug around small part of the stump I found the following.

As this was plenty of stump left to burn I placed a good sized pile of tree branches on the stump for the next burn.  That's when I got the idea to place and also burn a half bale of weed hay.

Most of the stump and the weed hay bale were gone by morning.  This evening I placed more branches on the remaining stump and then another weed hay bale and had another bonfire under a full moon.