Walnuts, apples, weaning calves

Still more of the cattle bawling today, but less than last night. In the morning the calves were louder than the cows.  By mid afternoon the cows wandered off to eat in the pastures and were quieter.  By evening the calves started to bawl less.

I let Toby the bull out of the corral this morning.  He took his time.  For a while as he stood near the gate he looked at the cows mooing at their calves loudly.  I think he was deciding if he really wanted to be near these loud cows.  Finally he listened to me and walked through the gate.

Later I found that Toby had pulled down an extra section of wire I had temporarily draped over the top of the corral fence, until I use it on a future fence rebuild.  He then bent the wire.  I had to straighten the wire.  This time I placed the wire on top of the loafing shed roof so Toby can't pull on and then bend the wire.

Rainy off-and-on today.

I gave a bag of small apples to the calves this afternoon.  Then I went to the neighbor's apple tree and picked another bag of apples to give to the calves another day.

Late morning I picked all my walnuts.  I've been checking them off-and-on the past weeks and figured I would pick them sometime this week.  Today I noticed some of the walnut husks were splitting open to reveal the walnut shell.  I never had any of them do that last year.  It is time to pick the walnuts.  I think I got all the walnuts harvested.  It was hard to tell as the green husks blend in with the green leaves.  Over and over I thought I had picked them all, then found a few more hanging on the tree branches.

For the walnut husks that were splitting I was able to use my fingers to easily remove the husk from the shell.  I cracked one shell open and the walnut tasted close to being dry like store bought walnuts.  This year is much more successful than last year's harvest.

Last week when I took my old roofing shingles to the landfill I saw lots of good items that were thrown away. At one point, next to me, there was a moving truck. It appeared they were throwing away all of a household's contents.  Sofa and chairs that looked perfect and not old; boxes of pots and pans that looked still new.  I had to look away.  I had to restrict myself in the metal area of the landfill. Too much stuff that shouldn't have been thrown away.  Donate it people!!  Still I could not resist rescuing a ladder.  Look below.  What a great ladder.  Taller than a typical step ladder.  And one I could use when an extension ladder would not work.  This ladder was perfect to harvest my walnuts.  The tree is too tall for a normal step ladder and the branches to thin for me to climb in the tree to do the harvest.  The ladder is about 10 feet tall.

This is a little less than half of what I harvested.  And more than I harvested last year.  This tree is doing well and better each year.