Off kilter day

Since I am now moving irrigation pipes I get up early to move them in the morning.  Rascal woke me up before 6 am and I could hear a cow mooing.  The last few days some of the cattle find a way to go to the south pasture.  If not with their calf later they will moo for the calf.  Often I have to go out and open the gate to get the cow back into the middle pasture so the calf can drink.   I figured this cow could wait an hour for me to do so.  I went out at 7 am.  The cow must have made an effort to go back to the middle pasture as there was no mooing or cows in the south pasture.

After I move the irrigation pipes I usually go back to sleep.  Today I went uptown to do errands.  First I wanted to buy several 25 lb bags of beets.  Donna cans the beets for me and others.  I called Donna to let her know I would be by soon, and to lock up her killer turkey so I can drop the beets off.  Donna forgot to tell me the market didn't open until 10 am.  I was there after 9 am and found out.  So I went to buy groceries for me.  Then I had to buy several salt blocks for the cattle.  When I went back to buy the beets I found out their new card system wouldn't accept my card as their new card system wasn't yet approved to work with that card.  So I will have to go back another day to get the beets.

Then breakfast at noon.  I quickly fell asleep after breakfast.  I woke up long enough later to make my way to the bed.  I slept all afternoon.  Hard.  Rascal was happy to sleep next to me.

It was after 5 pm when I finally woke up long enough to get up and out of bed.   When I planned to move the irrigation pipes in the evening, one sprinkler line would also go through the corral.  Diamond (who still hasn't had her calf!), Haynes, and Muscles have eaten much of the grass in the NE pasture, and much of it now in the corral.  I planned to put them in the north pasture but I didn't want the rest of the cows in the middle pasture in case they then would try to somehow mingle together.  I want Diamond separate until she finally has her calf.

So I planned on moving the rest of the cattle to my south neighbor's field for a few days to eat the grass there.  The last time they were there Toby the bull figured out a way to get through the fence so he could eat grass in the ditch.  My plan is to string a strand of barb wire on the fence and attach the fence's field fence to the wire.  I think bending down the field fence is how Toby gets out.   I have plenty of extra old barb wire.  I spent longer than I figured attaching the barb wire to the fence posts.  I didn't get all the way done when it became time to move the irrigation pipes for the evening.  So tomorrow I plan to finish adding wire to the neighbor's fence along the road.

I moved the cattle to the south pasture for now.  Then when moving the irrigation line into the corral I let Diamond, Haynes, and Muscles out to the north pasture.

The other evening I had to fix this fence.  Diamond had pulled off the middle fence board from the fence when she was trying to eat the grass outside the fence up to the concrete.

When hay feeding was done last month I used the tractor to flip the metal feeder up on its side and against the fence.  I imagine it was Diamond, and not Haynes or Muscles, who flipped the feeder to land on its top a couple of days ago when they were eating grass in the south corral.

Since I was taking photos in the corral, here is a photo of the larger walnut tree.  As you can see the branches on the corral side are higher as the cattle had eaten the leaves in the past.