Celtic festival

Saturday afternoon Donna and I went to the Flathead Celtic Festival. (http://flatheadcelticfestival.com/)  The festival was a low key informal festival but we had a great time.

We watched some of the Highland athletics.   I didn't participate in any events.  It appeared wearing a kilt was a requirement and I forgot mine at home.     And in a few of the photos you will see that the men do wear shorts under their kilts.

All the events seem to be a mix of strength and technique.


Weight over the bar

Also known as weight for height. The athletes attempt to toss a 56-pound (4-stone) weight with an attached handle over a horizontal bar using only one hand. Each athlete is allowed three attempts at each height. Successful clearance of the height allows the athlete to advance into the next round at a greater height. The competition is determined by the highest successful toss with fewest misses being used to break tie scores.

Scottish Hammer Throw

This event is similar to the hammer throw as seen in modern-day track and field competitions, though with some differences. In the Scottish event, a round metal ball (weighing 16 or 22 lb for men or 12 or 16 lb for women) is attached to the end of a shaft about 4 feet in length and made out of wood, bamboo, rattan, or plastic. With the feet in a fixed position, the hammer is whirled about one’s head and thrown for distance over the shoulder. Hammer throwers sometimes employ specially designed footwear with flat blades to dig into the turf to maintain their balance and resist the centrifugal forces of the implement as it is whirled about the head. This substantially increases the distance attainable in the throw.

The first photo has the man swinging the hammer.  You can see the hammer in the air in the last three photos of this group.  It took me a lot of photo tries to capture the hammer in the air.

Caber Toss

A long log is stood upright and hoisted by the competitor who balances it vertically holding the smaller end in his hands. Then the competitor runs forward attempting to toss it in such a way that it turns end over end with the upper (larger) end striking the ground first. The smaller end that was originally held by the athlete then hits the ground in the 12 o’clock position measured relative to the direction of the run. If successful, the athlete is said to have turned the caber. Cabers vary greatly in length, weight, taper, and balance, all of which affect the degree of difficulty in making a successful toss. Competitors are judged on how closely their throws approximate the ideal 12 o’clock toss on an imaginary clock.

Here are two videos of women doing (or attempting) a caber toss.  Several women were able to successfully toss the pole end over end.  I didn't capture those successful tries on video as I was watching and videoing the weight throw at the same time.

24 seconds: https://youtu.be/c2UX_TPE6TI

18 seconds: https://youtu.be/DnVpeZxbIwQ


Weight Throw

Also known as the weight for distance event. There are actually two separate events, one using a light (28 lb for men and 14 lb for women) and the other a heavy (56 lb for men, 42 lb for masters men, and 28 lb for women) weight. The weights are made of metal and have a handle attached either directly or by means of a chain. The implement is thrown using one hand only, but otherwise using any technique. Usually a spinning technique is employed. The longest throw wins.

Here is a 25 second video of a man tossing a weight.  Notice as he spins a second time both feet briefly come off the ground.   https://youtu.be/KRosgep8ioE


Sheaf Toss

A bundle of straw (the sheaf) weighing 20 pounds (9.1 kg) for the men and 10 pounds (4.5 kg) for the women and wrapped in a burlap bag is tossed vertically with a pitchfork over a raised bar much like that used in pole vaulting. The progression and scoring of this event is similar to the Weight Over the Bar. There is significant debate among athletes as to whether the sheaf toss is in fact an authentic Highland event. Some argue it is actually a country fair event, but all agree that it is a great crowd pleaser.

Now, this is an event I should be able to do!

Music

We also listened to two musical acts.

Tra Le Gael

  http://tralegael.com/

This Flathead Valley band played traditional Celtic music.  Most of the time we heard them playing in the background as we watched some of the Highland Games.
Here is a 2 minute 24 second video of the band playing a song: https://youtu.be/jodUvePPY3U


Top House

  http://tophousetheband.com/

  https://www.facebook.com/tophousetheband/

(Their cover of the "Stand By Me" song on their Facebook page is a fun video.)

The band is from Missoula, MT.  They are an excellent band!  The lead singer in the middle is also a marketing major.   The fiddle player I - amusing - thought could also be a computer science guy and on their web page it says he is a graduate assistant in the University of Montana's computer science department.  I had a suspicion... since is as nerdy looking artsy looking guy.

Galway Girl: 2 minutes 37 seconds: https://youtu.be/xXaATkun9xQ

Dublin: 56 seconds: https://youtu.be/yzuvrE6EQfM

500 miles: 32 seconds: https://youtu.be/2sqHK7tNmjM

Renegade: 2 minutes 26 seconds: https://youtu.be/UzUbco52EhM



After I got home I discovered one cow in the hayfield.  Yes... of course it was Maria.   She broke one fence barb wire, and broke the wire holding another barb wire to a fence post, and crawled through the fence - even though she is fatter than a pig and looks like she can give birth to twins tomorrow.   She must have been in the hayfield a long time as she was ready to go back to the pasture so her calf could drink.  I fixed the fence.

The grass in the hayfield is greener than the grass in the pasture.

Wrong twine

I almost forgot Monday's internet auction.  I was only interested in one item and when I signed on my computer in the evening I had two and a half minutes left to bid.  There were two lots of twine, seven rolls each.  The current bids for each lot was low.  I bid and bid, flipping between the two lots.  Finally I won one of the lots.

The next day when I picked up my twine I discovered the twine was the wrong thickness.  I know there are two thicknesses, a thin twine for large bales and a thicker twine for small bales.  Normally I look at the auction items in person, but Monday I got busy and forgot.  I ended up buying thick twine. 

Wyatt has a baler that makes small bales so I sold him the twine for what I paid.

Cattle in the yard

While there is not a lot of grass, the past few days I have let the injured leg cow and the two calves eat grass in the yard to give them something different than just hay.  And the yard is cleaner and drier than the corral for the injured leg cow's wound.

Of course this means cattle proofing the yard to protect the trees and bushes, etc.  I should know better but this is more work than I remember.  At first I let the cattle have access to the back yard up to the house.  Today I moved the temporary corral panels and let the cattle go around the house and into part of the front yard.  In a day or two I will let the cattle have access to the whole yard.  (Just a little more cattle proofing needed.)

Hay into hayshed

Today I finished putting all my hay bales into the hayshed.  I had left the recent bales outside for one week in case they had further drying to do.  I didn't want to put them in the hayshed and then they overheat and catch fire from further drying.

Since it was only for one week I didn't place the bales on wood pallets and set them on the ground.  Bad idea.  The bales pulled moisture out of the ground as I had irrigated that pasture a little over a week prior to setting the bales there.  So most of the bales I had to turn so the wet spot was to the side or top depending on where the bale was to be located in the stack.  That is why I didn't finish moving all the bales yesterday.

Wet spot on a turned bale.  Fluffed hay from the bale spear used to turn the bale.

Before putting the bales into the hayshed I removed last years bales from the hayshed. And the few bales that no longer were wrapped in twine. Once I had all the recent bales placed into the hayshed I put last years bales back into the hayshed.  And the unwrapped or partially wrapped bales.

Moving the unwrapped or partially wrapped bales didn't always go smooth.  Below is a photo of hay that fell from one of these bales when I tried to lift it high into the stack.  This doesn't look like too much but it actually was almost two pickup loads.  In all I moved four heaping pickup loads of loose and fallen hay into the barn.

Why are some bales unwrapped or partially wrapped?  Sometimes the bale spear catches the twine as seen below.  The more times I move a bale the more chances the spear will catch twine.

This is the hay that came off the bale when the bale spear snagged the twine.

I was picking up the forth and last load of loose hay when it started to rain.  I got the hay into the barn before it got too wet.

All the bales fit in the hayshed except this one bale.  Once the rain quit I moved the bale into the barn as I still had just enough room for the bale.

Unfortunately just as I was putting the bale into the barn part of the bale sloughed off.  Naturally why wouldn't it?  A simple move of all these bales had to have hitches, whether twine snags, wet spots or bale sloughing.

Once I pitchforked all the loose hay into the barn.

The bales just fit: a full hayshed.

Since I have irrigation I forget how dry it has been this Summer.  I have enough hay but not everyone does.  Wyatt cut part of his field that regrew so he would have more hay for his two horse lady friends.  And last night, at a get-together before Cheryl and Leah left to return to Wisconsin, Edley said they were about 30 large bales short.

Cattle, hay, etc.

A few days ago I let the bull out of the corral so he could be with the cows again.  He only had a little hay left of his bale so if I didn't let him out I would have to give him another bale.  So far he stays right with the cows and doesn't wander off.

Wednesday I had some leftover bandage and bandage wrapping.  The cow with the injured leg's wound looks better but still is gooey. It appeared she had another small gooey wound above one of her dew claws, which is strange as her leg was bandaged all this time.

I bandaged her leg again.  Since I didn't have a full bandage it only lasted a few days before most of it came off.  However I seen the cow lick her wounds, and that they looked clean.  So for now I don't plan on using the bandages Donna had found that were leftover from her horses.

One of southern neighbors are moving.  They got rid of their horses and still had twenty-some small hay bales of last year's hay.  They gave them to me.   While the hay was covered with a tarp, not all the bales sat on wooden pallets.   Half the bales were still held together well with twine and I put them in the barn.  The other half were loose or barely held together.  Those bales (seen below) I put out in one of my metal hay feeders for the cattle to eat.

I didn't think the cattle would eat all the hay so I drug the metal feeder from just outside the corral to the far end of the north pasture so that the uneaten hay would decay and fertilize that area.  The cattle got all excited and ran around and around and around the pickup and feeder as I pulled the feeder across the pasture.  I felt like I was in an old western movie and the cattle were Indians circling the wagon train.

I checked today and the cattle ate all the hay.  They liked the hay better than I thought they would.


Yesterday I fixed the window insert for the irrigation shed.  This Summer when it was hot and the heat would trip the pump's electrical circuit breaker I left the shed door open to help cool the shed.  To keep the cattle out of the shed I placed odds and ends in the doorway.  One item was the window insert.  The cattle tried to get in the shed and failed to do so.  But in the process they knocked the window insert over and then stepped on it putting a hole in it.   Just to show me I guess.

Hay baling complete

I finished baling my hay this afternoon.  In the morning I hooked the new belt together.

I know... not pretty.  That's all the hooks I have, but it's enough to hold the belt together.

My first bale of the day had a problem and I had to dump the bale and start over.   Hay was getting between the rollers and same large belt as before; the belt next to the large belt moved on top of the large belt at the point the hay was catching in the roller; and the large belt was starting to twist where the hay was catching in the rollers.

I fixed everything and started over.  Everything went fine with the next bale.  And for all of the rest of the bales.  No more problems.  What do you know?!

I ended up with almost 21 bales.  The 21st bale was just shy of a full bale.  Not bad for a second cutting of a first year crop that started out as a disaster with weeds, and only was irrigated for about a month.

I already had enough hay for the Winter, but it doesn't hurt to have more than enough hay.

After I finished baling I used my air compressor to clean the baler.   Tomorrow I will get the bales from the field.  Before I baled the cut hay I noticed some windrows were getting thinner by the day (night).  Those darn deer were eating the cut hay.  One evening one deer didn't want to run away when I quit baling for the evening and got out of the tractor.  I had to yell a few choice words at the deer before she moved, and that was only to another part of the field.

Baler problems

This morning I spent an hour cutting and removing the hay that stopped my baler from working last night.

The jammed up hay

I used a serrated knife to cut the hay.  It was not easy.  The hay was dense; it was awkward cutting among the belts; and I took care not to cut the belt.  Shortly after I reached the point in the photo below I was able to move the belt slightly and remove the rest of the hay.   With the hay gone the baler worked once again.

The removed hay

The row on the right is the unrolled partial bale from last night.  I unrolled it so I could re-bale it.

After I made the second bale of the day (the 7th overall) I discovered a belt from the baler had come off.    What next?!!

The missing belt's location

When I rethreaded the belt back into the baler I discovered the belt was 5 or so inches too short.  I double and triple checked that I threaded the belt correctly.  When I noticed the third belt from the right I realized the missing 5 to 6 inch section must have been an extra section.  I checked the baler and walked the field looking for the missing piece.  I checked the last bale.  No sign of the missing piece.  Great. Just great.

A guy who lives down the road past Donna's place has some old round balers in his junkyard yard.  I asked if he had an extra belt.  Nope.  But he gave me a name of a guy who might have one.  So I went to see Carl.  He was baling his hay.  He has newer balers but he did have an old 4 inch belt he no longer needed.  He gave it to me for free.  Wow.

One side of the belt already had the clips to lace the belt together.  Instead of cutting a 5 to 6 inch section I cut an entire belt.  I only used half of the roll.  My old belt had clips on one side and I removed them, drilled holes in the new belt and then added the clips to this new belt.   It was getting dark when I went to insert the metal pin in the new clips to connect the belt together.  I got the pin halfway through the clips before I had to give up for the night.  Tomorrow I will see if my repair job works and I can finish baling my hay.   The good news is the slight chance of rain today did not happen.

Hay raked

I started raking the hay Saturday evening and finished this afternoon.  I raked 42 rows into 14 rows.  Three rows into one.

I then attempted to grease the zerks on the baler and on the tractor.  When I put in a new tube of grease the grease gun wouldn't work. After multiple attempts to figure out why, I quit.  I have done this before numerous times with no problem.  Why it wouldn't work now... no idea.

I started to bale the hay.  I was on the sixth bale, and had baled two and a third rows, when I had a problem.  The baler's intake rollers jammed.  Also one large belt was loose as it appeared the bale didn't form all the way to one side.  I had been zig-zagging to ensure hay was brought in side to side.  I dumped the bale.  The belt was snug again but the intake rollers were still jammed.  Hay appeared to be stuck between the belt and rollers on one side. I pulled hay out but couldn't unjam the rollers before it got too dark to see well.  I'll fix it tomorrow.  I may have made some windrows too large for the speed I was driving to pick the hay up.

Mailbox

Today I fixed my mailbox.   It appears someone backed into the mailbox's post and knocked it over.  Probably drove into my driveway to turn around and, being dumb as a rock, backed straight up and hit my mailbox post.  It is hard to over estimate how dumb many Flathead drivers are.  You'd think being so far off the road would make the mailbox safe from being hit.

While having the post two feet in the ground makes for a solid post, it was not solid enough against a vehicle.

I dug out the hole and put the post back in the ground.  I also updated the mailbox protection.   I formerly had a board and supporting boards to protect the mailbox from the snow thrown by the county snowplows.  Having the boards meant I had to clear snow away from the mailbox when it snowed.  So I cut some scrap boards and boxed in the mailbox and covered it.  I moved the mailbox flag to outside the box.

Hay cut and problems

Wednesday at dark I finished cutting most of my hayfield.  Today I cleaned up and cut the corners for each row cut.  Earlier this month my neighbor across the road asked if I would put my cattle in his field to eat the grass down.  Too much of a hassle to move my cattle there.  He then asked if I would cut his field.  I had cleaned and put away my hay equipment and had other problems to attend to, and the field was not worth the effort.  Today I looked his field over again.  Twice.  I decided not to cut his field.  The grass is dry and most likely has little nutritional value.  And his field is filled with many, many... many pocket gopher mounds. His field is the source of the pocket gophers I get each year in the east side of my hayfield.  While the grass could be cut and baled to be used as bedding for the cattle, it is not worth the hassle.

This evening, as I was about to leave for my evening bicycle ride, I noticed the cattle bunched along the south pasture / hayfield fence.  No... wait... make that in the hayfield.  The cattle had just entered the hayfield and still were near the hayfield fence.  To get in the hayfield they lifted one of the two gates up off the hinges.  The gate was still chained to the other gate but that didn't matter.  I guess I should be glad the cow - probably Maria - didn't break her neck sticking it in the gate to lift the gate off its hinges.

I got my neighbors, Rusty, and Calvin and his wife and we herded the cattle.  Newly in a forbidden field the cattle were all excited.  Instead of running back through the open gate they ran to the corral.  From there we herded them through the gate into the north pasture.  All this excitement got the bull excited and he ran around and jumped inside his part of the corral.  Once the cattle were in the north pasture everyone calmed down.  Thankfully I discovered the cattle's jailbreak almost as it happened.  Until it dries, second cutting alfalfa is too rich for the cattle to eat.  They could bloat and die.

Then when I planned again to leave on my evening bicycle ride I discovered my mailbox had been knocked over this afternoon/evening.

Seriously??!!

I'm not supposed to go on an evening bicycle ride?   The mailbox is set a short distance off the road where one has to drive one tire off the road to reach the mailbox.   But you know how bad Flathead drivers are.  They can't seem to stay on the road.

The post is a cast iron pipe.  It doesn't seem to be damaged, just knocked over and out of the ground.  It took quite some hit to do that.  Wonder what damage there was to their vehicle.  Tomorrow's projects are to put the post back into the ground, and work on the hayfield gate.  Just what I need... more projects.

Irrigation end, hay cutting start

Saturday night I ended my irrigation for the year.  Sunday I put the sprinkler lines away.  Monday I put the mainline away.  Sunday afternoon to Monday morning it rained.  Of course... after I finish irrigating.

I would have liked to have waited a few more days before I started to cut my hay to let the field dry more.  But the clock is ticking.  It is almost September and our weather pattern changes.  July and August are dry, then by September the rains return with cooler weather.  And rain is in the forecast.  Also, it is recommended to have at least four weeks between the last cut of alfalfa and a hard freeze.  The first freeze is usually mid September and a hard freeze in October.  Time is running out for me.  So I started to cut my field today.

I should have suspected the day would be rough when I discovered my rear bicycle tire was flat this morning when I planned on going for a morning ride while the dew dried.  After I patched the tire my neighbor Jan needed help.

I greased the haybine before using it.  When I hit my head on a tree branch the second time while greasing the haybine I got a saw and got rid of the branch.  It was from a box elder tree so the cattle were happy to eat its leaves.   This wasn't the only time I hit my head today.  Later when fixing the haybine I would hit my head.  By the end of the day the top of my head was scratched and sore and my blood pressure went through the roof and the cussing started each time I hit my head.

I hadn't planned on doing a second hay cutting so after I finished the first cutting I had parked the haying equipment under trees until I build my machine shed.  The equipment was parked close together which caused a problem when I went to move the haybine.  I had inches to spare but the haybine wanted to go left and then I didn't have inches to spare.  Things got worse before they got better and I finally got the haybine out without damage.

I removed the pocket gopher traps from the hayfield.  My shoes only got a little damp so most of the water had evaporated by then.  The alfalfa and grass is thick.  They are also full of moisture so the cut windrows are heavy for their size.  It may take a while for the hay to dry.

The grass/alfalfa is so thick one can't see the pocket gopher dirt mounds.  Since this is a new field the pocket gophers had to create all new tunnels.  That meant larger than normal dirt mounds.  The dirt is still wet.  All that together caused problems.  A number of times I had to stop and remove the dirt from the haybine as it was preventing a clean cut.  After repeated clogs in one spot on the haybine I discovered a rock guard was broken.  My guess is a dirt pile broke the rock guard.  This was my first time replacing a rock guard so I had a learning curve before I figured out the secret to changing the rock guards.

The rock guard break was at the start of row four.  Before I was done with row four I discovered a thin strip of grass/alfalfa not being cut.  A sickle blade in the rock guard next to the replaced rock guard was broken off.  On the to-do list once the field is cut is to walk row four to find the broken blade before I drive over it.  I suspect another dirt mound broke the blade off.  And I'm having the haybine cut at a higher space than usual.

It took me three hours to cut four rows.  Incredibly slow.  Usually I cut my field in eight to ten hours.  I had to cut the field waaay slower than I usually do.   I estimate I only cut a quarter to a third of the field today.  So much for being done in one day.  The plan is to put in a long day and finish the cut tomorrow.


Now I understand how my dad could have missed an irrigation pipe in the field and run over it with a haybine.  I made sure to double check that I removed all the pipes.

The broken rock guard protects the rightmost two blades.  The middle blade was not protected.  How I discovered the rock guard was broken was when the grass/alfalfa kept getting caught on and bunching up on the unprotected blade.

A nice looking alfalfa field.  My windrows are fairly heavy.  I suspect I may not fit all of the bales from this cutting into my hayshed, which will be a hassle.

A turkey was hanging out in one corner.  This time around I discovered why.  She had baby chicks.   They wanted to stay in the tall grass.  So I had to go slow, stopping often to let them get away.  In the photos you can see the mother; her chicks had followed her back into the tall grass.

After several rounds I couldn't see the turkey.   But then the grass moved so I slowed up.  Out of the grass ran Daisy at full gallop.  She ran from the grass to the yard.  She must have been looking for the turkey chicks to play with.   After this I no longer saw the turkeys or Daisy in the tall grass.

Cow leg wound update 3

I remembered my camera when I changed the cow's bandage this afternoon.

The wound continues to look better. She still limps badly; but she does get around.  No defecating this time when I changed her bandage.