My neighbor Curtis

My neighbor Curtis died last Wednesday December 11.   It was a surprise, but also not a surprise.

I've seen Curtis off-and-on over the years.  The last I saw Curtis was near the end of October.  In hindsight I think it was that day or the next when he got ill.  I didn't know back then. It was when I was being an election judge for the election.  Then the cattle, then the weather changed, and snow fell.   I see Curtis less in bad weather as he isn't working outside.  Then the end of November, the beginning of December, my neighbor Jan said Curtis was ill and she hadn't seen him in quite a while even though she had left food for him at his door a few times.  I worked/talked with Jan and my neighbor Russ and we briefly talked with Curtis on the phone.  Curtis sounded bad but at least he gave us the phone number of a couple who were his close friends and also were his trustees.  We talked with them and they were looking out for Curtis, and that Curtis wanted to be left alone while he recovered.   That's Curtis.

So we kept an eye out for Curtis and hoped he was recovering.  But also Curtis doesn't believe in doctors and wouldn't go see a doctor.  When Curtis was ill for almost a week this past Summer he wouldn't go see a doctor, even after he recovered.  I suggested over and over the time afterwards that he should see a doctor.  I stopped saying that for a while as he would get annoyed and I didn't want him to stop talking with me.

So that is why it was a surprise, but not a surprise.  Overall he seemed to be in decent health other than his illness this Summer. So a surprise he died.  But no doctor visit, so not a surprise.

No funeral, but today there was a graveside service for Curtis.  He was buried in a cemetery west of Kalispell.  This cemetery was created in 1895.  It is not large and there are only a small number of plots left.  The grass is native grass. The grass is not mowed and is all natural.    Russ has family members buried there.  Curtis had seen the cemetery in the past when he and Russ stopped there.  Curtis liked the cemetery.  

Curtis had a natural burial.  That is, no coffin.  This cemetery apparently is the only cemetery in Flathead County that allows a natural burial.

Curtis was laying in his grave when we got there.  The funeral home prefers that instead of having people watch a body carried/laid into a grave.  He was under a sheet.  I was told he was dressed with his motorcycle vest as Curtis liked to ride his motorcycle and almost always wore his vest when he did so.   And buried holding his bible as Curtis was a religious man in his later years. 

There was short service and then people shared a few stories about Curtis.  There were only about a dozen of us there.   After the service was over, I and many others used shovels and took turns helping the gravedigger put the dirt back into the grave and cover Curtis.

His close friends and I are going to miss Curtis.

Curtis helping Donna and I with a new calf back in March 2022.

Farm auction

Today I went to a farm auction a few miles down the road.  Not common these days as there are less farms around.  And in December of all times.

They had irrigation pipes at the auction and I hoped to buy some more to have another backup line.  They had 500 irrigation pipes.  Handline irrigation pipes.  People these days use wheel lines or pivot lines for irrigation if they can. Handlines are work and not as poplar. Who wants handline pipes these days?   So I thought I would be able to get some of the pipes.  Especially with that many as they sold in around 12 lots from 33 to 100 pipes in each lot.   But a number of people showed up.  And they wanted irrigation pipes.  I was outbid time after time.  I can get some pipes from my irrigation guy for $45 a pipe.  Many of the pipes sold for around $50 or more.  And the valves and fittings sold for a lot.  Everyone I talked to were surprised the pipes sold for so much for used pipes.  $10 more than they expected for each pipe.

They also had some farm equipment for auction.  Nothing I needed or wanted, but it was interesting to see for what tractors and other farm equipment sold for.   Again, for lots.

Pretty much all the other ranchers and irrigation people I know in the valley were there and I caught up with what was going on with them.

I drove my Ford two-wheel drive pickup.  We have had only 6 or so inches of snow so far and some melted. So not much snow. We had to park in a field.   And my pickup had a little trouble in spots.  I didn't have a shovel along with me and at one point when I couldn't move forward or backwards I was fortunate to have two men push as I tried to go backwards, and after a few attempts I was able to go.

A nice day even if I didn't get any items at the auction.

Some of the irrigation pipes.

Inversions

For the last week or more the entire valley has been under an inversion.   No sign of blue sky or sun the entire time.   On occasion one can see the stars during the night, but that's it. The little benefit from an inversion is that while the temperature doesn't really rise during the day, at night it doesn't get too cold.   The last few days the inversion intensified.  Now fog came in and ice fog.  All day today the roads and most everything was iced and slippery.

The ski resort opened on the 5th.   Here are pictures from up there on that day.  As you can see no clouds and blue sky above the inversion layer.   The weather forecast has wind and rain/snow this weekend.  And the prediction is the inversion will leave.  I hope so.  I miss seeing blue sky.

Salt and mineral licks for the cattle

Black Friday discounts, so I bought salt blocks, a bloat block, and tubs of mineral lick for my cattle for next year.   In the past I ran out of salt blocks during the year, so last year I bought lots of them.  I still had 8 salt blocks left this year.  Still, I bought 6 more blocks to be safe I have enough.

Usually I buy them at the Murdochs Ranch store.  But this year we also got a Tractor's Supply store in part of the old Kmart building.  I stopped there.  They were cheaper than Murdochs.  So I bought the salt blocks there, and also the mineral lick tubs.  Tractor Supply didn't have any bloat blocks.  So I went to Murdochs to get a bloat block.   Lots of people at Murdochs.  I had to drive around until someone pulled out of a parking spot.  Crowded in the store.   Most crowded of anywhere I went on Black Friday.

Then back to Tractor's Supply.  Their mineral lick is a different brand than Murdochs.  After comparing the mineral percentage I went for the ones at Tractor Supply.  The Tractor Supply's tub is 200 pounds, not 250 pounds of the Vitalix mineral tubs.  But the Tractor Supply's price was a little less than half the price of the Vitalix.   So I bought 2 tubs for the cattle.

I ended up putting an old Vitalix covering on the Tractor Supply's tub.  When driving home the cardboard flew out of the one tub.  I then put something on the other tub to make sure the other cardboard wouldn't fly out of that tub.

Tool shed painted - for now

From October 20 to November 18 I spent some time painting my toolshed.  This was what I intended to paint before Kelly gave me the red paint and I then painted the barn. With the barn painted I turned my attention back to the toolshed.  Of course it didn't take me a month worth of time to paint the toolshed as I was also doing other things before the snow and cold and Winter came. 

I have two five-gallon pails of the paint.  With time running out I hoped to get one coat painted on the entire toolshed, and also use up one of the five-gallon pails.  Neither was achieved though I was really close to meeting both goals.  Well, there is next year to finish the painting of the toolshed.

The "battleship" grey is not my favorite color.  But as time passes the color is growing on me.  I'll see in the future if I stay with this color or if I get another and different color for the toolshed.

First off - the west side.   First I had to scrape what I could of the old cracked paint.  Then pressure wash the west side.   Pressure washing took more effort than expected.  I first hooked up two garden houses to get water to the pressure washer from my house.  But the pressure washer didn't put out much water pressure.  Then I used three hoses to connect back to the well pump.  Still no water pressure from the pressure washer.  Then I temporarily changed the connections on my livestock pump and used only one garden hose.  Now I had pressure for a pressure wash.

Paint has been scraped in the lower half when I took this photo.

Two photos after I pressure washed the building.  The first was just after I washed the building.  Then the second photo is two days later after the building dried. 

I ended up painting this side two times before moving on to rest of the building.   One coat of paint was not enough.

Now on to the south side of the building.   After scraping this side, I then pressure washed the side.   I only had time to put on one coat of paint.   Since it took me a number of times over days sometimes I would re-paint some areas.  The re-painting may have been due to me sometimes painting until it got dark, and the area at the time was hit-and- miss and not consistent.

Now on to the east side.   I scraped bad paint off.  But I didn't pressure wash this side.  By now the temperatures were getting colder and time was running out.  Again, only a single coat of paint, except for fixes of the previous day's paint.

Time was running out before Winter arrived.  But I still had a little time to paint the north side.  Some scraping of the paint, but this side was not as bad as the other sides.  Again, no pressure washing of this side.

In the first photo you can see a pile of rocks in the corner.  I then moved the rocks so I could paint this area.  We had a wet Fall.  The area of the toolshed where the rocks were was also wet /damp.  And things are not really drying this Fall.   So this section did not get painted this year.  This is why the entire building did not get one coat of paint.  And why I had a little paint left in the one five-gallon pail.

The paint on the pole shed wall is where I painted at the end of each painting job in order to get paint off the brush before cleaning the paint off the brush with water.

I also painted a little around the one door.   No plans to paint the rest of this interior part.

Now that Winter is here, painting is over for this year.  Next year I plan to be back at it.

Aloe vera plant flowering

It is that time of year for my aloe vera plant.  It is now flowering.   Donna also has an aloe vera plant. Her plant started flowering weeks ago.

My aloe vera plant.

Cattle

The cows seem to be no longer fighting with Fritz.  But this morning I seen Fritz standing near the feeder but by himself.

Here is a cow next to the feeder.

The heifers are now being weaned.   They are two months older than the other heifers that were weaned this year, and these heifers are not making as much of a fuss.  But they still do cry out for their mothers occasionally as seen below.   The mothers look over at the heifers but they are not crying out like the other mothers did two months ago.  These mothers probably are glad they no longer have to feed their kids. 

Snow curl

This past week we got more snow than the weather forecast predicted.   Yesterday and today we were above freezing and the snow is sliding off the metal roofs.

Fritz now with the cows

Today I let Fritz out of the south corral so he can be with the cows in the north pasture after I put out a large hay bale in the north pasture.  The cows were already eating at the hay bale.  Fritz slowly came out of the corral checking things as he went.   After he joined the cows the action began.  The cows have seen him though the corral fence and know of him.  But some cows didn't want him near them, and certainly not next to them eating from the hay bale.  A lot of head-to-head pushing.   While Fritz is a bull, the cows are bigger.  Therefore they could push him back.   Other cows ignored him and just wanted to eat hay.  It was getting dark at the time.  I'll see tomorrow how they are interacting.  Hopefully the cows will get it out of their system and accept Fritz to their group.

The previous bulls I had were accepted right away.  But then, they were larger than Fritz.  The last time I got a cow, Sugar and her calf, it took a long while for the cows to accept a newcomer.   And tragedy happened when I believe some cows pushed the heifer into the river during a cold snap the frost Winter.   The heifer froze and drowned as it could not get back onto the shore.   That should not happen again as I changed/made improvements to that drinking spot at the river.

Fritz leaving the corral to join the cows at the hay bale.

Fritz is in the middle between two cows.

By now Fritz didn't want to push against another cow and would walk off.

Here is a short 23 second video of Fritz and a cow tussling.  https://youtu.be/-B5LC4bvvdk

With Fritz out of the corral I put the two replacement heifers in the south corral to eat hay from there.  I don't want them to get impregnated until next June. I put the heifers into the loading corral first.  Then let the cows out of the corral.  Then Fritz.  Then I let the heifers out of the loading corral and they went right away to the south corral.  Job done.

I also put out another hay bale in the middle pasture.  That way on Thanksgiving I don't have to spend time to put out a hay bale.  Also, my new tractor now has an issue.  Forward/Neutral/Reverse is due to a lever on the steering wheel.  The stick shifts on the floor are for speed - not for forward or reverse movement.  The lever on the steering wheel apparently is now an electrical thing.  The problem now is that my tractor now will self-shift to neutral after 10 seconds even though the lever has not moved.  Over and over after I re-shift the lever over and over.   After some time the lever will stay "connected" and I can keep going for a while.   The lever has a sensor so if one gets out of the seat the tractor will re-shift itself to neutral.  Ok, but I am sitting in the seat when this current problem happens now.  I talked to the John Deere dealer about this and no solution yet.  So it takes me longer now to put out a hay bale.

My precinct polling place

One of the local papers had a photographer at our polling place on election day.  He was around for a while taking photos.  This is the only photo I have seen from our place.   The photo was in an unrelated article days after the election about the post office across the U.S. delivering a number of mailed in ballots to different counties in a state, or even different states.  I don't trust the post office to delivery my mailed in ballot to the right location.  I dropped my ballot off at the election department.  Here in Flathead county you can check online whether the election department received your absentee ballot and when.

Donna's daughter's barn

I brought my camera along today to get a few pictures of the barn the Amish men made for Donna's daughter.   The Amish did a very nice job making the barn.

One of the horse stalls.   There are three stalls.

The following photos are without-and-with a flash from the camera.

While looking around, next to the house, there was a squirrel in the tree chewing me out.  https://youtu.be/6LVRlmvLEnI

The view to the NE from the property.  My ranch is somewhere out there a little left of center.