White Christmas

While I took these photos this morning when we still had some sun, this is how Christmas Day looked.

Snowy hay move

Time to move another big hay bale.  A day earlier and the move would have been dry.  Snow started overnight and continued all day today.  While the temperature was a few degrees above freezing the precip fell as snow.  Very wet snow.  Sloppy wet.  Within minutes of working my gloves were soaked.

Otherwise the bale move went well.  I had to take a few running starts to get the bale to move as the wet snow reduced the pickup's tire's traction.  Once I got moving I kept moving.

I waited until almost dark to shovel some of the wet snow.  The weather forecast predicts below freezing temperatures after today and for the foreseeable future. While it is hard to get excited about shoveling snow that is half water, I did shovel some areas around the yard by reminding myself it will be worse to let it freeze into ice.


We got a white Christmas.  I hope you have a Merry Christmas.

Solstice sunset

Quiet here.  Temperatures in the 20s and 30s.  No wind, no fog.  Partly cloudy. The cattle and Daisy are fine.   I've been getting some end of the year bicycling in.

This evening's sunset, where the sun sets after the Winter Solstice.

Fast hay move

Today was time for another hay bale for the cattle.  The temperature was at freezing - not too hot, not too cold.  No rain.  No snow.  Moving the bale: piece of cake.  It was relatively easy to lift up the metal feeder, easy to hook up the chain to the pallet, easy to pull the bale.   Bing, bing, bing and I was done.

Since everything went well I pulled the bale even out further into the field.  Each bale leaves some leftover hay and manure.  No sense putting every bale in the same spot and building up a large pile of leftover crap.

Old spot and new spot

Before moving the bale I put a small bale of hay in the wooden feeder in the corral.  That distracted the cattle while I worked.   Afterwards Beulah drank from the water trough while I filled it.  In the video below you will see that she would dunk her nose before drinking.  Daisy is licking water off the well cover.

Here is a short video of Daisy, Beulah, Rose and the cow with the sore leg:  http://youtu.be/UpVLaTifov0

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Late afternoon mountains

The mountains late Sunday afternoon.

Out of the corral

The weather was nice today so I got another large bale of hay for the cattle.  I planned on dragging the bale into the corral but I could not gently get the cattle to leave the corral.  If I yelled and made a fuss perhaps I could have done so.  Most of the cattle moved to the open gate but Buddy the bull just stood and watched me walk back and forth herding the cows around him.  Then Beulah and Momma - the two smartest cows - kept circling around Buddy to get back to the wooden feeder.  They thought I planned on tossing more hay into that feeder.

So I gave up after a light bulb went on in my mind.  I don't need for the cattle to be locked in the corral right now.  Why not put the bale in the north pasture?

That's what I did.  I shut the corral gate locking the cattle inside the corral and then drug the bale into the north pasture through the NE pasture gate.

The temperature was slightly above freezing. Even though the ground was frozen, the top layer was muddy/icy.  It took some jerking to get the bale to move.  Once it moved I kept going.  All four wheels spun mud as you can see below.

Having the bale in the north pasture also helps with the manure problem.  Right now, after six bales in the corral the area around the feeder is a big mess of mud and manure.  Dispersing manure in the north pasture will be easier than removing manure from the corral.

I had to roll the metal feeder from the corral to the north pasture and the bale.  I thought getting the feeder through the gate without the cattle would be a problem but the cattle hung around the wooden feeder and some checked out the spot where the metal feeder had sat earlier.  So I was able to roll the feeder through the gate without dodging cattle.


Once I had everything ready I opened the gate and had to encourage the cattle to come.  They stood around the wooden feeder until the red heifer came out.  Once she neared the bale the other cattle noticed and came out too.

The cattle stood at the bale feeding all afternoon.  Late afternoon I checked and saw they had made a mess as some hay lay on the ground around the feeder. I don't like it when they waste hay.


Here is a short video of the cattle coming out to the hay bale: http://youtu.be/EcsGEK6jX0U

Slurry manure

Warmer weather which means a water, mud and manure mess.  Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy!   Yet Daisy follows me into the coral when I feed cattle hay.  She is not a prissy kitty.

Rain today.  The cattle took five days to eat a bale instead of the usual four.  That meant they finished the bale on the one wet miserable day.  I fed them small bales today as the forecast is for better weather tomorrow.  I don't feel like laying on a wet soggy ground to wrap a chain around a pallet.  And I had other stuff to do today.

When I built the feeder south of the barn I brought in extra dirt to raise the ground around the feeder higher than the ground further out.  No matter, around the feeder is a slurry mix of water, mud, manure and pee.  I took a shovel and pushed a lot of it out of the corral before feeding the cattle.

The calves have gotten used to me.  They used to be skittish around me.  Now they get in the way, checking the shovel and me out as I pushed the slurry mess.  Rose especially likes to rub her head against me.

Momma and the metal feeder

Momma is too smart.  She's back to her old tricks.  Standing in the hay feeder.  She used to do that in my wood feeder but I never saw her do it in a metal feeder.    That may explain why the cattle didn't want to finish all the hay from the previous bale...  Momma stood on the hay with her muddy manure feet.

She was doing it again this morning, and would go back to doing it when she thought I wasn't paying attention.  Then a second cow started copying Momma.  I took some barb-less wire and strung it through the upright bars around the feeder.  That appears to have finally stopped this behavior.  Hay is too expensive to waste, and at the rate the cattle are eating the hay I may need to get more hay in the Spring.

Daisy usually comes with me when I check on the cattle in the morning.  She often walks on top of the fence.  I've never seen her fall off, which is important as she walks right above the cattle's water trough.

This morning I had success finally with the cow with the injured leg.  Yesterday I put the powdered aspirin inside an apple.  But she spit the apple out and wouldn't eat it.  This morning I tried grain again and she ate all the grain along with the aspirin.   Her leg seems to get better and worse different days in her recovery.  This morning her leg was definitely better.

Smartlic and hay

For the first time in over a week I went uptown to get groceries and stuff.  The main 'stuff' was a tub of Smartlic for the cattle.  Smartlic has a number of minerals for cattle.  While the hay I have is good and should have enough minerals, the Flathead Valley is know to be selenium deficint.  I've heard horror stories of calf problems or deaths due to a selenium deficincy.  So I thought I would try some Smartlic as a Winter supplement.

The tub weighs 250 lbs so it is a bit heavy to lift so I just tried to control its descent to the ground and avoid dropping it on my foot.

For now I put the tub in with the calves and cow with a sore leg.  The calves immediately came over to check out the tub.  When I let the cows back into the corral after bringing in another hay bale, several cows in the other side of the corral came right over and stood looking at the tub through the fence.

 
The cow with the sore leg actually ate most of the grain this morning.  Why now?  Who knows.   Whenever a calf came over to the bowl of grain the cow would push them away.


While I was uptown getting groceries the cattle left the corral.  So I closed the gate and brought in another hay bale.  This bale took some work.   When it last snowed we didn't have any wind so the snow level was consistent.  But due to the shade from the bales the snow level was deeper in front of the bales.  I had to do some shoveling for traction for the pickup tires and to avoid making the bale plow through the snow.

A problem was the pallet under this bale was smaller.  And the bale was wedged against the other bales.  The pallet started to come out from under the bale.  I added a second chain around the bale to keep things together.

I had to make a few running starts to get the bale and pallet moving.  But once I got moving I wouldn't stop.  The pickup's four wheels were spinning and the pickup was sliding sideways as I pulled the bale.  But I keep going, didn't crash into the stack of railroad ties, and got the bale to the 'spot' in the corral.

The cattle were pretty patient waiting outside the corral other that Beulah occasionally bellowing to remind me to keep working and moving.

I took some of the remainder hay from the old bale and tossed it over the corral fence so the cow with the sore leg could lay on it instead of the snow covered ground.  The hay/straw I had tossed in their part of the corral days ago is soggy and covered with manure already.  The cow and the calves have icy stomach fur right now.

Pickup's manure tracks on the fresh snow.

Bad foot cow, snow and trees

Giving aspirin to the cow with the bad foot... not working so well.   I mix the aspirin in with some grain.  Cattle love grain, right?  Not this cow.   The first time in the morning she sniffed the grain suspiciously and didn't eat any.   The cattle were in the "cud chewing" mood so I tried again in the afternoon.   She ate a little bit.  Only a very little bit.   I tried again in the evening when I put out a bale of hay.  She was more interested in the hay than the grain.

Her leg is bothering her more.  It's frustrating.   I'll try again tomorrow.

You expect me to eat that?

 
It snowed slowly but steadily overnight and I woke up to plenty of snow.   The forecast for the coming days is for warmer temperatures; temperatures above freezing.  The last snowfall I shoveled everything only to have it all melt.  I don't want to get stuck with a half melted/frozen mess but my heart isn't into shoveling all of the driveway and yard.  I compromised and only shoveled a quarter of everything: around the house and garage and paths to the road and the buildings.  I hope I don't get stuck with a half frozen mess for the rest of the Winter.

The trees look nice with the snow...

In the previous photos... mountains?  What mountains?

Vet visit

The cow with the limp seemed to be worse on Wednesday.  She would lift her front leg leg and shake it around.  No... she was not doing the "Hokey Pokey".  I was afraid she got an abscess like the other cow last year.

Today I took her to the vet. Dan came over this morning to help me load her into my stock trailer.  Even though it was snowing lightly, it couldn't have gone any smoother.  The herd walked straight outside the corral when I herded them. Buddy the bull followed right along.  The cow walked over to the gate Dan was manning, then walked over to the loading corral gate, then into the stock trailer.  I barely had to herd her.

The loading went so smooth we were at the vet's place 20 minutes early.

Getting the cow into the vet's squeeze chute was trickier as she didn't know where to go.  There were extra open gates and an open door and she went in all of those.  Let's try it again.  This time with all the extra gates and doors closed she easily walked into the squeeze chute.  She even lifted her leg when the vet reached down.  He commented she was better than many horses.

No signs of an abscess.  The right side of her front left hoof is a little longer than the left side of the split.  That right side was tender in spots.  The vet thinks the cow made have stepped on something with just the longer section of hoof and may have strained or (hopefully not) torn a tendon or something.

The vet trimmed the longer part of the hoof to match the other part.  He could fashion a wooden block as a temporary shoe but that would work better in the Spring or Summer than Winter.  We will let her be and most likely it will heal in a few weeks.  It is possible that even after the injury heals she may have alight limp.  Time will tell.

The vet gave me some powdered aspirin to give her.  I am to mix it with a little grain and feed it to her twice a day for a short time.

After I put the cow back into the part of the corral with the calves - since the herd was already outside the corral - I pulled another hay bale into the corral.   Between the pallet being slightly frozen to the ground, and the snow on the ground under the pickup's wheels, it took several running starts to get the bale and pallet to move.  Once they did move I was able to continuously pull it into the corral.  I needed all four wheels of the four wheel drive.

Who needs a tractor when you have a four wheel drive pickup?

Daisy wasn't ready to come outside in the morning when I took the cow to the vet.  When I moved the hay bale she was there to 'help'.  Here she is inspecting the placement of the bale.

The remaining large bales.

The herd patiently waiting outside the corral.

I put the last of the previous bale into the two wooden feeders.  Here the cattle are checking out the feeders with the 'new' hay.  Momma - being one of the smarter cattle - quickly moved on to the large bale.

Buddy the bull.  The red heifer behind him is a large heifer.

Winter scene at the ranch.