2018 pocket gopher count

The year is almost over and I won't be trapping any more pocket gophers for the year.  Actually I had cleared the hayfield and pastures of pocket gophers many months ago and none have moved in since then.

Earlier this year I thought the pocket gophers may reach a tipping point and get out of control.  I was distracted from trapping them and then the hayfield grew tall and thick hiding their dirt mounds.  Also with the river low this Summer the cattle had access to both the middle and south pastures and I didn't want them messing with my traps possibly breaking them.  So I had to work around the cattle and only trap in those pastures when I had the cattle in the north pasture.

The pocket gophers seemed to be moving in like gangbusters.  Add in a newly planted alfalfa field (which the roots of the pocket gophers love to eat) and I was worried I wouldn't trap them all.   But I did.

In the end the annual count was less than I expected.  I trapped 46 pocket gophers this year, down from the 52 I had trapped last year.

Body slam

The cattle love second cutting alfalfa hay.  They really love it.  They are going through a large hay bale in 1 2/3 days.  They don't need to be eating that much hay.  And I need my hay to last all Winter.  So I am back to feeding the cattle twice a day with what I can fill in my pickup's bed. The second cutting is relatively short so I can break a large hay bale apart by hand.  That's not to say it is without some effort.

After a day of feeding the cattle like this they have caught on to the new feeding routine.  Tonight they all came rather quickly to the metal hay feeder where I toss most of the hay.  Because not all of the cattle can eat from the feeder at the same time I put a half dozen small piles of hay in the area of the feeder so the bullied cattle can go to eat some hay before it is gone.  I found I have to put this hay on the ground after I put hay in the feeder.  Otherwise the bullies monopolize the hay piles, and once that is gone take over the feeder.

Again, the cattle catch on quick.  I had just tossed the first pile on the ground when two cows came running around the pickup.  I hadn't seen the cows and had turned and started back to the pickup when Mama and I collided.  She didn't realize I was turning and moving and I didn't see her. With the snowy slippery ground she couldn't turn quick enough or stop in time.  We hit each other pretty hard knocking each other off course.  Mama got up and spun around and headed to the hay.  Her intent wasn't to run into me.  My ankle is a touch sore and I feel like I ran into a 1000+ pound animal.  But I'm alright.  That's not to say I wasn't upset. I ended up yelling at Mama to be more careful.

Another side effect of getting hay into the pickup is that I can't back completely into the hayshed and close the gate.  The four heifers in pasture are fascinated with my loading hay into the pickup and I have to close the gates against the pickup so they don't slip into the hayshed.  The heifers have hay in their feeder but now that hay is not the newest hay.

White Christmas and cattle

I thought with our recent little warm up we wouldn't have a white Christmas.  Wrong.  It snowed several inches on Sunday and with the cooler temperatures White Christmas is back on.

This morning I spread out two small hay bales for the cattle. This gets them into the hayfield and then I can bring out a large hay bale to the pasture undisturbed by the cattle.

Cattle waiting somewhat patiently while I spread out the hay.

Toby the bull walking out to the hay.

 Mama walking out to the hay.

Eating the hay.

Beulah's calf in the corral.

Red and Maria's calves in the corral.

River view today

Merry Christmas!

Broken bicycle

I have been riding lots of miles recently to have a new yearly total.  The plan hit a snag this afternoon when the skewer that holds the rear wheel on my bicycle broke.  I was over 8 miles from home and the sun was setting soon.

A few days ago I had tightened the skewer as my rear tire seemed a little off, and one side of the tire was closer to the bicycle frame than the other side. I had tried straightening the wheel but it kept moving over when I rode.  After tightening the skewer a few times I gave up.  I think the bicycle frame dropouts are off.   Well today the skewer broke as I was riding, while really put the wheel off alinement and caused me to stop.

Nothing to do but start walking home. Within minutes a guy in an older small Toyota pickup stopped and asked if I needed help.  He also was a bicycle rider and thought something was wrong when he saw me walking and pushing my bicycle on a flat section of ground.  He gave me a ride home.

Tomorrow I will see if I have another skewer in my spare parts collection.  I hope so as otherwise it may be hard to reach my yearly mileage goal in the few days left.

Another hat

This morning I found another hat at the end of my driveway near the road.  An all black baseball hat that looks new.  No idea why it was left there.  Don't know if someone thought I needed another hat.  I don't think the hat happened to fall off there.  The hat was sitting upright partially folded like someone placed it there. The hat, while nice, looks kind of plain.  I am happy with my newly acquired Grease Monkey hat and it has become my default ranching and riding hat.

Newer hat

A few weeks ago, when I was on a bicycle ride, I found a hat laying in the middle of the road.  It was a black hat with red.  Grease Monkey.  Since the later 1990s I pretty much have only worn hats - as my default hat - that I found when bicycling.

Back when I lived in Minnesota in 1998 or 1999 I found an all red Ohio State hat on the road when bicycling. I wore that hat until July 2015 when Donna found and bought me a new Ohio State hat, which is pretty much identical to the old one.  This new hat was so nice that I would only wear it on special occasions.  It was so nice and clean and new and bright red that I hated to get it dirty.

In the meantime, back in 2015 while riding my bicycle, I found another hat with red.  A Papa John's hat.

So that has become my default ranch and riding hat, even though I have never eaten a Papa John's pizza.  I eat Papa Murphy pizzas and have thought of asking them if they would swap hats with me, but never got around to it (and Papa Murphy hats - while nice looking - are all black with no red in them.)

Other hats have come along but they haven't replaced my Papa John's hat.  The other hats are either too nice, or not just right.  I've gotten several CHS farm hats (nice), found an all black Double R ranch hat (not quite right), and found a pink Harley Davidson hat this Summer.   As you can see from the Papa John's hat, I will wear most anything.  But a pink Lady Harley Davidson hat from Nevada just wasn't me.

So a few weeks ago I thought I found a replacement to my Papa John's hat, which I was excited about.  That feeling lasted about 3/4 of a mile when a guy on a dirt bike rode up to me and pointing to the Grease Monkey hat on my bicycle rack, asked if he could have his hat back.  It had blown off earlier when he had accelerated his dirt bike on the road.  It was a work hat and a favorite hat of his.

Darn.

Of course I gave him his hat back.

Well, tonight when I was riding on my bicycle (yet again!) a pickup came up from behind and slowed down to drive along side me.  I wasn't riding on a road with a nearby bicycle path so it wasn't one of those busybodies who feel the need to tell me to ride on a bike/walking path and not on the road.  It had rained earlier in the afternoon, and then I had to put out another large bale for the cattle.  So my day's bicycle ride was a little later and by the time I was approaching home it had gotten dark.  So I figured this was another busybody who felt the need to tell me I was riding after dark.

But this time the pickup driver was the guy who earlier asked for his Grease Monkey hat back.  What a surprise as he lives almost 5 miles away from me.  He had another Grease Monkey hat from work and asked if I wanted it.  Sure.

With each hat I am getting less and less red in it.  But I think there is still enough red.  The hat fits nice, I've modeled it, and I think this hat may become my default ranch and riding hat and I'll retire my Papa John's hat.

Wood pile move on hold

The move of my boards is on hold.  Part way through the move I came up with the idea to build the machine storage building elsewhere.  Instead of south of my hayshed I think I will build the machine building near my NE pasture's north fence.  Instead of blocking my view of my north pasture I can block the view of several neighbors.  And I would have an unrestricted access to all of the building's sections when parking equipment as the moved piles of wood may have made access to the bay closest to the hayshed a little tricky.

I did some measuring of what size of machine building I need.  10 feet high as the hay baler is a little over 9 feet high.  20 feet wide as my 16 foot stock trailer is 20 feet long when you include the hitch.  And 50 feet long to handle an 8 foot wide stock trailer, an almost 9 foot wide hay baler, a 12+ foot wide hay rake and a 13+ foot wide haybine.

I had planted some evergreen trees along the NE pasture fence. But I have a section of three smaller trees planted closer to the fence than the other larger trees.  This section is over 60 feet long, more than enough for my building.  Now I need it to be next year and the ground to be thawed.

So that means I want my stacks of boards back where I originally had them.  That will alsowait until next year.

What I moved so far.

What I moved so far.  The leaning boards are to keep the calves from tipping the stack over.

What was left to moved, before I changed my mind.

Additional pile of boards from which I removed the nails and screws in them.

River ice, and cattle

It has been colder than normal lately (what's new!)   Even the river has some ice forming on it, which is not common.  I am still waiting on the National Weather's Service's predication of a warmer than normal Winter for us.

I put out another bale of hay for the cattle late yesterday afternoon.   Toby the bull is the second from the left (ear tag 50).

New used gate

Today I bought a used gate advertised on Craigslist.

Photo from the Craigslist ad

The gate is a 16 foot gate which I have been watching for all year.  Gates, unless overpriced, sell pretty quick on Craigslist.  The ad was posted three days ago, but with no working pickup I had no means to get it.  The gate was still for sale today and I got it.   Maybe the time of the year was why it lasted so long on Craigslist.  While most people do not want or need a 16 foot gate, they still do sell quickly.  Especially as the price I paid was only $90.

This gate is similar to my main corral gate.  That is, oversized brown tubing with a spring latch.  Donna isn't happy with my current spring latch gate as the spring makes it hard to open the gate.  I even need two hands to open the gate.

The gate is old.  I don't know if HW still makes these 2 1/2 oversized tube gates anymore.

The owners were an old couple.  The gate was still attached to the large rotting post.  The lag bolts through the post were the biggest longest lag bolts I ever seen, and an usual style.  The bolts were in the post a long time and the threads were gummed with age.  WD-40 helped a lot.  The bottom bolt was still hard to turn.  Since the post was rotted and unstable, and they planned to eventually remove it, I pushed (and pushed!) and pushed it over.  That allowed me to more easily turn the bolt to unscrew it.

I have just the spot for the gate and next year will rebuild part of the back yard/hayfield fence and install this gate.


It was a pretty day, though colder than normal.  The owners lived out on Talley Lake road which was a drive across the Valley for me.  I took a few photos.  

The Whitefish ski resort opens tomorrow.  The ski resort is located on the dark part of the mountain that is dark because it was shaded by the clouds.

Following is the photo that shows the intersection where Talley Lake Road goes to the left.

The Tally Lake Road is a gravel road.  However no gravel could be seen as the road was completely covered with icy packed snow.  I had to change to four wheel drive to drive the road as it was so slippery I needed all four wheels to get traction to go uphill.  The slippery road also meant driving slow so as not to slide off the road.   I have no more photos of the road as my camera quit working.  The view of the trees and road - while slippery - was beautiful.

Pickup repair

My pickup was fixed this afternoon.   The distributor cap and rotor had problems, and some of the spark plug wires were cracked and arcing. (It turns out the spark plug/wire Wyatt and I had checked was a good one.  We didn't check them all.) With that fixed they got the pickup running but said it was running roughly and recommended a tune-up.  The pickup has 30,755 miles on it, but it is 18 years old and never has had a tune-up.  So I okayed it.  I should have asked the cost.

$235.50 for a tune-up?  They said Chevys are more difficult/expensive to tune-up.

Holy crap!  This was expensive.

I had never changed the air filter.  So yeah, I guess that was due for a change.   They said there was gas in the oil so the oil needed to be changed.  I had changed the oil last year and used synthetic oil so ordinarily I would be good for another year  But... okay.

They said the gas smelled bad.  Like it was old.  I last filled the tank the end of October after I hauled the calves to the auction.  So the gas wasn't that old.

But - seriously?! - adding washer fluid?  I could have done without that.  That seems to be padding the bill somewhat.

Everything adds up.   I am out $623.08.   But I now have a running pickup.

They couldn't believe my 18 year old pickup only has 30,755 miles on it.  But it does.  It is pretty much just a farm truck.

Calf hay stack

As you can see below, the calves have been eating their hay and turned their hay bale into a mushroom.  This morning I pushed the top down so the calves can eat the hay easier.

I also put another large bale of hay out in the middle pasture for the cows and bull as they had eaten most of the previous bale.   Red still has some strange interest in Diamond.  Neither are in heat so Red's behavior is kind of odd.   Cows like and dislike other cows, and sometimes will briefly lick/groom another cow on occasion, but Red's interest in Diamond sometimes seems creepy.  This afternoon, after Red hung around Diamond in the morning, Diamond spent part of the afternoon by herself in the pasture or in the hayfield near the middle gate while all the rest of the cattle hung around the corral fence.  Toby the bull wandered over by Diamond sometimes later after I closed the gate to keep the cattle out of the pasture while I got them a new bale.  And no, Diamond is not in heat (as she shouldn't be) as Toby had no interest in Diamond "in that way".


I am without my pickup.  Saturday my pickup died a half mile from the house as I was leaving to get groceries.  The pickup wouldn't restart.  As I walked home a family stopped to give me a ride, then when I told them why I was walking, offered, then towed my pickup home.

With Curtis's help he sprayed gas in the engine as I tried to start the engine.  No effect.  So the fuel pump must not be the problem.  The fuses were all good.  I remembered the ignition control module.   October 2014 my pickup failed to start because its ignition control module had failed due to the excessive vibration from driving over the rough North Fork Road (https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2014/10/pickup-breakdown.html).  I took the ignition control module off the engine and in to the local NAPA store.  They tested the module and re-tested the module several times and they told me it was working correctly.

Man, it is odd to be disappointed that something is not broken.

Today Wyatt came over to help me.  The engine had spark.  We tried the gasoline trick and still no response.  Time to take the pickup in to an auto repair shop.  My former auto repair guy moved or went out of business.   I went with Wyatt's go-to repair shop.  It was located on the other side of town so I wasn't going to tow my pickup there.   I have emergency roadside assistance through my pickup insurance policy and they paid to have the pickup hauled to the auto repair shop.  I, Wyatt and Curtis are all very interested in why my pickup won't start as we are all perplexed.