Stump 10 removal

My final tree stump removal for the year.

To fill in the holes for the stumps I had already burned I used the tractor to push the dirt back in the holes.  Then I got the idea to use the tractor on a tree stump in the north pasture.  Initially I thought of just using the tractor's bucket to pry/dig the stumps roots that extended at ground level all around the stump.

As you can see the stump was near other trees and a fence.  I could barely get the harrow around the stump.  Once I got the roots out I pushed the stump itself using the tractor's bucket.  The stump was more rotten than I thought it would be as I think the tree fell over five or six years ago.  I was able to get all the stump down and out.  And low enough to be underground so it shouldn't affect the harrow.

I can't find a photo of the tree stump before I pushed it over.  It was around four feet tall.

After I removed the tree stump.

Tree work. Corral work.

I looked for the second nut from the chainsaw today.  Several times.  But could not find it.  In my supplies I found a nut that would work on the chainsaw.

For several days I had left the apple tree laying on the ground so the cattle could eat the leaves as they seem to like eating tree leaves.  Most of the leaves were now gone so I trimmed all the branches off the fallen trunk.

In the following photo, the tree trunks left to cut once I get my chainsaw working again.  The apple tree is in the middle.  At least all the tree trunks are lying on the ground so I don't have to worry about a trunk falling on a cow or calf, especially as some calves liked to stand underneath the tree trunks when they were higher up.

I used a shovel to dig around the bottom and an axe to chop the remaining roots to take down the apple tree trunk leaning against the fence.

I somewhat straightened the fence posts. Another day I will use a sledgehammer to firm the ground up against the posts.  And I will tighten the wires back up.

I forgot to mention. The second day of trapping to catch the pocket gopher in the middle pasture, I had got him.

Rain is definitely in the forecast.  In the evening I pulled the harrow and smoothed out the extended corral and also was able to go around the main corral to smooth it out as they were still a mess from driving on them when we last had lots of rain.  In front of the loafing shed the ground is still very soft and wet and I had to use four-wheel drive on the tractor to drive there.

I was going to snag the wooden hay feeder so I removed the floor boards and tipped the feeder out of the way.

After the harrowing was done I used the tractor to straighten a railroad tie in the loading corral fence.  I had a block of wood on the tie to hold the gate when the gate is open.  The cattle this Spring rubbed on the railroad tie and the block of wood and made the railroad tie lean.  So the gate would no longer stay on the block of wood.  That's fixed now.

When everything was done I let the cattle into the north pasture from the middle pasture.  It was time to rotate the cattle between pastures.  They were all happy to be in the north pasture as it was something new to do.   Maria and Diamond are still in the NE pasture and they came running to the corral gate.  So everyone was on each side of the corral gate trying to socialize.  Especially the bull who wanted to check Maria and Diamond out.  It has been almost a month since the bull has been with the other cows and all have now gone through their 21 day heat cycle and all should be bred, except Mama who was late in having her calf and probably has not come into heat yet.

Fence work and tree work

This morning I was to put my chain on my chainsaw and have it operate correctly.  No problem.  The problem yesterday - no idea.

First, I decided to spend the afternoon working on the fence by the river in the north pasture and get it fixed before I let the cattle into the north pasture again.  This Spring the cattle pushed sideways the end fence metal fence post where they go to drink from the river.  I replaced the metal fence post with another larger metal fence post.  Maybe this post will stay upright.

South I moved a fence post over and away a bit from a willow tree growing on the river bank.  The beaver try to eat the trunk and lower branches.  The branches above the fence the cattle try to eat.  Maybe this fence movement will protect the tree more from the cattle.

North to the northern fence boundary I redid this fence.  Over the years the cattle pushed the fence to try to get to the willow trees growing on the river bank, and this Spring the cattle really did a number on this fence.  The fence is now leaning too much.

The fence originally was strands of barb wire to keep the cattle from accidently falling down the river bank and into the river.  Then the cattle reached through the fence after I put in the ground willow branches from my previous willow tree that blew over and died years ago.  Some the willow branches had grown into new trees.  So I put field fence on my barb wire fence to stop the cattle from reaching through the fence.

So I had to take the field fence off, and also the barb wires.  Then pull out the metal fence posts and then pound them back into the ground to be upright.  The wooden posts were broken so I replaced them with more metal posts.  Where the willow trees are growing I moved the posts a little more away from the willow trees to keep the cattle from trying to eat the branches that grow above the fence.

So, once again more unplanned work completed.

Then it was back to cutting more of the fallen tree.  I was able to cut enough of the trunk that was resting on the fence to get the trunk off the fence.  I continued to cut the trunk and got several pieces cut before my chainsaw's chain came off.   The two nuts holding the cover over the chain had come off.  What?!!!  Seriously!

I went and got a magnet and then found one of the nuts.  I couldn't find the other nut and the mosquitoes started to eat me alive so I quit for the evening.  I hope to find the other nut tomorrow and then figure out why they came off the chainsaw.   If it is not one thing, it's another.

Trouble cutting another tree trunk

Today I finished spraying herbicide on the weeds growing in the north pasture.  I used a backpack sprayer.  As I hadn't sprayed weeds in this pasture last year, and I'm in a multi-year effort to finally get rid of the weeds, there were more weeds than normal in half of the north pasture.  The yarrow was trying to make a run for it.

After I finished the spraying I decided to cut down the tree that had fallen weeks ago in the strong wind storm.  The tree had fallen against another spruce tree and was held up of the ground.

However, over time the tree started to slip down closer to the ground.  Earlier I had used a step  ladder and handsaw to trim off the fallen trees branches that I could reach.  The top end of the fallen tree hung down and reached my fence.  That had all been trimmed before I took this photo.

By slipping down a bit, the fallen tree now had reached and bent down half of the apple tree.  The apple tree was pushing against my fence.  A few years ago I had rebuilt this fence.  I guess I did a good job as none of the barb wire broke.  The nearby metal post was starting to lean.

And you can see some of the apple tree roots were starting to come up out of the ground.

Now that my chainsaw was fixed I could reach a bit higher and most all of the fallen trees branches.  I left the fallen tree branches that were against the other evergreen tree branches.  I also was able to trim some of top end the fallen tree's trunk.  I was mostly able to make the fallen tree shorter so that when it came down it would miss my fence.

The following photo shows how the fallen tree was on half of the apple tree, and how the apple tree was bending my fence wires.

The fallen tree was lighter now.  But it still needed to come down.  I decided to cut the fallen tree near the apple tree.  The fallen tree would be held up from the ground level to the apple tree.  The end of the fallen tree would drop down to the ground.  Maybe even the top end would still would be held up by the branches of the evergreen tree, and only the cut end would drop to the ground.

As I expected the top part of the cut trunk would come together, after only starting the cut at the top for a little bit, I moved the chainsaw blade to the bottom of the trunk.  But, instead of going down the trunk went up and trapped my chainsaw blade and chain in the bottom of the cut.   What?!!!!  What happened to gravity?

It took some effort of pulling and pushing and eventually I was able to finally get the blade out of the cut.

I tried cutting more from the top.  Because I was standing on the step ladder to reach the trunk I couldn't cut a lot from the top.  I then would cut the trunk from the side.   The next I knew the trunk was starting to split and move.  But instead of moving down the trunk moved sideways and towards me on the ladder.

Holding onto the chainsaw I had to jump off the ladder.  I was able to land on the ground with no injuries.  In the following photo you can see how the trunk moved to the other side of the ladder and somehow did not knock the step ladder over.  So there was no way I could have stayed on the ladder.  Again, gravity was not working well.

The odd movement of the tree trunk also took half of the apple tree down.  So all my efforts to save that apple tree half failed.   The fence was pushed over more but the wires still did not break.  I was able to cut that half of the apple tree above the fence.   Then when I tried to cut the apple tree down by the roots the chainsaw's chain came off.  After I put the chainsaw chain back on, the chain didn't want to turn.  I don't know what happened but all my efforts couldn't fix the problem.  And to make things worse the mosquitoes were out and starting to eat me alive.  I may have to take the chainsaw back to the repair shop.  I'm starting to get convinced that after my head injury and coming back from death's door I am now in a parallel universe.  Strange and odd things happen much more now.

Of course because the tree trunk went sideways instead down, the top part of the tree trunk fell on my fence.  Again the fence wires somehow didn't break. I was able to cut many of the remaining side branches using a handsaw.  But I have more work to do to cut the remaining trunk once the chainsaw is fixed.  Nothing is simple or easy.

Once the chainsaw was shut off the calves and Speckles had to come and check out the tree trunk.

Stump 9 removal

I had gotten rid of another stump.  This stump I was able to dig out of the ground.

I think this was the last tree stump from when dad was alive.  I remember visiting dad in 2000, and using dad's chainsaw helping him cut up the recently fallen tree. We took a break mid-afternoon and while dad was sitting on the loveseat and reading a newspaper he fell over, off the loveseat and to the floor.  He had to throw up.  We thought it may have been because of something he ate, and he was tired.  Months later we figured out what had happened.  He had been fighting a stroke and months later the stroke increased and he lost much of his vision.

So this tree stump has memories for me.  Over the years I placed tree branches and odds and ends of boards over the tree stump.  Two decades later, this Spring, I used the branches and wood when burning other stumps nearby.  Since I had decided to burn stump 8 I used the rest of the branches and wood covering stump 9.

The large pile of branches and wood caused stump 9 to mostly deteriorate.  So I was able to easily dig a little bit and remove the rest of the stump.

The stump was larger than what is seen in the photos.  The rest of the stump was so deteriorated this was the only section I really had to dig around.  In the second photo you can see on top of the ground some of the rest of the stump and side roots I earlier pried out of the ground.

Pocket gophers, rain, tree, and sunset

A busy day with not much getting done.

Lately I've been spraying weeds in my north pasture.  I use a backpack sprayer each day so this is taking longer than if I had a sprayer in the back of my pickup.  I don't remember spraying much last year as I had other issues to attend to and then it was too late to spray.  While my weeds are less, they need spraying every year for a while to eliminate new weeds that come up from the old seeds in the ground.  The north pasture is where this is taking off this year.

While spraying yesterday I noticed fresh dirt mounds.  Pocket gophers.  And in the north pasture!  Usually the pocket gopher problems comes from the south or east from the neighbor's fields.  Not from the north.  I guess some pocket gophers decided to travel a ways before settling down.  I set out two traps in the north pasture in the morning.  This evening I found I had caught both pocket gophers.  The gophers were on the smaller side so I am sure they were young'uns who recently left the home they were born in.   I also set a trap in the middle pasture today as I had recently come across dirt mounds when I was working on tree stumps.  I didn't catch that pocket gopher.  So far.

The hayfield is tall.  Ready to cut.  But now is not the time.  That is because last week was wet.  After a couple of warm and dry days today we had numerous rain storms.  Two thirds of an inch of rain fell today.  Surprisingly I didn't get wet when riding my bicycle.  Last week I got wet each day.  Today on my ride I had a rain storm to my north and another rain storm to my south.  My ranch, and probably a mile wide, got no rain.   Then.    After I was home and in the house, some hours later, it rained hard.  It even hailed.

Yesterday I got my fixed chainsaw.  This evening after it stopped raining for a while I finally was able to cut into sections the tree trunk of the tree that had partially fell in my yard near the beginning of June.

This evening we had an orange sunset.

Stump 8 removal

Originally I hadn't planned on digging around and burning this stump this year.  But it was the last stump in an area of the middle pasture; and when the grass grows the stump gets hidden.  Since the digging of the other tree stumps had been going well I decided to dig and remove this stump.

While I later removed more stumps, and had another bonfire, this was the last stump I burned this year.  So lots of stump and bonfire photos.

Starting to get hidden.

The next morning.  Another tree stump gone.