Merry Christmas at the ranch

It was a frosty foggy start to our white Christmas today.

The cattle wish you a Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve sunset

Here is the sunset as I was feeding the cattle.

Follow this link to see a few more sunset photos:

https://plus.google.com/photos/109566462412251958234/albums/5961134017209946209?authkey=CIKFiP7GvebC-gE

Cattle, manure, and water

The other day the temperature got above freezing.  I took the opportunity to clean the loafing shed.  Big cows means big manure "pies". And as cattle don't care where they crap the loafing shed was a mess.  With the temperature a bit above freezing I was able to clean much of the manure.  Not that it was easy as some "pies" were frozen to the ground and needed a little prying to get loose.

So far I haven't locked the cattle inside the corral and allow them to go into the north pasture.  When the wind is strong - like the other night - the cattle stay in the loafing shed.  When the weather is nice they rest under the large pine trees in the pasture.

More places to lay means less manure in the loafing shed.

I also emptied and cleaned the water trough.  Not the greatest job when the temperature is just above freezing, but necessary as the bottom of the tank was dirty.

Ya... I forgot to plug the heater in and had to break the ice in the morning.

Storm and sunset

Another Winter storm blew in overnight.  Very strong winds along with some snow.  The wind blew my bicycle over and also blew the solar light over.  The light at the top broke off.  

Before the light broke

Only days away from the shortest day of the year, the sun now sets in the far SW.

Solar lighthouse

At Tammy's September Treasure Market event one of her vendors gave her a solar power lighthouse.  It is pretty good.  When fully charged it puts out a decent amount of light.  To get it fully charged I have to remember to move it out into the sunlight during the day as it normally sits on the front step under the entryway roof.

Yes... we still have the creepy ugly kitty statue.

Glad to Sea You

No, the recent snow did not all melt.  The photos are from just before it snowed.

Snow curl

With the warmer weather the slowly melting snow is sliding and curling off the metal roofs.

As you can see in this last photo I did split some firewood before the snow fell.

Photo 2 shows how much the tall pile of cut branches on the left side has shrunk as I used them in the wood stove.  The pile used to be as tall as the stacks of wood behind the branch pile.

Warming up

The temperature has improved. We are back to near normal. Even a few degrees above normal as the temperature got a little above freezing today.

Here is the clothesline pole the other night.

Here is the clothesline pole today.  The left side had a serious droop going on, but by the time I got the camera the snow fell down.  Within a half hour the right side snow fell down.

More Winter photos

The other morning after eating the cattle wandered around the pasture.  With all this snow the cattle don't need to go to the neighbor's pasture.  So I closed the gate.  While in the pasture I took these photos.

For the first photo I stitched three photos together.  The second photo is when I used the panoramic feature on my new camera.

Winter wonderland

The weather forecasters underestimated the amount of snow we were to get Monday evening and on Tuesday.  We got way more snow than predicted.  Between the two days the amount may be close to a foot of snow.

I spent much of Tuesday shoveling snow.  I got the driveway cleared of snow, in front of the garage and around the house.  I shoveled paths to the tool shed, water trough, wood pile, the corral to feed the cattle, and to the hay shed to get six more hay bales to store in the barn.  I also shoveled the neighbor's deck and sidewalks around their house.  They hired someone to plow their driveway tomorrow morning.  I'll finish shoveling snow in the back yard tomorrow.

Tammy's Christmas Snowman party

Tammy's direct selling group had their annual Christmas party at the house.   I set up the two snowmen outside the front of the house.

Man... I must be tired from shoveling snow all day.  I earlier wrote that the snowmen were Santa Claus.

Frosty windows

On these recent cold mornings (-14 F) the windows behind the blinds get frosty overnight.

Faucet snow

Google+ decided to play with my faucet photo.  Kinda neat.

Cold day cattle activities

Still cold.  Now the wind picked up making it feel even colder.   Brrrr!!!

This morning I got Jan from the train station.  She was returning from a visit to her daughter.  The Amtrak train was scheduled to arrive 36 minutes late at 8:02 am.  The Amtrak train sat outside of Whitefish waiting for a BNSF fright train to pass through and never arrived until 9 am.  It was a long cold wait for the train.  At least I no longer have to go over to her house several times a day to let her dogs outside to go to the bathroom.


Remember me writing about some calves having thick belly fur?   "Gramps" certainly has thick belly fur.

I responded to a Craigslist ad for hay. 

Have about 12 small square bales of 2nd cutting grass/alfalfa. These are bottom bales of stack with a little musty on underside,but otherwise nice, not clean enough to feed out of stall feeders. Fed outside on ground would be excellent for cows. $2.50 bale - $25 take all.

The ad was up for a four days.  I need more hay but waffled on whether I wanted to go out in the cold and get these few bales. Tammy reminded me this morning to act or lose out like what has happened a few times before.  So I called. They were relatively close and I went and got the hay.  There were 10 bales and one broken bale.

The mold doesn't seem too bad.  I've had cattle eat moldier hay.

When I got the hay the owner told me she got four calls after I called.  So thanks to Tammy reminding me I got the hay.

Since I don't have a working livestock well I have to refill the cattle's water trough every day using the faucet from the house.  With this cold weather it takes me a number of minutes to thaw the pipe using a propane torch.  I need to find out if I have a short heating tape.

The pipe sticks out like this because I redid the pipe years ago a few months before I added insulation to the house walls.  Because I didn't know how thick the new walls were going to be Kelly and I made the pipe stick out this far.  After finishing the wall insulation job I never got around to cutting the pipe shorter and re-brazing an end to the pipe.  Now I wish I had done so.

Cold night and moon

Cold.  Cold enough that people aren't talking about global warming.  Below zero temperatures.  Well below normal temperatures.

When re-filling the cattle's water trough tonight I watched the moon come out during the sunset.  First I had to take a propane torch to thaw the water faucet on the house in order to fill the water trough.

The cattle hang around the corral even though the gate is open to the north pasture.  The fur on the calves is thick on their bellies.

Storm rolled in

This afternoon the weather forecast was correct when the cold front arrived with snow and strong wind.  The morning was partly sunny and calm but that changed early afternoon.  The wind and snow is still going on right now.

When the snow and wind started the cattle came back to the corral where I fed them more hay.