Warm weather, and Rusty and Donna

What a temperature change from a few days ago.   After a low of -34 degrees last Thursday/Friday, today's high temperature was 39 degrees.  Above zero!   It was warm overnight and rained all night and morning.  Rain, not snow.

2022 is a crazy year.  For me the first half of the year was good.  The second half not so good what with tractor and pickup problems.  The first half of December was decent weather-wise.  The second half was/is crazy weather-wise.

This morning Donna took her car into the Ford dealership to get it repaired.  They said her appointment would be January 6.  But if she brought it in early they may work on it if someone else cancels their appointment.  I was going to follow her since her car has power steering problems.  She would drive by my driveway and wait for me to follow.  I waited at the end of my driveway, and waited.  No Donna.  I drove down to her driveway in case she got stuck there.  No Donna.  I drove to the Ford dealership.  There was Donna.  She had driven by my driveway but did not slow down or stop and I didn't notice her.

This evening was Donna's hour long dog training class for her dog, Rusty.  She missed last week due to the cold and snow.  I drove Donna and Rusty to the class.  I sat as part of the class and watched Rusty and the other four dogs learn lessons in the class.  Rusty had energy galore and was very active.  But he didn't bark.  Barking was done by the German Shepard puppy.

When I drove to Donna's place to pick up Donna and Rusty my pickup slipped off her partially cleared driveway and got stuck in the snow - even with a four-wheel drive pickup.  The snow was up to the underbody of the pickup.  I got Donna's shovel and shoveled and shoveled the snow from under the pickup, and then made a runway path back up to her driveway.  I backed up and made it out onto her driveway, and then almost over the other side of her driveway.

I spent this afternoon shoveling snow from my driveway.  The snow is solid wet and won't all melt before the temperatures go back below freezing in a few days.  Once the wet snow freezes it will get very hard and be very hard to shovel. I have more snow I want to shovel tomorrow to enlarge the snow-free on the driveway and backyard.

The rain and snow melt produces lots of water.  With the ground still frozen the water needs to run off to low spots.  I prefer that area to be in the hayfield and not the yard.  I'll see if the water eventually gets there.

Some of the water. And snow I want to shovel tomorrow.

The replacement heifer calves and their hay.

Cows and their hay.  Lots of hay eaten in less than 24 hours.

Tractor has started

We have warmed back up to normal temperatures.  Finally!  Our high temperature today was 33 F degrees.  Since my tractor didn't start earlier due to the cold temperatures and the diesel jelling I have been feeding the cows small hay bales twice a day.   I also fed the cows a smaller large hay bale I had made when I had baler problems this past August.  That hay bale was a third of the size of a large bale.  It was too large to lift so I unwrapped it from twine and used a pitchfork to load the hay into my pickup's bed.  I had two heaping pickup loads of hay, or one day of hay for the cows.

This afternoon I used the tractor's priming pump to make sure fuel was up to the engine and then tried to start the engine.  After turning the engine over for a bit the tractor started.  Hurray!  I shoveled a spot to place a large hay bale outside the corral and then hauled one out there.

Before I let the cattle out of the corral to the hay bale I used my pitchfork to carry - and carry - and carry the rest of the hay from the calves feeder in the south corral over to the cow's wooden feeders in the main corral.  There was about a day's worth of hay left for them to eat, or a small meal for the cows.  I did this so I could give the calves a new large bale today since the tractor had started.  Two hay bales in one day instead of two days.  Who knows what the weather could be like tomorrow or Wednesday.  The cows ate up all the hay I carried for them before I let them out of the corral to the large hay bale.

Since the temperature was around freezing I was able to shovel the manure out of the loafing shed.  That took a while as there was lots of manure from the few days the cattle sheltered in there due to the cold.

More snow and a tractor problem

More snow again today and through tomorrow.  Just what we need.   So it was annoying to drive uptown this afternoon to get groceries as the roads didn't seem to be plowed and were snowed covered a lot.  I didn't want to wait to get groceries on Saturday like I usually do as stores close early on Christmas Eve.   Apparently other people thought the same as the traffic was heavy and the store's parking lot was the fullest I ever since, along with the most people shopping in the store I had to encounter and move around.  People were everywhere.  I brought Donna along as her car has problems and I wanted to buy the needed ingredients for our Christmas dinner.   This year Donna thought about making enchiladas for the Christmas meal which I thought was a great idea.   I like my Christmas meal being something different than normal.  As for me I cooked a turkey for supper tonight.  I love eating turkey.  So the best of both worlds (meals) for me this holiday season.  And I feel stuffed right now after my meal.

It is getting warmer.  Last night's low temperature was -26 F.  Right now it is 0 F outside.  And tomorrow we are suppose to reach the teens.   This morning's house temperature was 43 F.  So the house is getting warmer also.

My frostbitten finger has a fluid filled blister that formed by morning.  I'm trying not to break the blister which can be hard when it is on one's finger.  Last year I must have gotten a frostbitten finger as I had a fluid filed blister.  I forgot about it until Donna reminded me.

My thumb has no blister. The skin is a little numb. It doesn't ache by morning.

I checked one of the glove pairs I had worn.  Gee.. where the frostbit areas are located, on the gloves it was worn and open.  I burnt the gloves in the wood stove tonight.

Time to put out another large hay bale for the cattle this afternoon.  I started the tractor and drove it out of the pole shed so the tractor could run and warm up without the diesel smoke dirtying the roof.  In the meantime I shoveled the snow where the bale would go.  I had to shovel a new area as the cattle had left manure on the area where the previous bale was located.  And once again I had to clear the snow off the bale I planned to give to the cattle even though I had to clear snow off that bale yesterday.

When I went back to the tractor I found it had stopped.  And I couldn't start it again.  It seemed like it wasn't getting any diesel to the engine.  I couldn't even prime the engine.  I believe the diesel gelled up in the cold weather.  I thought maybe adding new diesel to the fuel tank would help.  But it didn't.   I also noticed the newer diesel poured slower into the gas can and out of it.

It was starting to get dark.  So I put out a few small bales for the cows to eat for the rest of the day.  The temperature is predicted to warm up over the next few days.  At a warmer temperature the diesel will ungell.

I never had this problem with my tractor before.  But then, I never had such cold weather here when I had the tractor.

I can't wait for this cold weather to be over.  I want my global warming back!

Clearing snow

Kalispell's overnight low last night was -34 F.  A new record low.  The older record was -25 F.    The coldest Kalispell has ever been was -38 F some years ago, before I had moved here.    When I lived in Rochester the coldest I ever had was -38 F.  I rode my bicycle 2 miles to work on that date.  The local news wanted to put me on their newscast about it.  I refused.   I believe the coldest I ever experienced was -40 F or the low -40s when I lived in North Dakota as a kid.  I remember because they said -40 F equals - 40 C, otherwise the numbers are off.

It is minus -24 F right now.   Our high temperature today was -6 F.  And it was sunny.   And no wind today.  So it felt warmer than yesterday.  

I heat my house with wood.  I don't keep the fire going overnight.   Yesterday and today the indoor temperature was 40 F when I woke up at 10 am.  A bit cold.

I shoveled and shoveled snow this afternoon.   A few times my fingers got cold.  I switched gloves.   At the end of the afternoon, after I got into the house, my thumb on one hand and a finger on the other hand started to ache and are somewhat numb.  I must have frostbit them.  They still ache hours later.  I'm surprised they got frostbite.  I'll have to watch them over the next day.

I ended up shoveling snow off some of the hay bales.  I don't know why the strong winds didn't take the snow off the bales. The wind took the snow away from the front of the hay bales.  The winds did move some snow into places the snow normally doesn't go.  Which is annoying as it is hard to shovel it out from those places.   I even had to put old rags between the house's front door and the storm door.  Otherwise I found I was getting a very small amount of snow inside the house door and onto my rug.

I shoveled the snow off the south side of the bales because the snow was slightly melting.   At - 6 F degrees!  Who would have thought.

 

I even had to re-shovel my walking path from the house out to the hay bales.  The wind had completely filled in the old walking path.

Snow and cold

Monday was a break between our Winter weather events.  Tuesday it snowed ALL day.  I don't know how many inches - predicted 5 to 10 inches - and it was at least that. The moisture content came to a little over a half inch - and this was dry snow.  So you know we got a lot of snow.   And the wind picked up by late afternoon.  And it blew hard.

Mid afternoon Tuesday I put another large hay bale for the cattle just outside the corral.  My tractor's hydraulics worked fine.  Then again, I let the tractor warm up a long time while I shoveled a path through the snow over to the gate by the garage.  I don't care to later shovel packed down snow tracks.

This morning, just before sunrise, the snow stopped. The wind kept blowing.  I got up at 5:15 am to use the bathroom.  I had water.  At 6:15 am - no water.   Hours later when I got up I went out and checked the well pump.  I have an electric heater in the pump shed - and the shed is very insulated.  Yesterday the indoor temperature in the shed was 40 degrees.  Which is fine.  This morning it was 32 degrees.  Which should be fine.  But at ground level the temp must have been a little lower.  I turned up the heater.

Later when I checked there was water on the concrete floor.   Huh?  Still no water in the house.  I turned the heater even higher.  In the meantime I shoveled a path to the garage.  The wind had blown all of yesterday's snow everywhere and made drifts.  I felt like I was back in North Dakota.  From the garage I got a 5 gallon bucket and filled it with water from the cattle's water trough.  That way I could flush the toilet.  A short time later I had water from my well.  Checking the pump house I could see a little more water in the low spot in the floor.  I dipped the water out again.   And a few times during the day I checked and a little more water. I can't tell where it is coming from.  The bottom of the water tank?  The pump itself?  In addition to the electric heater I also have a light bulb in the pump house that also generates heat when on.  When trying to see where the water was slowly coming from I broke the light bulb when I brushed against it.  So for now I will dip out the water until it is not so cold outside and I can then check to see where the leak is.

The cattle's water trough.  

First thing in the morning the cattle drank almost all the water.  I went to fill the water trough.  Halfway full the pump shut off.  The GFCI electric outlet had shut off. I reset it and began pumping water again.  Then the GFCI outlet shut off.  Again and again I reset the outlet.  Each time quicker it went off.  At three-fourths of the trough full I quit.  Later I ran a length of electric cords from my tool shed with a regular outlet.  I filled the water trough no problem.  When I refilled the water trough again late afternoon, the GFCI worked fine.  Back in June of 2011 my uncle Larry chose the GFCI outlet when he and my uncle Curtis helped me rewire my barn. I don't know if Larry chose a weather resistant GFCI outlet.   I think next year I am going to replace the GFCI outlet with a regular outlet.   The water pump is well below ground, and using this outlet is not like using an outlet in a bathroom with water near you where a GFCI outlet makes sense.

Also making today frustrating was using the electric cords.  The electric cords are three pronged.  The outlet in the old tool shed is a two prong outlet.  When I tried to put a three to two prong adaptor on the electric cord, it wouldn't go all the way on.  I tried four adaptors and none fit.  I tried two electric cords and the same thing.  What is going on?!   I found another electric cord that already had an adaptor on it, and used that cord to plug into the two prong outlet.  All this in cold windy weather with snow all over.  I had to shovel a path so I could walk and string the electric cord.

I have a heater in the water trough to keep the ice from forming.  My heater is a very old one that sits on the bottom of the tank. It still works but it is very old and who know how much longer will it work.  Donna bought me a new floating heater for Christmas and gave it to me Monday night.  I haven't used it yet.  The GFCI outlet has no problem with the old water trough heater.  The new water trough heater... I'll see when I use it.

I heat using my wood stove.  I let the fire die overnight as I prefer to clean the ashes out of the stove each day.  Normally I could go two, maybe three, days before I fill my bucket with ashes.  But I clean it each day.  In the morning the house temperature will be in the low 50s.  Which is fine with me as I found my internal body temperature is warm in the morning and I don't start to feel cold until after noon. I think that is how I wake up. It is when my internal body temperature rises.

I still felt warm this morning even though the house temperature was 40 degrees today.  And this was after I had kept the fire going until after midnight the night before.   The overnight low outside last night was 8 below zero.  But the wind chill temperatures last night, today and even now is in the minus mid-30s below zero.  Things get cold fast.   It is minus 9 degrees right now and the predicted low is in the minus 20 or more range.

I still haven't found a new camera to buy.  Today the camera I was using didn't want to turn on. That was how this day was going.  I had to use a previous camera with a scratched lens.  That is why the photos have a blurry spot on them.

The old fence creates a snow drift on the driveway.  The new rail fence does not.  See... no drift where the rail fence is. That is one of the reasons I am replacing the old fence with the rail fence.  Next year I WILL get it done.

Tomorrow if things go well I can shovel the snow off the driveway and elsewhere.

The cattle are doing fine.  They have the loafing shed to shelter in.  The loafing shed opens to the south and the wind, since it comes through the gap in the mountain range, comes from the NE.   The cows are kind of white as the snow on their backs hadn't melted yet.  The cows are not as white as they were yesterday.

Three of the replacement heifers in their area.  Even though their area opens to the west and south, earlier I had to shovel snow out of this area as half the area had a little snow drift. Apparently the wind whipped the snow around to the south half of the shelter.  I also put out a little straw every day or two.  This is the area the heifers most often leave their manure.  In this weather the manure gets as hard as a rock.  I end up breaking and shoveling the manure out to make a smoother and better place to lay.

The replacement heifer's hay bale in the south corral.

I decided to walk out and look at the river.  On the way I discovered a saw I had used when cleaning the broken branches from the north pasture.  I forgot I left the saw and the snow earlier covered it.  The wind blew the snow off the saw and I found it.  I put it here for the photo.

As you can see the river is mostly frozen over.

For the next photo my better camera turned on.  So no blurry spot.  

I haven't seen many birds since I had finally put some suet out a week or so ago.  Today I seen a couple birds.  Here is one.

What a day!  And Thursday will be another cold and windy day.  I can't wait until Friday when the wind is suppose to stop and the temperature will be above zero again.

Winter weather

Since Winter started early this year I haven't been doing much other than riding a little on my bicycle when the weather is fine, or shoveling snow off the driveway or hay bales.  So not much to blog about.

Winter took it up a notch last night.  While November and December have been colder than normal, it is going to get worse.  Massive cold and Winter weather is on the other side of the Continental Divide.  So much so that it is spilling over the mountain passes and is coming into Flathead Valley.  It is windy today and we now have a winter chill reading in the weather report.  The wind chill readings today have been in the minus teens. And it is going to get worse for the rest of the week - until Saturday.  Minus 20 something is predicted Wednesday night. And that is the temperature and not the wind chill.

Yesterday I have put a large hay bale out in the middle pasture for the cattle.  This morning the cattle were standing near the middle/north pasture gate. That is also where I had stacked some of the chain sawed tree trunk logs.  The hay bale is in the western half of the pasture.  The winder part even with all the trees.  The gate was in the "less" windy part of the pasture and the logs provided a wind break.  So the cattle went there.

I have a smaller round hay bale from when I had baler problems this past August. That bale was small enough I could put it in the wooden feeder in the corral.  Since the feeder has two boards across the two long sides to keep the cattle from breaking the long side boards, I had to break the hay bale apart so as not to break the two cross boards.  Not hard.  Just took time.

Even though I had my tractor repaired, and I had mentioned the hydraulics at times quit working, apparently they didn't figure it out and fix it.  Colder weather can cause the hydraulics to stop. And that slowed me down today.  I had to warm the tractor up longer.  Even then I would have to shut off the tractor and count to ten.  When I restarted the tractor the hydraulics would usually work again.  I had to do that three or four times as lifting a hay bale could cause the hydraulics to quit again.  What a pain.

I got the hay bale into the wooden feeder.  I also moved the metal feeder in the north pasture from the western part of the pasture to be just outside the corral.  With this weather forecast I plan on feeding the next large hay bale just outside the corral.  That way the cattle can rest in the loafing shed out of the wind and cold, and also drink from the water trough and not the river - which is starting to freeze over again.

So.. we just got to get through this week.  And keep the wood stove going to heat the house.

In the loafing shed.

North pasture branches, snow, cattle

 Yesterday I finally got the broken tree branches cleared out of the north pasture. Slow going as I had lots of branches and I had to deal with snow covering the branches.  More work to dig the branches out of the snow using a rake or pitchfork.  And more work to find all the branches under the snow.  I'm sure after the snow melts next Spring I'll find the smaller branches I missed.

I'm not clearing this year broken branches from the middle and south pastures due to all the snow we got the past few days.  Next Spring for those branches.

For the last so many days I used a wheelbarrow instead of the pickup as I didn't think I had many branches left.  But it was more than I thought.  Each day I would leave the wheelbarrow by the remaining branches.  The last day I cleared branches I found the cattle had moved the wheelbarrow.  The cattle knocked over and pushed the wheelbarrow some distance through the snow.  I found the wheelbarrow pushed into the middle and north pasture fence.  I had to untangle the wheelbarrow.   Those cattle!

In the past I would break rake handles.  So my last rake handle was fiberglass.  It held up until now.  Raking branches with needles was hard on the rake and the rake head came out of the handle.  I flipped the handle and drilled a new hole in that end so I could bolt my rake head back onto the handle.

Here are all the broken branches I cleared from the front yard and the north pasture, after I trimmed the side branches off these branches.  Next year I will cut up the branches and then use them next Winter in my woodstove.  I have many more broken branches left to clear from the middle and south pastures.

Not much snow in the photos. And then it snowed and snowed and snowed. Everything is covered and white.  The snow will last until Spring.  Today I spend some time shoveling and sweeping snow off my three-stacked-high hay bales.  I use to cover the bales with a large tarp.  That way it protected the bales and also made it easier to get the snow off the bales and tarp.  But the tarp wore out last year and I didn't get a new tarp.  I also didn't expect to have more bales and have more bales outside my hayshed.  So lots of work from me.

Salt feeder flipped

Today I saw the cattle had tried to flip the salt feeder in the north pasture.  Why they do this, who knows.  Even with the metal posts in place to hold the feeder, the feeder was kind-of flipped.  At least they didn't break the feeder this time.  My last repair job must have worked.

Cattle feeder rolled

I have a cattle feeder in both the middle and north pastures.  I flip back and forth between the two pastures.  That is because when I drop a new large hay bale into the feeder the cattle can't wait.  They surround the feeder.  If some hay falls off the bale before it drops, the cattle will put their head into the feeder to eat the fallen hay.  Because I don't want the cattle to accidentally get injured when the hay bale drops I run around chasing the cattle away from the feeder.  Often they return to the feeder before I get the bale dropped.  So now I switch pastures.  That way I can drop a bale into the feeder where the cattle are not located.

Initially I had the north pasture feeder on its side until I was able to use it.  We had some strong winds and it rolled the feeder into the middle/north pasture fence.  Who would have thought this would happen.  When I try to roll the feeder I have to put a lot of effort into doing so.

With our cold - mid-Winter - temperatures, ice is forming on the river.  Yesterday when I let the cattle back into the north pasture I had to break the ice and cause it to float away from where the cattle drink from the river.  Uncommon I have to do this.

I also saw the beaver was back at it again. I'll call it "she" as this beaver is smart and determined.  I have protected and re-protected and re-protected the willow trees growing on the river bank.  I recently put a small square of fence around a tree I had earlier wrapped and the beaver had climbed above to eat.   The beaver figured out to unhook one side of the square and pushed that side open so she could reach the tree.  And ate it.  On another tree the beaver climbed above both tree wire wrappings to eat the tree.  She is getting up there to reach the tree.    That beaver is determined even if it takes her a few months to figure out to get around things to get what she wants.   I'm going to have to spend some time next year to better protect those trees.   Unless my neighbor finally remembers to tell their beaver trapping friend about my beaver problem.

Winter has arrived

Back on November 2 Winter arrived.  We got snow and cold.  More than expected.  Initially they said it was 7 inches of snow.  Later they said we got 10 inches over the first three days.  And this snow was unusual.  Lots of power outages.  Half of the electric customers lost power the electric co-op said.  I lost power two different times, on separate days.  On Wednesday into Thursday, and again on Friday.  Wednesday before I left for the livestock auction on Thursday.  No electric alarm clock to wake me up early to load the cows.

The electric co-op compared the wet heavy snow to a Spring-like snow.   But some trees still had leaves on them making matter worse.  And the evergreen trees with needles... look out. The north side of trees were coated, and many branches then broke off.  And on a number of trees a broken branch fell on another branch, breaking that one also.  Some trees all the way down.

I have a lot of broken branches.  It will take a long time to clean up.  I have all the broken branches cleaned up in the yard and fruit tree area.  I have the three pastures to now clean up.

So much snow that it looked like it would last until Spring.  But, even though our high temperature since then didn't exceed 33 or 34 degrees, and then only above freezing a few times, most of the snow melted and is gone.  Kind of surprising.  I now only have some snow in shady areas.  And of course, plenty of snow are still in the piles of broken branches which makes moving then hard.

Western Larch / Tamarack trees hadn't lost their needles for the year yet. And while in the past it seems that these trees' branches break off more, this time not many Western Larch trees lost their branches.

In the second photo you can see the branches from near the top were broken all the way down.

The chain link fence was coated.

After it started to melt.

With the snow I had to start feeding hay to the cattle.

After the snow mostly melted.

Swan Mountain range.

Some branches to clean up.  Fortunately none of them broke the power lines to my house.  My first power outage affected all the houses in the neighborhood.  The second power outage was just me.  Again no broken lines to my house.   Maybe the second power outage was because the circuit breaker on the power pole across the road was tripped.  The second power outage lasted from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm until the power company fixed the problem.

A few years ago I had the power company trim branches on this tree near my power line.  I guess this branch was too high for them to reach.  Fortunately it didn't break off.

The size of some of the broken branches.  This is after I cut off the branch's side branches.

Two cows to the auction and trouble

Thursday, November 3, I took two cows to the livestock auction.  They will be replaced by my replacement heifers I am keeping.   The cows were Maria and Speckles.   Maria, because she was one of the older cows.  Also because she was the largest cow.  Speckles, because she had the vaginal prolapse this Spring, and is more likely to suffer that next year before giving birth to another calf.

Speckles.  She weighed 1200 pounds.

Maria and her calf.  Maria weighed 1975 pounds.

I am keeping Maria's calf as a replacement calf.  Her calf was born mid-June.  That is why I kept Maria and her calf until now instead of selling them early October when I sold the calves and Mama.  I wanted a little extra time for Maria's calf to drink her mother's milk.   If I had known we would get this snow the day before the auction I would have sold them a week earlier.

I have a Chevy pickup and a Ford pickup.  I usually use the Ford pickup to pull the stock trailer as it is a 3/4 ton and has a larger engine.  But it is a two-wheel drive pickup and the Chevy is a four-wheel drive pickup.  Due to the 7 inches of snow I needed the four-wheel drive pickup.  Even with that pickup I had trouble pulling the stock trailer when in the corral due to the snow.

I loaded the cows into the stock trailer earlier than usual Thursday morning.  After putting Maria's calf into the south corral to be with the other replacement heifers I was on my way at 6:30 am.

As I drove down the road my pickup was making louder noise than usual.  The noise, quiet back then, had started last year.  I had my neighbor Curtis ride last year with me to listen.  He thought it was fine.  This past August when I had the mechanic fix the pickup's starter module I also told him about the noise.  When I picked up my pickup he said he thought it may be due to rust on my pickup's front wheel hubs because I don't drive the pickup much.  Drive my pickup more and the rust and noise may go away.

I drove on because switching the trailer back to the Ford pickup with a loaded stock trailer would be risky.  Unloading the cows back into the corral and switching pickups would be a problem as I wouldn't be able to pull the trailer out of the corral due to the snow.  Maybe the rust and noise would go away down the road.  So I continued on.

The sound didn't get louder miles down the road so I continued on. 

The snow had stopped the night before.  The roads were clear.  South of Flathead Lake there was less snow on the ground. Around 2 miles south of the lake there was no snow on the ground.  They had never gotten any snow.  That made driving better.  Mainly I drove 40 to 50 mph.  I only drove up to 60 mph a handful of times when I was driving down a long steep section of the highway.

I made it to the auction at 9:10 am.  A longer than normal drive.  I unloaded the cows and was back on the road at 9:30 am.  With a lighter trailer I could now drive 60 to 65 mph.  The pickup still made noise.  Maybe a touch quieter than before.  And it was better to not have Maria move around the trailer which occasionally caused the trailer to sway slightly causing me to slow down.

Going up the second "hill" - north of Ravalli - was when things quickly went downhill for me.

At the top of the hill the noise was louder and the pickup could only go as fast as 40 mph.  St Ignatius is a very small town with a population less than a thousand people. And any repair shops?   Maybe I can make it to Ronan, Montana and a repair shop there.  Ronan has a population of less than two thousand people.

I didn't make it.  I made it as far as where the word "pickup" is on the map.   I was driving slower.  There was a house on the side of the highway.  Normally the few houses around were way off the highway.  And this place had a wide driveway where I could fit my pickup and stock trailer as the highway's shoulder was barely wide enough to fit my pickup and trailer.

I don't own a cell phone, and due to Donna's recent illness she - and her cell phone - wasn't traveling with me.  Fortunately a woman was home due to her baby and small child.  I was able to use her cell phone.   I have State Farm roadside assistance and I called them.   Because I don't drive much I only have active insurance on the pickup I am driving, and I suspend insurance on the other pickup.   The previous day I have reactivated my four-wheel drive pickup's insurance by talking with my local State Farm insurance agent.  Guess what?  The national State Farm insurance company didn't know the local agent reactivated my pickup's insurance.  They thought it was still suspended.  So I was on the phone with my local State Farm insurance agent, a national State Farm employee, and a State Farm roadside assistance employee.   In the end I had to pay for the tow of my pickup and stock trailer, and after the national State Farm got the paperwork from the local employee, State Farm said they would reimburse me.   The cost for 11 miles: $757 dollars. Crazy expensive for some reason.  We'll see if State Farm sticks up to their word.

I didn't know of any repair shops in Ronan.  The roadside assistant found a repair shop that would look at my vehicle today.  At 3 pm.   I had been on the phone for well over an hour to get help and it was now after 11 am.

After I paid, roadside sent out a text to me listing the tow truck company.  Then I had to call roadside assistance back with the company name.  The State Farm assistant said they then checked if the tow company could tow a stock trailer in addition to a pickup.  Then she told me yes.

While the roadside assistant said it would take an hour and a half for the tow truck to arrive, it arrived in a half hour.    The driver said he only got confirmation about the pickup.  The trailer was suppose to be a second confirmation.   He said he would call State Farm about the trailer confirmation later and would haul my pickup to the repair shop now and then later come back with the trailer.

As the pickup and trailer was across the driveway we had to move the trailer to the side.  The driver said for him to move the pickup it would cost me an extra $35.   What?!!   I then tried to use my pickup to move the trailer a few feet.  But when I put the pickup into drive, nothing happened.   So the tow truck driver had to move the trailer.   In the end the driver didn't charge me $35.  That I know about.

We arrived at the repair shop around 12:30 pm.   I waited in the office sitting on one of the few chairs.  After some conversation I stopped talking and let the employee get back to work.  I fell asleep sitting in the chair.   Just before 2:30 pm she woke me up and told me they already checked out my pickup.   She had good and bad news.  The good news it wasn't a transmission problem.  The bad news was that it was a rear differential problem.  Apparently all the fluid had leaked out of the rear differential.  With no fluid inside, part of the differential was ground to nothing.    Look at the round object in the center of the photo.  That has no ridges to interact with the ridges on the left of it.  The mechanics had seen differential problems in the past, but nothing like this.  The weight of the trailer and cows had a major impact on a differential with no fluid.

I ended up buying a used differential to replace this one.   It was the easiest and cheapest thing to do.  The differential repairment arrived this past Tuesday and the pickup was fixed by Wednesday.

Earlier, before they figured out what the problem was, I had figured the repair would most likely not be done the same day, and I called Donna to come get me.  I told her not to arrive before 3 pm, after I found out what the problem was.

It wasn't quite 3 pm yet and my stock trailer hadn't arrived yet.  I had to call State Farm roadside assistance again as I forgot the name of the towing company that towed my pickup.  Again roadside assistance told me the insurance on my pickup was suspended.  I had to again call my local State Farm agent, then the national State Farm office. I asked where my stock trailer was.  To make the explanation of my 45 minute phone call shorter... they now said that my insurance didn't cover stock trailers towed by my pickup.   Really?!   That's a change from what roadside assistance told me earlier in the morning.  I had used one of the repair shop's phone to make the call.  I think they were taking pity on me as they said I could use one of their older pickups to tow my trailer since the distance was short.  I did as I wanted to stop arguing with State Farm about them saying one then then another, and I wanted to just go home.  The repair shop let me park my stock trailer in the back of their lot as I didn't want to leave my stock trailer on the side of the highway where the pickup had broke down.  Who knows if the trailer would still be there the next day if left on the side of the highway.

My 'new' differential assembly arrived this past Tuesday.  I also had the repair shop do a courtesy check and change the pickup's oil.    The cost for the repair was about five dollars less than what I got for the two cows.

Donna drove me to Ronan on Friday and I got my pickup and stock trailer.   This day snow was south of Flathead Lake to Ronan.  And due to an inversion it was extremely foggy south of the lake to Ronan.  It was hard to see.

So, my pickup and trailer is back home.  Usually I clean manure out of the stock trailer when I bring the trailer home, but it has been a week since the temperature was above freezing, and the manure is frozen.  It looks like the trailer cleaning won't be done until Spring.

My pickup and trailer at the livestock auction.

A few views during my drive home before the pickup broke down.