Calf 14 - Maria's

I had a surprise today.  Maria had her calf.  Last year she and Diamond had their calves in July, so this year I expected them to calve in June.  But Maria had her calf July 2 last year.  So having calf the last day of May this year is normal.  I'm not sure when the calf was born.  I usually make sure the cattle's water trough is full when I go to bed.  That is usually after 1 am.  Last night I could hear in the dark a cow occasionally mooing.   That might have been Maria calving.

The new calf is a bull calf.   That makes if 9 females and 5 males so far this year.  So Donna helped me band the calf to turn it into a steer.  The calf is big and long.  Donna later noticed his front legs look odd.  The calf can walk.  But maybe the tendons aren't fully developed yet.

Calf 13 - Beulah's

It's about time.   This morning Beulah finally had her calf this year.  Last year she had a calf the first part of April.  I don't know why she didn't have a calf this year until the end of May.

Beulah had a heifer.  That makes 9 heifers and 4 bull calves from Toby this year.  A beautiful calf.  Not big, even though Beulah is big, but a long calf.

That make it only two cows left to have calves this year.

Tree stumps 3 and 4 for the year

Today I finally removed the last tree stump I plan to remove this year.  I removed more stumps than I expected and took longer than I expected.

Here are some photos of the first tree stumps I burnt earlier this year to remove.  They are called "3" and "4" as that is in the order that I dug around them.

Yup.  These stumps are ones that I didn't know I had.  I was walking over to working on another tree stump when I saw this stump.   "Why remove the stumps?", you ask.  Because my harrow's spikes could catch on the stumps and break off.

 

Still doesn't look like much of a tree stump.  This is the stump on the right in a later photo.

Here you can see two tree stumps near one another.  I found the tree stump on the left because I followed the tree root in between the two stumps.

On the left are the tree roots I chopped off in order to dig around the stumps.

A number of bonfire photos.  While this may seem like a lot of bonfire photos, I took even more photos.  It took some effort to decide which ones to keep and which to toss.

The next morning.  As you can see one stump is still smoldering.

Days later.  The smoldering stump is now gone.

Then we had our rainy period.  The dirt pile was wet through and through.  So it took a number of days to get the dirt back into the hole.

Filled in.  You can see where the dirt pile had been as it killed the grass.  It took over five weeks from when I started the dig to the time I eventually filled the hole back in.  You can tell in these later photos, versus the earlier photos, how green the grass became and has grown.

You can see how close these stumps were to the other stumps.  The two areas in the back where the stumps I could easily see and planned to remove this year.  The dirt pile in the middle was another one of those stumps I later found when the stumps started to pop to the top of the ground.

And here is a 1:32 video of parts of the bonfire: https://youtu.be/urKtx1b_hfk

Calves and grass

Next week I will let the cattle out to the grass.  For now the calves like it when I pull some grass from the yard and lay it in the corral for them to eat.  If the calves see me in the yard they come over to the fence in case I give them some grass.  The problem is the cows will then come over and push the calves aside and then eat the grass.  Since I have the loading part of the corral closed off to the cattle the grass is growing there.  So a couple of times I have let the calves in there to eat the grass.  A bit of work as the cows want to go in there and I have to stop them from entering.  The cows are not happy that I don't let them also into the loading corral and grass.  But if I do the cows will eat all the grass to nothing and then pull it out by the roots.  Then the loading corral will look like the rest of the corral: no grass and bare ground.

Again today I let the calves go in there.  The calves are catching on that I will let them enter when I hold the gate open.  They will walk around the cows and not flinch by me standing close and holding the gate.  I waited a little extra time for a few calves to finish drinking from the mothers.

A few hours later I checked on the cattle.  The mothers of the calves who had not drunk before going into the loading corral were mooing and wanting their calves as their udders were full.  So I herded the calves out of the loading corral to be with their mothers.

Here is a 14 second video of a few cows mooing at the calves in the loading corral.

Guard turkey, fixing fence, and grass clippings

Before I let the cattle out to grass I spray them to guard against flies and other insects.  I had to buy new pesticide.  I rode my bicycle to get the gallon container.  As I rode home - into the strong wind - I rode by Donna's place.  I decided to take a break from riding and visit her.  As I was getting off my bicycle I looked out towards her back yard to see if her pet turkeys were out and about.  All of a sudden her male turkey started gobbling and was running towards me.  The turkey was laying by her house and I hadn't seen him.

 I had to go.  I kept my bicycle between us and he ran around the bicycle.  And I ran around the other side of the bicycle.  I wanted to get on my bicycle but was afraid he would attack my leg on the side he was at as I pedaled.  So I put one foot on the pedal and hopped along to get up speed.  As I got closer to the road and starting to get away from the turkey I hopped on my bicycle and began pedaling.  

The turkey ran after me to the road, then down the road after me.  I was able get going and away from him.  When I got home I called Donna for her to check up on her turkey to see if he returned home.   He had.  Donna had no idea he ran after me.  She thought it was funny when I told her what happened.

Once I let my cattle out on grass Ruth would like them to eat the grass down in her pasture. So I would like the cattle to be there first before then rotating them across my pastures.  Last month someone drove off the road and took out three fence posts along her pasture. The fencing is field fence and is still standing mostly upright.  But without the posts I don't trust the cattle won't cause the fencing to go down and then they get out.  So much work is going on in the Valley Ruth can't find a fencing company that will just repair her fence.  They want to rebuild her entire fence.  And the insurance company, Progressive, for the driver who broke the fence doesn't want to pay for fixing the fence.  So I fixed the fence.  Two of the fence posts were not broken, just pulled out of the ground so I put them back into place.  The other post was broken so I pounded in a few steel fence posts she happened to have as extras.  So her fence is fixed. I do have to check the rest of her fencing before the cattle go in the field as I don't trust fencing when cattle are around.

Jan was mowing her lawn across the road.  Some areas had thick grass so she was raking up some of the grass and placing them into large plastic bags.  I had to put out a new hay bale for the cattle this evening so they were laying around the day waiting.  So I gave the cattle Jan's grass to tide them over.  The cows knew something was up when I came with two bags.  I dumped one into one wooden feeder and they went crazy over the grass.  The calves couldn't compete with the cows so I dumped the other bag into four piles on the ground.  But the calves didn't know what was happening, or understand the black plastic bags and grass, so they stood and stared at me.  Eventually a couple of calves came over to check a grass pile out.  By the time the other calves came over the cows had scarfed the grass in the feeder and now saw the grass on the ground and came running over.  They pushed the calves away.

I got one more bag from Donna.  I wanted to put the grass into the wooden feeder.  It was an effort to do so as the cattle wanted the grass from the bag now.  I had to stand in the feeder to empty the bag so I didn't get knocked over.

Clouds

It was raining hard when I got up after 6 am to use the bathroom.  By the time I got up much later it had quit raining, and hadn't rained the rest of the day.  Good.  We needed the rain, but 1.62 inches in two days is a bit much for us.  My corral is mud.  The river has quickly risen higher.  From about 450 CFS to 707 CFS in two days.  The river water is muddy looking now.

I wanted to fill in one of the holes where I had removed a tree stump.  But the pile of dirt was wet all the way through.  So I only got part of the hole filled in today as it was more work to shovel the wet dirt back into the hole, and it was getting to be a muddy mess.  Another day.

Here is a photo of the clouds from late this afternoon.   They may have gotten some rain in the north part of the valley today.   The mountains are high, but under these clouds they look small.

Cattle corral breakout

*sigh*  A busy day.

In the morning when I decided to go for a bicycle ride it decided to rain again during my ride, and I got wet.  It rained off and on during the day, usually when I was outside and didn't want it to at that moment.

After 1 pm when I was sitting on the couch with Rascal I heard the cows mooing.  The mooing was out of the ordinary and didn't sound right.  I got up and looked outside and saw Mama cow was in the backyard eating grass.  What?!

It appears Toby the bull broke a section of the east corral fence for the south part of the corral. This section also had a wire piece on the boards.  That didn't stop Toby from breaking a few boards and then pushing the rest of the section down.  At least I thought it was Toby as I don't think Mama is strong enough to do that. 

Why was only Mama out of the corral and not Toby?  I think it was because the electric fence wire was still up and working.  Mama was able to go underneath the wire and Toby was not.

All the rest of the cows and calves in the main corral were standing at the gate making a loud fuss as they were unhappy that Mama got out and was eating green grass.  I had to get Mama back in the corral.  Toby was standing near the broken section of fence so trying to get Mama back there wasn't a good option.  So I opened the corral gate and tried to herd Mama into the main corral.  This was touch and go as the cows and calves saw the gate was open and tried to run through the gate.  So I had to go from herding Mama to stopping the cows and calves.  Finally I got Mama to go through the gate and into the main corral.

Then back to the broken section.  The electric fence was making popping sounds.  Probably due to a piece of the wire section touching the electric wire.  So I turned the electric fence off.  I propped a board against the wire section to hold it upright and ran back to the house to get boots on as I was only wearing slippers and the grass was tall and wet and my feet got wet.

Minutes later when I returned to the broken section Toby was now outside the corral and eating grass. I should have left the electric wire on.  I grabbed a long stick to herd him as Toby is a big bull.  It was easier to get him back into the south corral than it was to herd Mama earlier.   But then I had to stand there as he wanted to come back out of the corral.  I did a lot of stick waving as he approached the broken fence section.  It was a stand off.  We stood there for a long time in the rain.  Finally the rest of the cattle - and Mama - went to the west section of the corral and Toby went to see what they were up to.  I was able to then get an extra temporary corral panel and place it across the broken section.  I also got my phone.

Toby came back.  When I started to go to find new boards Toby would start to push the corral panel away from the opening.  So we were in another stand-off.   I called Donna for help.  I needed someone to stand and wave a stick at Toby while I got new boards.  While taking to Donna I touched the electric fence. Earlier I had turned it back on.  The wire wasn't making a sound so I didn't know if it was working.  It was.  Ouch.

After Donna arrived I first went and checked his hay feeder. Before it started to rain on Sunday he had plenty of hay in his feeder.  Now there was only a little hay left in the feeder.  And that hay was all wet.  Probably not appealing.  I wanted to get a small bale and put it in the wooden feeder south of the barn.  But Toby knew what I planned to do and stood outside the side door.  Unfortunately I entered the barn through this side door and not the other side door or the main door.  So I couldn't open the other doors as they were locked from the outside. So Toby and I were in a stand off again.

Then I notice the main door seemed to be open a crack.  Huh?  I went and looked and it wasn't completely closed.  The hook on the latch was missing.  I'm sure I put the hook on the latch when I last closed the door.  Somehow the cattle got the hook off the latch.  I couldn't find the hook so who knows what happened to the hook.  Did a cow swallow it?  The cows still couldn't figure out how to completely slide the large door open, so that is why it was only open a small crack.  And who says cows are dumb?

I was able to carry part of the small bale around the barn and put it into the feeder as Toby was still watching the side door for me to come out.  Once he saw me put hay into the feeder he came over to eat.  And then I could work on fixing the broken fence section.  And Donna could stop waving the big stick at Toby.

I guess it was good I hadn't built a new section of fence this year as I had planned on using these boards to get them out of the backyard.  These boards were heavy duty and strong.  And almost the correct length of 9 feet and 6 inches.  I just had to cut off either 6 inches or a couple inches depending on the board.

The boards were dense and it was hard to drive a nail through them.  I was able to finally put a nail through them on each side to hold the boards up.  Then I got a drill to drill holes for the other nails.  One of the former boards was partially broken but I could fix and reuse that board.  Another board was still attached to the wire fence section and wasn't broken at all.  So I was able to reuse that board.  The final small board at the top of the fence was broken but I was able - with some effort - to re-nail that board and reuse it.  Finding a 9 foot 6 inch long board is not an easy thing to do.

I then re-nailed the wire fence section to the new and old boards and then turned the electric fence back on.

Mama was still in the main corral.  Her calf was in the south corral.  Over three weeks have passed since Mama gave birth, so she is not a over-protective of her calf.  Mama knows her calf can now run like lightning, and the calf has listened to Mama about staying away from Donna and I.  So I herded - around and around - the calf eventually through the open gate to go join Mama.  Even though the gate was open the calf had never gone through that gate and would run past and not through it.  That is why I had to make a number of herding attempts before the calf ran through the gate area.

I am leaving Toby and Muscles in the south corral.  Next week all cattle will be released to go out on grass.  So, for the next week I will put out a small bale each day for Toby and Muscles to eat.  Toby is so fat not having all-you-can-eat will be good for him.

So that was my afternoon today as I didn't finish until 5 pm.  What a day.

The white wire is the electric fence wire.  The wire section of fence is now upside down.  Toby had broken off / removed the bottom board from the fence and the wire section (seen on the ground on the other side of the wire section); then broke the next board off the posts and the wire section; then the next higher board off the fence and partially off the wire section so he could get through the fence.  The top small board was not attached to the wire section but Toby still broke that board because... why not?  Toby could.

Fixed

The big stick Donna and I waved at Toby.

While in the south corral I noticed part of the barn window was broken.  I have no idea where the missing glass sections are.  The bottom of the wooden window frame is pushed in a bit.  The wind or Toby did this?  A fix project for another day.

I also noticed Toby removed and bent the pipe that was on the other side of this fence.  I talked about fixing this pipe section earlier when I fixed it the beginning of May.  (https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2021/05/corral-fence-pipe-and-river-otters.html) 

The boards holding the pipe to the fence posts were removed from the posts and scattered around the south corral.  And, as you can see, the pipe was bent.  Not an easy thing to do.  But when you are as strong as Toby....

I'll wait till Toby is out of the corral next week to figure out how - or if - I'll will fix this.

Another cold day.  Tonight I started the woodstove to warm up my house as the indoor temperature was just above 50 degrees.  The last week of May and I'm using a woodstove to heat my house.  Who would have thought?

Cold, rain, stumps, etc.

Yesterday was nice.  For once.  We actually reached our normal high temperature of 67 degrees.  And it was sunny.  One day, and now we are back into the cold.  The temperature was in the middle 40s for most of the day. Send some global warming over to us; we are missing out on it again this year.

It started raining this morning and was non-stop all day.  Which is great as we need the rain as it has been a dry and cold Spring.  And this rain should help the alfalfa and oats I planted for Donna last week grow.  That is, if the geese haven't eaten all the seeds.

I had to put out another large hay bale for the cattle this evening.  Usually I don't put the bale out on wooden pallets to keep the hay off the ground as the cattle eat the bale in less than two days.  But the ground was wet so I got some pallets to put the bale on so the hay wouldn't get wet from the ground.  At least this time I didn't have the calves getting into trouble by this evening, unlike the past few times I put a hay bale out for the cattle.  I think the rain and wetness was a reason for their good behavior.

Last night I had a bonfire to get rid of another tree stump I had dug around.  Since I knew rain was in the forecast for today, I put extra branches on the fire to make there were more hot embers overnight so the stump would burn longer.  Since I was getting wet this evening while putting out the hay bale, I also walked out to the middle pasture to check on the stump.  Surprisingly, even with all our rain today, the stump was still smoking from burning under the ash and embers.  And the previous stump I had burnt earlier this week was also still smoldering and putting out smoke.  So that stump burnt more than I expected.  Maybe I won't have to dig it out next year.  We'll see.

Here is a photo from this evening in the rain of the six recent stumps I removed this Spring.  Four I burnt (three holes, one of which is a double hole of side-by-side stumps), and two I dug and chopped out.  The two stumps I had dug out I already have filled their holes back in with dirt, one of which is hard to see in the background in the middle left of the photo.  This stump removal will make harrowing easier next year.

Since I was up late last night, and I heard the rain this morning, I slept in late.  Then I spent the day inside the house and slept part of the afternoon.  Rascal was happy about this as he had extra time laying next to or on me today.

Loading corral fence fix, then calf trapped

This morning I added a board in the ground to prevent the cattle from pushing off the bottom two loading corral fence boards again.  The reddish board is what I added.

Also this morning I tried to give a couple of calves some grass I had pulled from the yard.  Some cows heard and saw what was happening and ran over to eat the grass.  The cows usually push the calves off to the side so they can eat the grass.  Today I stood there and waved the reddish board in the air to keep the cows away while the calves ate the grass.  The cows did not like me preventing them from getting to the grass.  A few cows gave me the evil eye.  #8 was one of the cows.  I took this photo of her later after I pounded the board into the ground.

Then this evening when I was about to put out another large hay bale I saw a calf laying motionless on the ground with her head under the loading corral fence.  I initially thought the calf was dead, but she was alive.  I guess she was laying still as she was tired from trying to get her head out from under the fence.  I have no idea how she got her head through and under the fence.   I couldn't get her head out.  I went and got a shovel.  When I returned a number of cattle were around the calf and I had to chase them off as I didn't want them to accidently hurt the calf when they checked the calf out.   I had to dig a hole under the fence right next to the calf and then slide the calf's neck and board over to the spot, then push her head through the fence.  The calf got up.  She appears to be fine.

After I put the hay bale out and let the cattle out of the corral, this calf remained standing in the corral.  I think she was taking it easy and didn't want to run and jostle with the other calves for now.  I don't think she will put her head under the fence again in an effort to reach the grass on the other side.  

Fruit trees and blossums

Today was cold, cloudy and windy.   Brrrr!   The weather service recently did their 30 year weather history update.   From 1980-2010 to 1990-2020 the weather in Flathead County changed a bit.  The average temperature went down a tenth of a degree.  The Winter temperatures were warmer than before but the Spring and Fall temperatures were colder than before.  So it is not my imagination that Spring temperatures have been getting colder.  We had another colder Spring this year.  Snow fell east of the mountains today.  The forecast for the next few days has snow chances out here also.  I hope not.

Here are some photos of my trees from last week when the temperature was normal.  I hope we don't have freezing weather.  I want the blossoms to provide fruit this year.

The apple trees have more blossoms now than when I took the photos.

Apple

Transparent Apple

I didn't see any blossoms on the Apricot tree this year.

Sap on the Apricot tree?

Pear tree

Each year the walnut tree is the last tree to make leaves.  You don't see them, but the leaves are just starting to come out.

Caragana trees