Tractor fixed. Toby jumps.

I got my tractor fixed today and got it back a little before 5 pm.  The slow down and occasional speed up cause... debris in the fuel tank.  And not what you think would be debris.  This was a gooey chalky substance.  It was strange.  The owner said he had to check it out after the employee discovered it in the fuel tank.  The gooey chalky substance moved about and would thicken and thin.  That was why the speed up / slow down was intermittent.   The owner and employee were surprised this was my problem.  How did this get in my tank?   When I put diesel in the tank?  Most likely not as then I wouldn't be the only person with this problem as other people bought diesel from the gas station.  When the RDO John Deere repair shop worked on my fuel tank and fuel gauge in June? They did something / dropped something in the tank?  Something that dissolved somewhat in the diesel?  Most likely, as this problem started to occur shortly after I picked up my tractor in June from John Deere.

After I got my tractor I started to again cut my hayfield.  I worked for over three hours.  Not a problem with the tractor.  It ran like it did before I had RDO John Deere work on my tractor.

I now have 14 rows cut. That should be half my field - even though when looking at the field it doesn't seem like half of the field is cut.  If everything goes right tomorrow, and if I am lucky, maybe I can get the rest cut tomorrow. Mostly like I'll finish cutting the day after tomorrow.

While I was waiting for my tractor to be repaired I looked out at the cattle in the pastures.  Wait a minute.  One of the cattle looks to be checking out other cattle.  Is that Toby?  He should be in the north pasture, not the middle pasture.  I went out and checked.  Yes, it was Toby.  So I had to go and check the north/middle pasture fence.  I found where he jumped over the fence.  It is amazing he didn't break the top single strand of old wire.  He did stretch it a lot when he jumped.   A few sections over I found where the wire came apart.  The wire didn't break.  Two parts of the wire were connected, and now the connection was straightened and then came apart. 

I got tools and fixed the wire.  I don't know how Toby was able to stretch the wire across several posts as to fix and straighten the wire I had to detach the wire from the steel fence posts in order to move and straighten the wire, even when using my fence stretcher tool to pull the wire.

Stretched wire.

Unconnected wire.

In the pasture I checked that the other cows and calves were in the north pasture.  Yes, they were.  Diamond's calf looks cute.

I also walked to the river.  I seen the beaver got back to the willow trees where he/she got to earlier. The beaver chewed off more of the willow trees.   Even though I had fixed the fence after the last time, I saw two new spots where it appeared the beaver may have gotten through.  I made more repairs to the fencing and I'll see if this finally stops this beaver.  I hope so.  Not a lot of some of the willow trees left.  On some other willow trees elsewhere I seen the beaver climbed a couple of the fencing and then chewed a few small branches.   This beaver is determined to get to my willow trees.

Another slow hayfield cut day

This morning I talked with an equipment repair shop down the road.  They said they could look at my tractor.  I wanted to take the tractor in when the problem was occurring.  So at noon I started cutting hay.  I cut three rows before taking my tractor in at 3 pm.  By then the tractor slowdown happened more often and for a longer time.  A worker listened to my tractor.  No solution jumped out to him.  He had a few ideas.  The problem for me is that they are busy - all repair shops in the valley are busy.  They will let me know by noon tomorrow if they looked the tractor over, or the status of when they can look it over.  If they can't look at it tomorrow I will get my tractor and spend time in the afternoon to cut what I can before taking the tractor back to the shop.   I've cut 8 and 1/2 rows now.  If I remember right it is 26 or 27 rows to cut the entire hayfield.

Slow going.

Second hayfield cut - off to a rough start

This afternoon I finally started cutting my hayfield.  

Usually by now I am done and have the hay put away.  Because the John Deere dealership can't seem to know how to fix my tractor, or order the correct parts, my first cutting was not until July.  That pushed me back for irrigating the field and then making the second cut.

Last year the second cutting was slower as I didn't wait long after I finished irrigating. That grass and alfalfa was moist inside the plants.  This year I planned to wait longer after I finished irrigating so the grass and alfalfa would be drier when cut.  This year the National Weather Service Climate prediction center predicted a dry July, August, September and October.  July was our fourth driest July as we only got .2 inch of rain.  Because I didn't want to re-lay the mainline irrigation pipes after the second cutting, I decided to irrigate the hayfield twice.  That took an extra 12 days.  I still have time for the second cutting.  Oh wait.  August turned out not to be dry.  We had 1.76 inches of rain so far, twice as much as normal.  And most of it was in the second half of August.  So the hayfield didn't need two irrigation runs, and the rain delayed me more.

No rain is in the forecast for this week so I decided to start cutting my field.  I waited till today to give Friday's rain a chance to somewhat dry a bit.  I would like to wait longer, but our temperatures are and will be below normal so the cooler temperatures make it longer for the cut hay to dry.  And the shorter days and less sunlight slows the drying down too.  Therefore I don't want to wait any more.

At 10 am the dew was still extremely wet and heavy.  So I went for a bicycle ride.  At 12:30 pm the grass that was in the shade was still wet.  So I decided to have a full breakfast.  Rascal slowed me down.  At 1:30 pm I went out to start work.  Oh wait.  Let me check if the haybine needs grease.  Yup.  I hadn't greased it after using it during the first cutting.  After a couple zercs I ran out of grease. Really? Now?  So I had to go buy grease.  I also decided to buy a new grease gun as the handle on the one I was using wouldn't stay in position when I loaded a new grease tube.

I didn't remember if I had filled the tractor with diesel after last using it.  I had a gallon so I poured that into the tractor.  Fuel tank didn't look completely full, and of course the John Deere dealership still hasn't fixed my fuel gauge.  I think there should be enough diesel as I wanted to get going on cutting the field.

At 3 pm I was ready to start.  It was very slow going to cut the field.  The field is not quite as tall as the first cutting, but due to the irrigation the field was dense and the grass and alfalfa were very green and moist.  And there are pocket gopher dirt mounds as some pocket gophers came back to the field. The dense hayfield made it hard earlier to see the dirt mounds for me to trap the pocket gophers.  The dirt mounds were wet so the dirt would cause the cut hay to clump and I would have to stop and remove it from the haybine.

I had to go slower than my first hay cutting in July.  There I was in the lowest gear and occasionally would have to stop the tractor from moving to process the cut hay through the haybine and its rollers.  This time I was in the lowest gear and would have to stop for processing almost every minute or two.  Even so, on a handful of occasions, I had to stop, raise the haybine, and pull out a large clump of cut grass and alfalfa that was stopping the cut in that part of the haybine.

Here is a later view of a clump of cut grass.  Earlier, usually the clump was much bigger.

When I would pick up cut hay it was heavy from all the moisture inside the grass and alfalfa.

The first cutting is of the opposite way so the haybine is closer to the fence.  The second go-around is in the right direction.  And I also pick up and cut where I had driven in the grass during the first go-around.

As you can see in the following photos the grass and alfalfa is not as tall as the first cutting in July as earlier the field was almost as tall as the haybine.  (And you can see the fence I plan to replace with my new fence rails.)

So the going was slow.  At this rate I won't be done cutting until Tuesday if things go well.

Things start to go downhill after a couple of hours.  The tractor started to occasionally speed up and slow down.  My memory is going.  I remembered this happened before but I didn't remember what I thought may be the reason for this to happen.  Then the tractor began to slow down more.  Am I running out of diesel?  I shouldn't be.  But as the fuel gauge doesn't work, I wasn't sure.  So I went and bought more diesel.  I put in about 5 gallons.  So, no, I wasn't close to running out of diesel.  I went back to cutting.  After a bit again up and down went the tractor speed.  Then I remembered.  The suspicion earlier - in July -  was that something may be in fuel tank and that object occasionally would slow the fuel down.  I suspect the John Deere dealership may have accidently dropped something in the fuel tank the last time they worked on the tractor and fuel gauge problem as this started to happen after they had worked on the tractor.  I was going to have them check this out when I took the tractor back to have the new tractor console repaired.  As the John Deere dealership had earlier ordered the wrong console back in June, I was still waiting - two months later - for the right console to arrive.  So, no, the fuel tank speed up/slow down problem wasn't fixed.  And I had forgotten about it until now.

I wanted to finish cutting a row.  But the speed up/slow down was happening frequently.  So I quit for the night.  I only got 5 and 1/2 rows cut today.  I have a lot more of the field to cut.  But tomorrow I will have to find someone who hopefully can fix the tractor problem.

Seriously, can I ever just cut the hayfield without a problem?

90 fence rails

I bought 90 fence rails from a local fencing company.  They had this bundle marked down a lot as they said the rails looked weathered.   They look fine to me.  I hemmed and hawed on getting the rails.  If you remember last year I rebuilt a section of my yard / hayfield fence by the house and used old rails for the new fence.  I think it looks good.  This year I had no problems with the cattle with this section of the fence.  But rebuilding the rest of the yard / hayfield fence is a big project.  Eventually I want to rebuild this fence but it is not at the top of the list of fence rebuilds.

I have 31 sections of fence to rebuild,  Each section is 8 feet long.  When I saw the fence company's Craigslist ad I started thinking about getting some rails.  They only wanted $5 for each rail.  Initially I thought "too good to be true".  But it was.  The fencing company occasionally sells material marked down on Craigslist, but I never saw them sell fence rails before.  I asked them, and they said no, they hadn't sold marked down rails before.

I had enough cash in my pocket to buy 21 rails.  The rails are 16 feet long.  3 rails for each fence section makes 7 fence sections (or in other words I can replace 14 old fence sections).  The rails are 3 inches thick.  Strong enough so the cattle would have trouble breaking.  They can, as I have had cattle break old rails in the past.  That is why I now add wire to the rails so the cattle can't stick their head through the opening and push on the rails.

Then I thought.  31 old fence sections means I would need about 16 new fence sections, or 48 rails.  Should I?  Most likely I wouldn't end up rebuilding all those sections this year as that is how things go for me when the cattle change my plans.  I figure I would look at the rails and then decide.

The rails looked very good.  The fence company said they had about 10 email responses to their ad.  People said they would buy the whole bunch, but then would not show up the next day.  There were 90 in the bundle.  Let me think.  I could also rebuild the yard / fruit tree area fence and make that a rail fence.  Then whenever we had a winter storm with lots of snow and wind I would no longer have a snow drift across my driveway as the current fence slows the wind down and causes a snow drift to form.

I didn't have the cash in my pocket.  Who carries $450 in their pocket?  Not me.  And how would I get the bundle home?  Not in my pickup.  I asked the fence company to hold the rails for a few hours while I went to ask my neighbor Curtis if he would haul the bundle for me in his flatbed truck. And to get money from the bank.

Curtis said yes.  I got the money and bought the bundle yesterday.  Today, after I helped Curtis on a project he was doing on a house, he and I got the bundle (the fence company has a big forklift that loaded the bundle), and hauled the bundle to my NE pasture.  I won't use all the rails this year (most likely), so I used some of my short railroad ties to place the bundle on to keep the bundle off the ground.

Curtis' flatbed truck's bed tilts.  With the end of the bundle on the ground he could drive off slowly and the bundle slid off the truck and on to the railroad ties.

Now I need to get around to rebuilding fence.

90 rails.  I counted.

Finally! The last calf of the year

This evening I discovered Diamond finally had her calf this year.  It's about time!  She was late as she should have had her calf back in June.  The calf is a heifer.  That makes 10 heifers this year out of 15 calves.  The new calf is all black.  She must have born much earlier today as she is dried off and shiny and moving around when I found her.

The other calves born this year are growing big.  So this new calf looks so small to me.  I'm not going to put an ear tag on her as I can tell whose calf she is just by her size.

Walking back from taking photos of the new calf I also took photos of Toby.

Irrigation, apples, boards

Today I finished irrigating the pastures and tonight I turned my irrigation pump off.   Yay!!!  No more getting up early and moving the irrigation pipes at 7 am this year.  Maybe I can get my life and sleep and work back to normal.

I am now waiting to cut my hayfield a second time this year.  The recent rain, and predicted rain this coming weekend, has stopped the cutting for now.  I want to cut and bale it and be done for the year.

After waking up after noon from all my sleep today, I went with Donna to pick apples that a guy was giving away as his tree was loaded with apples.  Might be transparent apples as he claims.  But many of these apples were huge. The apples looked similar to transparent apples, but they might be a Lodi apples.  I have a tree that has transparent apples.

https://www.eatlikenoone.com/transparent-apple.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodi_(apple)

https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/TreeDetail.cfm?ItemID=720

I borrowed his ladder and climbed on high.  Some apples were twice the size of my fist.  Donna wanted the apples to make applesauce and apple crisp. We filled her car's trunk and most of her backseat.  We think she may have more apples than what she needs as I got carried away picking the apples.  She already made apple crisp and brought me some tonight.  I also filled a few buckets with apples that had fallen on the ground.  They bruise very easily.  These apples I give to the cows.   I gave a bucket of the apples to the cattle tonight.  The cattle got so excited, after I fed them all the apples in the bucket, I had to keep watching they wouldn't run me over in hopes of getting more apples before I got out of the pasture.

Since I didn't have to move irrigation pipes tonight I finally restacked some of the old boards that were/had fallen over earlier this year.  My stacks are high, but I have a feeling the cattle pushed against the boards to make part of the stack to lean over.   All the reddish boards had fallen/leaned over onto the rolls of barb wire.  It took me over two and a half hours to restack the boards.

Mink

Yesterday I mentioned I recently saw an animal near the river and I guessed it was a river otter or a weasel.  Patti replied to my post and mentioned the animal could be a mink.  I looked at photos of a mink and I think that was the animal I saw.

This photo is similar to the animal I saw.

"No Tail" and beavers

This morning when I was moving irrigation pipes "No Tail" was in the neighbor's field eating grass.  That didn't take long.  So I herded her back into the north pasture.  This time, because I just improved the fence, she couldn't get through the fence and back to the herd in the other pastures.  This afternoon she was calling out for her calf.  I then herded her calf into the north pasture to be with mom.  The calf immediately started drinking.  Now "No Tail's" calf is in the north pasture with his mother, Diamond, Maria, Toby and Muscles.  No other calves.   Then this evening after I finished moving irrigation pipes the calf and his friend in the other pasture were calling out to one another as they wanted to be together. 

Today I also noticed the beaver got to and chewed on one of the three willow trees I had recently put extra wire fencing around.  I think one of the parts of the fence I hadn't put extra wiring around is how it got through.  So I added extra wire to that part of the fence.  Now to see if that works and protects the willow trees.

What's left of one willow tree after the beaver got to it.

Last week when standing and looking at the river and the willow tree area, after a while I briefly noticed a small animal just below me and on the river bank outside the fenced area around some willow trees.  It wasn't a beaver.  The animal was long and black and thin with short hair.  Maybe a river otter?  It maybe looked more like a weasel.  I'm not sure.

Fence and gate upgrade

I finally finished a small fence and gate upgrade.  Over the past few weeks the cattle, the heat, and the time spent moving irrigation pipes slowed me down from getting this work done quickly.

The fence and gate in question are between the north and middle pastures.  Lately with Diamond, Maria, and Toby in the north pasture, Toby has been putting pressure on this part of the fence when he wanted to go visit the rest of the cattle.  I had extra cut tree trunks stacked here, but earlier I moved some of them to another area so the irrigation doesn't get them soaked. And Toby likes to push on the cut tree trunks and would knock a number of them over.  The wire in this area is non-barbed wire and was only four strands. 

Thursday "No Tail" walked up the river and went to the neighbor's field as they don't close their gate.  So I put "No Tail" into the north pasture.  Her calf was with the rest of the herd in the south pasture. I didn't have time to herd the calf to her mother.  I had spent three hours moving irrigation pipes that morning as I was again going where the fallen tree trunk was located.  And this time the pipes went under a different part of the tree than last time.  So I had to spend time cutting branches off the tree.  Then when I started the line I found that part way around the sprinkler flow would go against branches that I hadn't cut.  So I had more branches to trim.  Then I had to leave to go to my dental appointment.  

I figured I would reunite mother and calf when I got back home.  When I got back home I found "No Tail" was in the south pasture with the rest of the cattle.  "No Tail" or Toby had reached through the fence wires and pushed lots of tree logs down, and then "No Tail" squeezed through the wires as they were bent out of shape.  Toby, Maria, and Diamond were bigger and couldn't squeeze through - yet.

This morning I noticed Toby had again reached through the fence to knock the logs over.  This time he also knocked off one of the old fence boards.  Even through I had other things to do, I took time (the rest of the morning) to finish the upgrade.  

Days earlier I had finished the work on the gate as it had finally cooled down.  Over the ten years or so since I installed the gate, the gate recently would hit/drag on the ground when I opened the gate to the north.  So I wanted to drill new holes in the post and move the gate higher.  Again a simple project took two days.  My battery powered drill would only have enough power to almost drill a hole.   And then I felt the first hole I had drilled was a little too high.  So I had to drill a lower hole.  In the end three holes were drilled.  And of course the cattle in both pastures came to the gate when I worked on it - to see what I was doing and also they thought I was planning to open the gate to let them in the other pasture.  So they slowed me down.  At one point when the cattle weren't nearby I had the gate open slightly as I worked.  At one point I looked back and one calf had just silently slipped through the small opening.  So I had to herd the calf back to the correct pasture.

The first two photos were taken one after another.  Looking south towards the sun apparently made the photo darker.

Where I had to drill a new hole.

Today after Toby pushed the logs and knocked the board off. I already restacked most of the logs when I took the photo.

The boards I added to the fence I had got from my neighbor Curtis.  He has a portable sawmill and recently he had trimmed a log into boards.  To make the log square to then cut boards, Curtis trimmed off the round sides.  Those are the boards I used as they aren't useful to Curtis.  

I had the boards laying in my corral for a little while and when the irrigation line went through there it got the boards wet.  Wet and dry a few times got the board's bark loose in spots.  That got me started and I used a putty knife to pry off more of the bark.   The bark still on the boards were too hard to pry off.

Now I shouldn't have to worry about the cattle getting through the fence in this area.  And to maybe spend less time restacking the logs.

After I finished the work Maria walked over and let me know she wasn't happy with my work.

A few photos of Toby when I wanted to work on the gate.  The flies are bad on him as his fur is so small and fine.

Also this morning I added another short strand of barb wire to a half dozen fence sections in the area where earlier Toby had pushed and jumped over to get to the cow in heat.  I seen today the wire he stretched earlier was looking a little stretched again.

Irrigation pipe fix

Today I repaired one of my irrigation pipes.  The pipes are old and once in a while one will get a crack in it which leaks water.  In the past I put JB Weld on the cracks and that works.  Maybe not forever as I see on one pipe the patch looks flakey on one edge.  I used JB Weld on this latest crack.

Of course the calves had to come over and check out what I was doing.

Some calves wanted to rub against the sprinkler as I worked on the pipe.

 

Calf 62 was born March 8.  Beulah's calf was born May 30.  Almost 3 months makes a difference in size.

The north irrigation line is now at the west end.  Tomorrow I start the way back to the beginning.  It will take a week.  Or maybe not.  Rain is in the forecast for the rest of the week.  If we get enough rain maybe I'll quit irrigating.  Today I got my electric bill.  The cost was almost $100 more than last year as I was billed well over $500 for electricity last month.

Tree stump knocked over

I see that a tree stump in the south pasture has been recently knocked over by the cattle.  This is a tree stump that has been around for a long time.  I left it be with no plans to remove it as it made a nice stump for the cattle to rub against.  But no more.   Another tree stump for me to dig and remove next year.  Just what  I need... another project.

Irrigation and tree photos

I remembered to take my camera with me this morning when I moved irrigation pipes.  As you can see I didn't have to remove those branches on Friday.

Before

After

The south irrigation line is now at the west end of the south pasture and tomorrow I will start my return to the east.  I still have a few days left to reach the west end of the north line as the middle and north pastures have a little more ground to the west that needs irrigation.

And here are a few photos of the cattle when I was moving irrigation pipes this morning.

Beulah and her calf

Irrigation not running

One thing I forgot to mention about my rough day yesterday...  when I went out to move irrigation pipes in the evening, the irrigation wasn't going.  Sometime between 2:30 pm and 6:30 pm the irrigation pump turned off.  If the pump gets too hot it will do that.  It did this a few times in the past years ago when it was hot outside, and then would get hot inside the shed.  I thought we had a few warmer days earlier this year and the pump didn't do this, so I don't know why it did it today.  I leave the irrigation shed's door open to try to keep it cooler inside.

Anyway, I restarted the pump before moving the lines and the pump started right up.

One of those days

My day could have been better.   I'm still moving irrigation pipes.  Today I was out of bed by 6:30 am and out moving pipes by 7 am.  I am moving 31 or 32 pipes but it takes longer to do these days.  My extra irrigation line is now in the pasture and after I start that line I have go the length of the line to straighten the sprinklers as the cattle like to rub against them and knock a number of them over.  Tonight they had knocked a lot of the sprinklers over.  Also in the pasture I see weeds and pull them while moving pipes.  So what took an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half in the hayfield each time now takes me 2 hours or more.  Tonight it took me 2 and 1/2 hours to move pipes.

The past so many days I have been moving a few of the mainline pipes from the hayfield back into the stacking area in the south pasture. I'm taking it slow as moving all the mainline pipes in one day is hard work and wrecks my day.  This morning I decided to do a little extra and moved the last of the pipes.  Since these pipes are closer to the pasture I moved more than usual.  But all the pipes are now moved.   I decided to weigh the steel pipes and the aluminum pipes.   The 21 ft steel pipe weighs 60 to 61 pounds.  So you can see carrying 13 of these pipes, with the last pipe a distance of over 600 ft, is tiring.  The 40 ft aluminum pipe weighs 35 pounds.  That is why the longer aluminum pipes feel so much lighter than the shorter steel pipes.

After stacking the mainline pipes I decided to trim more branches from the fallen tree.

This evening I would be moving one irrigation line to this area and it appeared the line would go under the tree.  So I spent hours using a handsaw to trim some branches, then some more branches, then more branches, as I wasn't exactly sure where the line would go.  I figured it would be the middle of the tree.  I was wrong.  The line ended up being at the very leftmost end of the tree.  The one area I had not trimmed.  I also had stacked the cut branches at the left end of the tree.  Again, I discovered it was near where the line would go.  Could I be more wrong?  So I had to do a little trimming of branches tonight when moving the irrigation line.  All the work from this morning was not needed at this time.  I didn't have my camera with me.  I'll try to take it tomorrow to show you what I mean.

Before going back to the house to have breakfast I checked on Diamond. Still no calf.  Then across the river I saw the Mama cow walking on the grass.  And following her was "No tail" (#80).  Really?!!  They were following part of the path Toby and Maria had made when they went up river to the neighbor's field.  I went and got my river shoes and shorts.  When I got back Maria was in the north pasture watching the others across the river. I chewed her out for earlier making a path through the tall grass and trees.  Then I saw Toby on the gravel bar across the river.   He stayed there as I went onshore to follow the path through the tall grass and trees.   On and on I went.  At one point I went a slightly different way as I didn't want to duck lower to get through some close trees.  Unfortunately I slipped off the bank and partially into the river.  My shirt and I got soaked.  Oh well, it was now a hot day.  Over 90 degrees today.

Instead of re-crossing the river and into my neighbor's field Mama and No Tail continued on a path through the tall grass and trees.  On the edge of the trees there is a fence.  I discovered that the many years since I was last up here the river banks had eroded at the north end and two fence posts were down and over the bank, and one section of the fence was down.  Mama and No Tail walked past the downed fence and to a different neighbor's field and were eating grass.   I herded them back across the fence.   I then spent a lot of effort getting the posts and wire up enough to make a fence.  I don't want the cattle to come back this way when I don't notice.

Mama and No Tail were part way back.  So I had to herd them some more.   Instead of the path they went into the river and walked downstream.   And going downstream was how they did it.  That is because the river had shallow and deep parts as it turns this way and that.  At one point only their head, neck, and the top of their back was out of the water.  No way could they walk upstream against the current in that deep section of the river.   Toby now saw us.  He was in the grass and on the path.  Once the Mama and No Tail walked downstream he followed them using the path.  Toby is not the problem; it's the cows.  Toby does what the cows do and follows them.

Back in the middle pasture Mama's calf was now drinking from her.  No Tail was calling her calf - over and over.  The rest of the cattle were spread all out across the middle pasture and her calf wasn't nearby.

My cattle weren't the only ones to cross the river today.  A guy Donna and I know has some of this cattle in an area closer to Donna.  Donna left me a phone message this evening that his cattle crossed the river and was at another neighbor's field.

By the time I got home I was exhausted.   It was now 2 pm.  I had breakfast and drank more water and then went to bed at 2:30 pm.  I slept hard.  After 5 pm I had a spam phone call.  Getting out of bed to answer the phone I had painful charley horse in my left leg.   I eventually got up at 6 pm.  I was still tired.  I ate lunch and at 6:45 pm went out to move irrigation pipes again.

What a day.

Toby and beavers and willows

A few days ago Toby and Maria walked up river and went to my neighbor's field as he left his gate open.  So I put Toby and Maria in the north pasture along with Diamond and Muscles.  For a few days Toby was fine.  Then yesterday he walked along the north/middle pasture fence mooing and wanting to go join the herd in the south pasture.  I didn't let him go.  Then this morning as I was moving irrigation pipes here comes Toby walking in the middle pasture over to the south pasture fence, then the gate, and then on to the herd who were in the SW part of the south pasture.  Later I saw Toby near Beulah.  This evening when I moved irrigation pipes again Toby was licking Beulah's back.  So maybe Beulah is in heat.

How did Toby get from the north pasture to the middle pasture?  I checked the fence.  He didn't break it.  But the top wire on part of the fence was bent low.  Toby - as massive as he is - jumped over the fence.  He must have stretched the top wire and it somehow didn't break.   I added a short piece of wire to the three strands of wire to hold the top wire high, as marked by the red circle in the photo.  One of these years I will get around to rebuilding this section of fence.

Later I noticed the tree stump I had left in the north pasture for the cattle to rub against, was rubbed again.  Mostly likely Toby rubbed on it to make it look like this.

Also in the north pasture, along the river, I noticed the beavers had been working to get around the small fence and wire work I did last year to protect the willow trees.  One section they pulled over part of the fence and got to several trees.  Another section with limited fence/wire work they ate the willow above the fence/wire work.

So after the irrigation pipes had been moved, and the fence fixed due to Toby's jump, I added more fence and wire work to a few areas around the willows.

Here are a few of the photos.

After a few more small projects, that was my morning.  After a late breakfast I went to sleep at 2 pm and slept the afternoon away in the heat to get my hours of sleep.  I can sleep no problem.  Yesterday I had a MRI of my head and the cyst growing in it.  I fell asleep during the MRI.  If you ever had a MRI you know how loud they are.  Still, I fell asleep.