Delayed shower, cattle and raft

A nice summer day, but crazy (as usual?)

Before eating breakfast and taking a shower I decided to pick the goat's beard weeds growing in the yard, corral area and NE pasture before their yellow flowers closed for the day. I haven't done this for a few days and needed to 'nip them in the bud' before they went to seed.

I seen some of the weeds have started to pop up in the north pasture. While picking those weeds my neighbor, Mr. D., came outside to move his lawn watering hoses before mowing his lawn. We had a chat over the fence about gophers and weeds. He mentioned that shortly after he moved here - many years ago - the County came around and would poison the gophers. He, his northern neighbor, and dad all had the County poison their gophers. Mr. D. said that dramatically cut down the number of gophers, but eventually they came back.

In today's mail was a reply from the nursery I purchased plants from last year, most of which died. They sent everything back from my previous letter saying I also had to include the shipping label for the kiwis I ordered. I couldn't find the label earlier, but their letter mentioned the kiwis were shipped in a box and not a plastic bag like the rest of the order. Bingo. I found the box and label.

I had to re-send all the other labels and info back to them. Because the one year guarantee is approaching for the kiwis I had to re-mail everything to them as soon as possible. Therefore I drove to the main post office to mail the letter to them today. What a hassle dealing with this nursery. I just checked the "Garden Watchdog" web site at Dave's Garden and found this nursery had a score of only 23 out of 100. Many, many negative comments from people. I wish I knew about the Garden Watchdog site before I placed my order.

After leaving the post office I seen a sign advertising an auction at the fairgrounds. I found it to be an antique auction of furniture, pictures, and statues. That's it. It wasn't an estate sale or similar type of antique auction. The auctioneer was unfamiliar to me and had a slight Southern - and non-Montanan - accent. I wonder if the stuff really were antiques or if they were some knock-offs. Only about 30 people were in attendance. Nothing I was interested in so I left.

Bob and Jan were outside so I stopped to talk with them. Bob had a rough week health wise. While mowing on his riding lawn mower a tree branch stuck him and scratched his eye affecting his vision, Shortly after that he completely lost his hearing on the same side of his head. It is unknown as to why his hearing was affected. His foot is still slowly healing but a different doctor didn't agree with what the first doctor was recommending to do to help the foot heal.

After talking with Bob I ate my breakfast at 2:30 pm, then checked my gopher and pocket gophers traps. I dug up an area and planted another arborvitae shrub. Eventually they will grow and block the night lights from the RV dealership next to the highway. They don't annoy me like they use to. Either the dealership adjusted the lights to shine down more, or I have gotten use to them. It use to be really dark at night but over the years people have been adding lights in their yards and businesses.

Since I had weeded yesterday around my garden pea plants, and the peas were desperately trying to latch onto anything to help them stand up, I got some fencing and placed it next to them. Next year I will try to plant the peas in one row instead of two rows. One roll of fencing is too long for one row, and the other row is too short for one row. I ended up using both rolls but it doesn't look pretty.

Then I shaved and took my shower.

While riding my bicycle along my road near dusk I seen a large deer. It moved away from the road back further into my pasture. It was very tall as only its legs were covered by the tall grass.

Also when riding towards dusk I noticed some goat's beard seed balls in my pasture. In the morning when I got my mail I had ridden the road along my hayfield and couldn't see any. I don't know if they puffed open this afternoon or whether the mid-day sun's harsh light hid them among the grass.

And the cattle... when Dan was here I had commented how well behaved this years group was compared to previous years. Today when I was along the river I saw a few of them on the small island. No wonder I hadn't seen them in the south pasture earlier today. I was surprised to find them on the island as I expected they wouldn't cross the river until the water level dropped further. That was how the previous years cattle handled it. The river flow is 360 CFS today. This is well below its peak flow, but still relatively high. I haven't seen the cattle come back to the salt blocks this evening so they still must be exploring the little island.

The other day I had seen a middle aged couple floating down the river in an inflatable raft. They had a tricky time along a few of the bends near where I was standing. The river had played musical chairs with logs and branches during high water. They had to work to avoid being pushed into some of them. I thought their raft might puncture when it went against a couple tree branches sticking straight up out of the water near one side of the river. First she grabbed a branch to try to keep the raft away from the branches then he did the same as the current spun their raft around. Even with their effort the raft brushed hard against the branches.

Then the channel splits. I told them which channel was wide and shallower and which was deep and narrow. I think they were trying to go down the wide and shallow channel but the narrow and deep channel is the main channel and they were swept into it.

Near the channel's entrance they ran into the tree debris pile and leaning trees that were on one side of the channel. He used his oar against the trees to try to keep the raft from crashing into and along the debris. His oar got jammed amongst the tree branches and he lost hold of the oar as the raft continued in the current. He grabbed other branches to stop the raft. I think the raft almost tipped or maybe took on water. He was able to pull back the few feet so he could wrench his oar loose and then they were swept down the channel and out of sight. Some excitement for them.

Social capital

I ran across interesting articles on social capital. The articles were based on the book, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putman.

Social capital seems to be the sense of community and interconnectedness people feel.

I am pleased that three of the states I have lived in rank high for social capital. North Dakota is number 1; Minnesota is number 4, and Montana is number 5.

The map is based on the results of a survey.

The Oil Drum: New York City web site has more charts and info on what went into creating the rankings. Figures 7 show how the states chart on various indexes.

Head Gate, Garden, River Ranch

Dan stopped by this morning to check on his cattle, especially the red & white heifer that lost all the weight. She has gained much of her lost weight back. Initially Dan had trouble picking her out of the few red cattle he has but I reminded him that it was #273 that lost the weight.

When we approached the herd they were taking their siesta in the shade of one of the pine trees where I placed salt blocks. The herd were almost all laying down except the usual one or two that stand as watch guards. While the herd were all close to one another, the two Holsteins were on opposite sides of the herd sitting at the edge. They are part of the herd, but still want their space and to be different.

The cattle are fine with me but a second person spooks them a little. They were initially wary of Dan but eventually came back to check us out. I also brought old bread for them to eat. They haven't had any bread for a while and other than my number 30 who likes bread, the rest of the cattle were more interested in watching us than in eating the bread.

The cattle all look good. All of mine have lost their winter fur and have sleek shiny black coats. A couple of Dan's cattle still have some of their winter fur. My two smallest heifers are still smaller than my other heifers but they have gained weight and I have to look for their ear tag numbers to pick them out instead of merely looking at them.

Dan knew someone who had a head gate for sale. He brought it along in the back of his pickup. It is an automatic self-closing gate. Heavy sturdy construction. Dan knew the person who owned it and knows it works fine. $240 is a bit of money, but it is cheaper than buying an entire squeeze chute.

The gate will make ear tagging my cattle next year an easier job. And if I ever have to immobilize one of the cattle to give it a shot or for other reasons, a head gate is better than a rope or other method of holding it still. Last year Dan's heifer that was very sick from pneumonia still had enough energy to keep away from us when we were trying to get close to exam her.

First I'll have to install the head gate. I plan to rebuild my loading corral this year; though the way the year is flying by I am starting to have doubts it will get done. I probably will add the head gate to the corral's loading chute.

I worked more on weeding my garden. With the recent rain the grass and weeds have taken off and are growing 'great guns'.

I still haven't caught my garden pocket gopher. He/she is totally ignoring my trap. I wonder if it is because I disturbed its food storage area? When cleaning dirt away after digging into the tunnel I snagged with my fingers the pocket gopher's hoard of roots. Last year when the same thing happened (grabbing the food stash) when trying to trap a garden gopher I got bit. This time I quit reaching into the tunnel to retrieve more of its food stash. Don't want to get bit again!

I was reading old newspapers today and learned that on June 21 the Flathead Planning Board approved a revised proposal for the Whitefish River Ranch South. The Commissioners had rejected the earlier proposal last December. I don't know all the details as the newspaper just published the highlights. As I don't live within 125 feet of the area I didn't get any notice this was on the Planning Board's agenda. Guess I'll have to go uptown next week and try to learn what the new proposal is and what actually was approved. *sigh*

Rain in the afternoon

The day began sunny and warm. The County drove by with a tractor and mower and mowed the half of the ditch along each side of the road. Too bad as the tall grass was a deterrent to the drivers who like to cut the corner on the bend in the road in front of my driveway thereby wearing down where my driveway meets the road.

I checked all my gopher and pocket gopher traps. No gophers caught. I did hear a couple of them in the next pasture chirping their warnings. I caught a few pocket gophers including the one that moved in near my barn. The garden pocket gopher... he or she is a wily one as he/she is avoiding my trap. I noticed fresh dirt mounds in the NE pasture along the ditch. *sigh*

The forecast was for rain later today. I figured it would be like yesterday, sometime early evening. I decided to spray for weeds in the yard. It is recommended not to spray if it will rain within 4 hours so as to allow the herbicide to get absorbed by the weed. I finished spraying at 1:45 pm. Few clouds in the sky, and no rain clouds, it should last until 5:45.

I had lunch and when I went outside at 2:45 pm dark rain storm clouds were approaching all along the west. That was fast! The low rumble of thunder announced the approaching clouds and I only had time to stake a half dozen sunflower plants that for some reason don't want to stand up, and to harvest all my radishes. By now the wind started to blow and a few rain drops were arriving. Some lighting was here and there to the west. On the local news I heard that lightning stuck a house's roof causing it catch fire.

The wind blew so hard from the west I had to close the windows on that side of the house to keep the rain out. The west side of my house has a wide overhang and seldom does rain enter the window.

I watched the tall hayfield grass whip and roll with the wind like waves on a stormy sea. I saw the heavier rain approach from the pasture and pine trees and cross the wind driven grass. Then it got whiter. Once it arrived it turned out to be small hail. More white and very heavy rain. The wind drove the white hail and sheet of rain across the hayfield. It reminded me of wind driven snow moving across a North Dakota highway.

It rained hard. My rain gauge showed a half inch of rain. And yes, it rained before the four hours had passed. I probably will have to re-apply the herbicide on my lawn's weeds.

Later in the evening it stopped raining and the roads dried. I decided to make a run into town on my bicycle to pick up the weekly papers and ads. As I began my ride I noticed more rain clouds to the west. Hmmm.... The first rain storm dropped the temperature from 80 F to the lower 60s F. This second storm should be slower to arrive and not be as serious as the first one.

I should be a weather forecaster considering my inaccurate weather prediction. Ok, I didn't get it all wrong. We didn't have the wind, nor the lightning, nor thunder, but the dark clouds moved faster than I expected. While it didn't rain hard, it was steady and was more rain that I expected. My last four miles riding home were in the rain. My body heat didn't keep the rain at bay for long and I was very wet by the time I got home. Oh well, that's the way it goes. I keep telling myself that we can always use the mositure.

Back to weeds and gophers

Sunday found me on a killing spree. With all the bussle when Brian was here I forgot to check the mouse trap by the dryer. Yup, that smell was a dead mouse. And ants! The dead mouse had invited ants. *argh!*

I found pocket gopher mounds around my fruit trees. By the end of the day I had two dead ones. Then after I started weeding (finally!) the garden I found fresh pocket gopher mounds in the weeds. I uncovered a number of tunnels under and around my corn and peas. As if my lack of weeding weren't harming my plants enough!

I set one of my traps in the garden and ended up playing "cover/uncover the dirt from the trap" game with his pocket gopher that evening.


Monday morning I found I had trapped my garden pocket gopher. The game we were playing... he lost!

I spent all day picking goat's beard weeds. In the morning I picked the NE pasture and fruit tree area as they have now started growing for the year.

After breakfast I started on the north end of the hayfield and worked my way south. It had been a week since I picked the northern 3/4 of hayfield. Not as bad as I expected in the number of weeds, and in the number of weeds where the seeds were now gone, dispersed to vex me next year.

While searching the middle of the hayfield for weeds a young whitetail fawn leapt up from the tall grass and alfalfa startling me. It bounded off to the NW. I am not sure if there were one or two fawns as a short time later I seen a fawn in that general direction about halfway to where I last seen the previous fawn.

Later, near the south power line tower, I spotted what I think was a badger. I couldn't get a good look in the tall grass as I only saw a glimpse of brown moving low and moving fast. Mainly I saw the grass moving as it rapidly went away. I followed in hopes of seeing it better then wised up in case it was a badger. It may have circled around as a few minutes later after I returned to weed pulling I disturbed it again. That, or there were two of them.

The temperature was in the upper 80s and late afternoon I took a break from weed pulling to stop over at Bob's to get some water. I chatted for an hour and a half, and must have drank a gallon of water, before I went back to weed pulling.

I didn't finish the field as the southern 1/4 had many open seed pods which made the picking slow going. One has to be careful when gathering the open seeds into the bag so as not to cause the seed ball to break apart and the seeds to float away. The seeds are so light that the motion of one's hand can cause them to float away faster.

The mosquitos were also bad in the evening. I didn't have my long sleeve shirt nor mosquito repellent with me. Try picking a seed ball delicately when attacked by many hungry mosquitos!

After I called it quits for the night I walked along the road back home. I encountered the owner of Huckleberry Haven out for a walk. We talked about goat's beard weeds, huckleberries, and huckleberries from the Oregon Coast which are called coastal berries. Coastal berries are not as big nor sweet as mountain huckleberries, which is in line with what I found from the Fall that Sarah and I picked these huckleberries on the Oregon Coast.

He said there are seven varieties of huckleberries. He buys from people who pick huckleberries. He wasn't sure how this year will be for huckleberries. Then again, people out here closely guard their huckleberry patches and info on them until after the season is over.

Me? While huckleberries are great, I think I prefer Juneberries, else called Saskatoon berries or serviceberries. In Glacier Park and the Valley the businesses sell the tourists huckleberry 'everything'. At Waterton Park they sell Saskatoon berry 'everything'.

I have a couple of Juneberry pie recipes that are scrumptious. I planted three serviceberry bushes and I see one bush has some berries on it this year. Not enough for a pie as the bushes are young, but if I can get to the ripe berries before the birds (I failed to do so last year) I'll see how Montana's serviceberries compare to the ones that grow in the North Dakota coulees.


With only a quarter of the field to search I felt Tuesday's weed pulling wouldn't take too long. Was I wrong! Lots of open seed pods. Late afternoon I had to go to Bob and Jan's house to get another plastic grocery bag as mine had split across the bottom.

It was another hot day with the temperature approaching 90 F. A rain storm threatened as a cloud built from the West. But all it did was hang from the western mountains and it never rained here. The most it did was provide shade before dissipating. Then it got humid. For Montana standards at least. Brian didn't think it was humid here. But you have to remember he lives in southern Minnesota. I suffered through many of their miserable humid summers before I wised up and moved here. Montana's humidity doesn't hold a candle to Minnesota's. That is the reason the farmers grow corn there and not here.

It was almost 7 pm before I finished the field. All day I watched the cattle as they made their rounds of the south pasture interspersed with a few siesta breaks in the shade of the pine trees. When they passed near me when I was in the western part of the hayfield some would stop along the fence and watch me before moving on. Was that pity in their eyes?

The mosquitos even bothered the cattle. Whenever they would toss their head back to lick at their back a cloud of mosquitos would rise until the cattle's head went back down. In the heat the herd gave off a strong cattle smell when near. Call me odd, but it is a smell I like. It is attached to some forgotten memory; perhaps of when I visited my grandparents on their farm?

After two long days of weed pulling I was beat. I found the energy to go to the grocery store to get a watermelon. "Water" was sooo appealing. I got the cashier's standard "How are you this evening?" It was said in the same manner as "Paper or plastic?" as they put your groceries into a plastic bag. Obviously they weren't looking at me as I hadn't washed up before going to the grocery store and only changed my tshirt from one stained all over with goat's beard sap to a less dirty shirt (no sense putting a clean shirt on as the mere act of putting it on would render it dirty! ) . "Ti - ured" was my response.

After a simple supper I laid down for a minute on the love seat and woke up several hours later. After a dish of watermelon to help re-hydrate I went to bed. It wasn't even midnight - that's how tired I was.


With all that sleep you'd think I'd get up earlier this morning. Nope.

Oh yeah, yesterday I found the pocket gopher hole in the garden was plugged with dirt. Sign of another pocket gopher. I moved the trap back there and yesterday caught a second young pocket gopher.

Today I finally got around to checking my gopher and pocket gopher traps. It had been several days so I couldn't tell if the sprung traps were because the gopher escaped or the hawk had a meal.

As I checked the traps this morning a large red tail hawk flew from the tree I was close to on the east side of the gopher "city" to the very top of a tall tree on the west side. He was either waiting for me to release his lunch from one of the traps, else he was waiting for a gopher to come out of their hole.

With the hot weather (89 F) the gophers were fairly inactive. That and I have been reducing their ranks may be accounting for only one or two of them chirping warnings to the 'city' that the mean ol' rancher was out and about.

When checking the pocket gopher traps in the northern part of the hayfield I found several dozen open seed pods for the goat's beard weeds. *sigh* One pod is about 64 seeds so I have to get everyone and all they need is for a few plants to release their seeds.

In the garden I found more pocket gopher dirt mounds. This time they were in the opposite corner of the garden. I tried to find their tunnel but the dirt was too soft to hold a tunnel. I put the trap back in the hayfield. Later in the evening I found the area I dug up had a fresh bump of dirt. This time I found a tunnel. Tomorrow we will see how successful I am with my trap.

I also found fresh mounds of dirt since this morning along the yard/corral fence. The first for this year. I had started my line of traps along the northern fence and have moved south but some pocket gophers are still migrating and jumping the line of traps.

It was an early evening off work for me as a rain storm came before 8 pm. First we had really strong winds then the rain came later. Only a tenth of an inch tonight but I'll take any rain I can get.

Brian left

Last Friday Brian went to Glacier Park to take photos of the mountains at sunrise; or as close to sunrise as he could manage on a few hours sleep. I didn't go. Getting up at 5 am is a rare occurrence for me and seeing the mountains at sunrise doesn't count. Besides I have seen them at sunrise - just in the winter when the sun comes up at the reasonable hour of 8 am or later.

The electric company guys who are checking the power poles came back to let me know they would checking the ones along my southern property boundary. He kept his word that he would check in with me before they wandered through the hayfield and pasture.

Me? I didn't do much that day. Checked the gopher and pocket gopher traps and puttered around the place.

Brian returned after 5 pm so he had a long day at Glacier Park and the Hungry Horse Dam.

When we were outside in the evening we found two baby morning doves nestled together in the taller grass by my patio. I am not sure where their nest was, perhaps in one of the large box elder trees shading the patio. The two babies were nestled together just as if they were in a nest. The next day they were gone. Mom and dad must have encouraged them to fly away as I heard them around cooing.

Before Brian left I had to get some work out of him. Herding a stray steer a time or two doesn't count. I got Brian to help me get the chain link and wire fencing and the harrow that my neighbors gave me. It is far easier for two people to lift and carry these items than for one person.

Poor Brian, the mosquitos were out in force and whenever he had a hand free he was swatting at them. Unlike me his body reacts to their bites.


Saturday Brian left on his long drive back to Minnesota. Over 1300 miles. I got up at 5:30 am to see him off. Like I said earlier, I will get up early for special occasions.

Brian left 6:45 am and I went back to sleep for a few more hours. I did more puttering around that day as I was having trouble re-establishing my old routine. I may spend time pulling weeds, that doesn't mean I look forward to doing so. Also, it felt odd not to have someone else around the place.

At 6 pm we had a big storm. We had strong winds which meant any goat's beard weeds that were open to seed - the seeds were now dispersed. Even the tall grass wouldn't protect the seeds from this wind. Then we had a couple occurrences of small hail. Thankfully small enough and brief enough to not damage my garden. Just when I thought the storm would be all bluster the rain came in ernest.

We had a break in the rain for a few hours before it rained again before midnight. The second occurrence of rain came without the bluster of wind and hail.

All total we got about a half inch of rain. A good amount by Montana standards. We need the rain as it had been hot and dry the prior week. The soil where I am is sandy loam which means it doesn't have any clay to hold the moisture. A day or two of hot weather and it is very dry, no matter how much it rained earlier. July and August are our dry months and the later it rains the longer the grass will stay green and not turn brown.

Losing weight

Dan returned from his vacation and I spoke with him early Wednesday morning about one of his heifers; a Hereford cross. The previous weekend I had noticed she was thinner as she had lost weight, especially around the hips. All of the other cattle looked good and had gained weight.

While Brian and I were at Waterton Provincial Park Dan came over to look at his cattle. Yup, he agreed she had lost weight. Her eyes were clear; she kept up with the other cattle; no runny nose or diarrhea. No idea as to why the weight loss. Maybe she had eaten something that disagreed with her. So he said to keep an eye on her and see if she improves.

As the middle pasture was almost eaten down I told Dan, after he looked the cattle over, he could let them into the south pasture and its taller grass. Being in the south pasture should stop the Holstein from slipping through the fence.

Thursday morning while Brian was running some errands I moved the salt blocks to the south pasture now that the middle pasture was closed to the cattle. The cattle gathered all around me and the salt blocks after I placed them in their container.

I had brought a few loaves of old bread and several of my cattle would eat it from my hand. In my back pocket I had a plastic bag for later gathering goat's beard seeds. The bag hung out of my pocket and the next I knew another one of the cattle grabbed it and pulled it out of my pocket.

"No! No! No! That's not for eating!"

I grabbed the bag and after a half hearted attempt at a tug-of-war it let go. This time I tucked the bag completely in my pocket.

About this time Brian returned and came out to the pasture. I put him to work helping me carry the last three salt blocks along with their wooden stand from the middle to the south pasture and under a large tree.

The cattle are all set: tall grass, water, and salt.

Yesterday/Sunday the cattle lined up along the fence as I searched the hayfield for goat's beard weeds. Several of them decided the "grass is greener" and stuck their heads through the barb wire fence and into the hayfield. Number 50 (mine) really stretched the wire as the barbs didn't bother her at all. Before she could break the wire I "shoosh'd" her back. Unfortunately she moved back quickly and her ears held the wire and it broke. *sigh*

When I returned to weed searching she walked to the fence to put her head through once again. *grr!* Once again I "shoosh'd" her back. Then I went back home to get wire and pliers for a repair before she could figure out how to slip through the fence.

When I returned to repair the fence I found the herd had moved on. Guess they lost interest once I was gone. Fence is fixed now.

Oh yeah, Dan's Hereford cross appeared to have gained back some of her weight. That's good.

Me? With all my walking and weed pulling I lost a few pounds myself.

Chainsaw work

I was up early this morning. Brian took his car in to have the oil changed and for the mechanic to check out a few noises the car was making.

Before I will let the cattle into the south pasture I wanted to cut up the fallen tree that is sitting off the ground on its branches. It sat from ground level at the top of the tree to six feet or more at the bottom of the tree. Because the cattle like to stand under the tree and scratch against the supporting branches I felt this year - as it has been several years since the tree blew over - I had to cut the tree up so it wouldn't fall on any cattle.

I had to make another batch of 'chainsaw gasoline' (add special oil to gasoline). I had to go to a gas station to get a gallon of gas.

I would cut a few supporting branches, then a section of tree. And so on. All while paying attention that the tree wouldn't suddenly fall over on me.

I thought one tank of gas would be sufficient to cut the tree. I was wrong. I ran out of gas before making the final two cuts. *argh* I had to walk back to the house to get more gasoline.

Brian was back from getting the car's oil changed. The strange car sound was probably a loose heat shield. Difficult to reach to tighten. Labor would be expensive so Brian is thinking it over.

After cutting up the final sections of tree I, and Brian, picked the goat's beard that had gone to seed in the NE part of the south pasture.

Then I had my second shower of the morning - I should have waited till after cutting the tree as I was now covered in sawdust and sweat.

After my shower I noticed the Holstein steer was again in the south pasture while the herd took a siesta along the south/middle pasture fence. How does he get through the fence?!!! Brian held the gate and kept the herd from going through it as I easily herded the Holstein through the gate.

Then we were off to visit Glacier National Park - which I'll write about another day as it is late and we have another full day of adventure in the Park planned for tomorrow.

Weeds and Brian's arrival

Weeds

I was out again early (for me that is!) to pull goat's beard weeds while the flowers were still open. I went over most of my previously covered hayfield before I got distracted by seeing open seed pods in the south pasture. Granted it has been a few days since I pulled all the weeds I could find there, but scattered around the field there were two to three dozen open seed pods. I had hoped my earlier weed pulling would delay the new plants from growing and going to seed so soon.

I carefully bent each seed pod so it was leaning into my plastic bag before I pulled the pod off the plant. That jarring movement often causes the pod to break apart and the seeds to scatter.

I didn't finish with the south pasture as I seen that Brian had arrived.

Brian

Brian had arrived before 2 pm. Fortunately he wasn't here long before I noticed him. I put him right to work as when I returned towards the house I seen the one Holstein steer was again in the south pasture. I had Brian hold the gate open and keep the herd from passing through it while I herded the Holstein back in the middle pasture. I am not quite ready for the herd to rotate to the south pasture. Any day now.

We walked the fence line and I could not find a break in the fence, nor get an idea how this Holstein gets through the fence. He has some trick only known to him as no other cattle follow him.

After getting situated I took Brian to Lone Pine State park to get an overview of the valley. Seeing as it was a warm day, the view was hazy. I discovered the park's huge old dead tree was gone. Not sure why. It must have fallen over and was removed.

We drove a short ways along the west side of Flathead Lake. We drove through the townsite of Somers, MT. I don't ever remember visiting the area, unless maybe several decades ago on one of my bicycle rides around the valley. It was larger than I expected. The narrow streets among the houses looked to be old walking paths as they were not straight, nor on a grid pattern.

People were out on the lake on this warm-to-hot day. The water felt nice to soak one's feet in. A few women jumped in to swim. The water was cold for swimming.

Down the highway we visited the West Shore state park before returning home. Only a few people were at this state park so it was very quiet and peaceful.

Weeds, mosquitos, gophers, Brian

Weeds

Yup, still pulling weeds. Filled two more plastic grocery bags with the seed pods. I may only have one full days work of pulling before I have completed one pass of the hayfield. As I only get about 80-90%, that leaves more passes to find the rest of the goat's beard.

I was up earlier than usual and the yellow flowers were open when I started my weed work. For the first time this year I pulled goat's beard from the NE pasture. The grass has recovered from the cattle and is growing again, along with the weeds.

Mosquitos

Man, they are bad this year! When pulling weeds in the evening I have to wear a long sleeve flannel (thick) shirt, cap, gloves, and mosquito repellent on my exposed face, neck,and ears. Even then many mosquitos try to find some place: inside my ears, by my eyes, or a sometimes gap between my shirt and glove.

I have mosquitos even during mid day. It is sunny and in the low 80s F but they still want my blood. I seem to scare them up in certain areas. That is, lower areas with lots of alfalfa for the mosquitos to hide under in shade during the day.

Gophers

It has switched. Now I am catching pocket gophers and the regular gophers are avoiding the holes with the traps. Tonight I seen a gopher at the very first "subdivision" I had cleared gophers from. *sigh*

One of my pocket gopher traps broke. The plastic inside barrier/trip goes through the top of the trap and has two little plastic prongs to hold it in place while allowing the barrier/trip to swivel. The two little prongs broke off. This has happened once before. When I had called the company to get a replacement part, they told me they stopped selling this model and were redesigning it for this very reason. I was able to bend a small wire to hold the barrier/trip and continue to use that trap. I'll have to do the same with this trap.

Brian

Brian didn't make it here today. He decided, since he is on vacation, to take a side trip and drive on the Beartooth Highway. Last year mud and rock slides damaged that highway and it had to be rebuilt, closing the highway for the summer.

The Beartooth Highway was a little out of Brian's way. He called from Helena at 8 pm wondering whether to make the drive to my place tonight. Only if you like driving at night as you won't get here till midnight or later. I stay up late so it is no inconvenience to me. It doesn't get dark till after 10 pm, but he'd still would miss seeing a lot of the scenery along the way. He decided to stay overnight in Helena. He'll be here tomorrow.

More weed pulling, etc.

An early start to the days goat's beard weed pulling. I was out there by 9:30 am. The flowers were still open. That meant I got distracted by weeds in the northern part of the field as I made my way to the southern unpicked area. Yes, even though I picked the northern part of the field many, many times, new goat's beard weeds are coming up. And I do find a few older ones I missed earlier.

The plastic bag I used today turned out to be a little larger than the standard grocery bag - which I didn't realize. I quit for the day when I filled the bag with seed pods. That turned out to be 4 pm. Later than I thought. A long time with no break. Time flies when you're having fun...?

This morning (or was it noon?) my main eastern neighbor came with a tractor and mower and started to mow his weed infested field. Hurray! By the end of the day he mowed the majority of it. He should easily finish the mowing tomorrow. That just leaves a small section to the north of this neighbor, but still east of me. This property is owned by a land developer who has done nothing with it since he bought it a few years ago.

While I was pulling weeds I thought it looked like the Holstein steer had gotten into the south pasture yet again today. Later I seen he was in the middle pasture with the herd. Either he found his way back to the herd or always was in the middle pasture. It is hard to tell as he usually is near the herd but not among the herd, and the herd was along the middle/south pasture fence.

Tonight when I felt the seed pods in my plastic bag they were hot. Even after picking them the conversion to seeds is going on.

I think I only have two days left to finish my first pass at picking the field.

The gopher that moved the trap yesterday somehow triggered the trap today but did not get caught. Must have scared him as I didn't see him popping up to see what I was doing today as I approached the hole.

Even though I painted my marking sticks and rods fluorescent orange, I have trouble finding them. Today Jan gave me a bunch of white milk jugs to place over the tops of the sticks and rods. I need a few more then I'll have all the traps marked. They certainly help. Today I wandered and wandered looking for that final gopher trap. That gets old fast.

I took a few minutes to look over my garden. The weeds! The weeds! I fear a repeat of last year where the garden weeds took off as I was battling goat's beard weeds.

The apple trees look great. Even the one sickly looking plum tree is looking better. Fortunately my fruit trees and berry bushes do fine without attention from me. The raspberry plants are really taking off. Maybe a bit more than I'd like. They are coming up solidly together. If I remember right they are a little scratchy. So it may be a problem searching them for raspberries.

His first day of driving from Minnesota, Brian made it to Buffalo, Wyoming. Not as far as he planned for the first day. He will arrive Sunday sometime.

Gonna have a vacation

This morning Brian from Rochester called. He is finally coming to visit. He starts a new permanent job the first week of July and has time now to go on a vacation.

I've told friends I don't need much advance notice, just a day or so. Which is what I am getting. Brian plans to arrive Sunday afternoon. Hmmm... where are my cleaning supplies? I need to make the place livable.

Brian's timing is good as Glacier Nat'l Park's Going-to-the-Sun road opened Friday afternoon.

Where does my vacation fit into all this? The only time I take time off away from the ranch to see the park and the area is when I have company.

Jail break

Hmmm... is this a broken record? Today after mending the fence where the magpie (Holstein) broke it yesterday, I noticed that magpie in the south pasture again!! He saw me by the fence, and since the rest of the herd was along the north fence he wanted back into the middle pasture. I opened the gate and he started to come but then got distracted by eating some grass. *sigh* I had to herd him a bit. This time he knew where the open gate was and went through to rejoin the herd.

I checked the fence and couldn't find any breaks. I did notice the top wires on the gate were sagging a bit. I wonder if he jumped the gate? I tightened up the gate closure to make the top wires sit higher.

When walking along the north/middle pasture fence I found a broken fence wire by the apple tree. None of the cattle went through the fence. I guess they have "been there, done that".

What will tomorrow bring?

Gophers

Only caught one pocket gopher the past few days. What's up with that? They are around. I usually catch one, or have him fill the trap with dirt, within 24 hours. A few days ago, not having caught a gopher, I figured the tunnel had been abandoned. I put the dirt back in the hole and moved the trap. A day after that I saw fresh dirt mounds where I filled the dirt. 24 hours later I trapped the pocket gopher.

I'll give the remaining traps another 24 hours.

Even though I have painted the marking sticks with orange fluorescent paint I still have trouble finding the sticks in the tall grass. Today I had to stand on top of my fence to search for one trap. I have started placing empty milk jugs on top of the sticks (3 so far). That really helps.

Another subdivision has been re-occupied. *sigh* I put a conibear trap over the top of the hole. When I checked an hour later the trap had been pushed to the side of the hole. *argh!* That's a first. These gophers are getting smarter.

Neighbor moving

The couple renting the house to my south have bought a house and are moving in July. It is too bad as they are nice neighbors. They gave me odds and ends of chain link fencing and a roll of wire fencing (not field fence). Also I get their old harrow. The property they bought is a half acre and the harrow is no use to them. Even here I used their harrow more than they did.

Weeds

What's my day without weeds? I pulled weeds for only a little over a half day as I had ridden my bicycle to the main post office to mail my shipping labels back to the nursery for my 1 year guarantee. Even working less than a full day I filled one and a half plastic grocery bags with seed pods.

The deer think they are helping me, but they are not. The deer are eating the younger stalks on the plants with multiple stalks. The oldest, central, stalk's seed pod is all seed and no flower, and therefore of no interest to the deer. With only the oldest seed pod left, the plant must think it is under attack and then opens the seed pod to scatter its seeds. Sometimes all it takes is to step on a plant and the next afternoon the pod opens to disperse its seeds even if it not quite time to do so. Other than a few early openers (always someone who wants to be first), most of the open seeds today were on partially eaten plants. The rest are waiting for whatever is the main trigger before opening.

Today's picking followed where the open seed pods were located. In between I picked large pods that look ready to open any time now. There are many of these. I am starting to feel this year I won't be able to pick all the goat's beard pods before they open. Especially with Brian coming to visit. Remember I said I needed three more days to finish my first pass at clearing the field? Yup, after today's work I still need three more days.

On the brighter side, the plants for the most part misjudged how high they need to grow to be above the grass. Once they open their flower they do not grow higher. New stalks can, and usually do, grow higher before flowering. Many of my plants are not taller than the surrounding grass. Even though this afternoon was breezy, most of the open seed balls were intact when I got to them. Maybe this will keep much of my eastern neighbor's seeds over in his field. I sure hope so!

Weeds, missing trap, jailbreak, other annoyances

Weeds

I got outside to pull weeds earlier this morning: 9:30 am. The flowers were open and the dew was on the grass. My shoes and pants legs got soaking wet. The dew was gone about the same time the flowers closed for the day: 11 am. With all the flowers open I started from the north end and worked south. While I have gone over this area numerous times, this was the first time when the flowers were open. I found a number of goat's beard weeds scattered here and there.

Yesterday I thought I had three full days of pulling left before I gone over all the field at least once. Today, after a full day of weeding I think I have three full days left. *sigh* I picked almost two full grocery plastic bags of seed pods.

Gophers

Since the eagle/hawk circled over me in the hayfield when I pulled weeds ("Hey! Open the traps to release the gophers so we can eat!") I figured I should check on the traps after eating my lunch. Some traps had gophers, some were tripped with no gophers, some were set and empty, and one was missing. *argh!* I staked my traps well after losing the first two. I lost this trap because it had no chain to hold it. It was a leghold trap I had bought at the auction. In place of a chain was a wire. Or two wires fastened together. The stake and half the wire remained.

I don't know if the eagle/hawk carried off the gopher and trap, or since this is a leghold trap the gopher dragged the trap back down the hole with him. Some holes are large enough for a triggered trap to fit. I have had to pull out gophers and traps that were held tight by the stake. I started to dig out the hole but it quickly went down deep, and who knows how deep.

Another trap gone.

Jailbreak

While I was checking my pocket gopher traps I noticed one of the Holstein steers was in the south pasture. What?! I could see part of the herd was along the north fence. Is there more cattle than this one Holstein in the south pasture?

The Holstein was running along the south/middle pasture fence. It was calling for the herd; that's how I noticed it. By the time I reached the gate it was halfway back to the river. I called it. Nothing. As the herd was still along the north fence I opened the gate then went into the pasture to herd him back.

As I approached him to circle around to herd him, the steer began to approach me. Oh. I turned and walked to the gate. He followed. Part way. Then he got distracted by eating grass under a tree. *sigh* By now I could see his Holstein brother was coming across the middle pasture. I started herding him and he wasn't too keen on the idea. His brother was now at the fence so I had to keep at him to head towards the gate.

It was going slow but steady when I noticed the rest of the herd coming. Coming to the open gate. Great. I added a little urgency to the herding of the Holstein. That, seeing the approaching herd, and finally noticing the open gate, and he ran through the gate. I rushed to close the gate before the herd got the idea of coming through it. *whew!*

The herd gathered around me. I took this opportunity to count them to see if there were any more jailbreakers. They kept moving and I kept counting. Over and over. Once I counted 28 twice, I knew that was correct.

I wanted to check the fence to see how the Holstein got through it. But I didn't want the herd to follow along. I waited till they got bored and a number of them laid down. While waiting a number of them wanted to sniff and lick me. Mostly my cattle as they are more used to me. Several then started to lick my pants legs. My pants are loose around the knees and the next I knew several tried to tear my pants off. "Now girls! Behave yourselves!"

It was only a short distance before I found the fence break. As an inner fence it is only three strands. A middle strand had been patched with a old rusty piece of wire and this is what broke. I did a quick re-wire job on it by hand until I can get time tomorrow to wire it correctly.

My heifer is smarter than Dan's Holstein. When my heifer got out, even though I did a quick re-wire job, she knew where to go to get back through the fence and re-broke the wire. Dan's Holstein couldn't remember where the broken wire was in the fence even though he walked right by it several times.

Other annoyances

I am trying to straighten out my final bill for the cataract surgery last January. I know what my deductible is for my health plan and the hospital and doctor's clinic each sent me a bill although they are part of the same hospital group. Their bills have duplicate items and different items. The numbers don't add up.

Then today the clinic said the were going to sic a collection agency on me if I don't pay. And here I had been trying to get them to send me a bill to my home address as they had been sending bills to my mother's place where I had stayed when I had the surgery. Lately I had been trying to get them to explain the different bills to me and they hadn't called back. One hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

I had to call my health insurance company to see if they paid everything. Oh joy. They said they had. I left it to the hospital and the insurance company to speak with one another to find out who is wrong.

Also, I had ordered some trees and shrubs from a nursery last year. All but a few things died. That is what happens when they finally ship the stuff in August. The 1 year guarantee is about up. I ordered online so I scanned the shipping labels into the computer and sent the original order back to them for their guarantee. Oh, no... the guarantee isn't good over the internet. I have to physically mail the shipping labels back to them along with a description of what is bad.

Etc.

Tonight as I was riding my bicycle back from getting the weekly papers I was startled to see a dark shape overhead. I was riding on the road along my property when a silent dark shape came from above and my left. A huge owl floated down then folded its wings before dropping in the grass in the ditch, else just on the other side of the fence in my hayfield. It was too dark to see exactly as I kept moving along on my bicycle. I guess the owls aren't gone after all.

Quickly high, slowly low

The river is dropping. From the USGS chart notice how fast it rose in 36 hours from all the rain. But days later it slowly drifts down. It is now at 856 CFS. It took four days to lose 154 CFS, while only 36 hours to gain over 250 CFS.

Weeds, hole, birds, gophers, Chris, cattle

Weeds

Much of the day again was taken up with weed pulling. I finished going over the south pasture and also moved further in the hayfield. I am now up to the south power line tower. The further south I go, the more weeds, the more multiple stalk weeds, and larger seed pods ready to open. At this rate it will take me three full days before I reached the south property line.

Where I have already pulled weeds in the hayfield, I got most of them. This morning I seen some yellow flowers in the picked area. The flowers were on tall, thin, spindly stalks as they had to grow fast and tall the past day or two to grow as high or higher than the surrounding grass. Still, even these weak plants can produce lots of seeds.

I filled a little under two plastic grocery bags with seed pods today. Yesterday I filled one and a quarter bags.

This morning the breeze was from the east. The worst possible direction when the seed pods open as my neighbor's field seems to be nothing but goat's beard weeds. Grant commented that if the seed pods open during an east wind I am done for. He is right. That neighbor's field must have a billion seeds. Nothing I can do as goat's beard is not a Montana noxious weed so one doesn't have to control them. Thankfully today was cool and only a few pods opened here and there.

Hole

When searching for weeds in the south pasture I came across a large hole with a large mound of dirt outside it. The hole was on the edge of the rain shadow of a large pine tree near the south property line. I am not sure when it was dug, but no more than two or three weeks ago. I seen paw prints on the soft dirt outside the hole, but they were made earlier as the recent rains have mostly washed them out.

Since Grant works for the MT Fish & Wildlife department I asked him this morning when he was checking the bee hives. From my description he felt it could either be a fox, coyote, or badger hole. Somewhat late in the year for a new fox or coyote den, and since I had seen a badger a few weeks ago in the hayfield, the odds are it is a badger hole.

Badger will dig after gophers and pocket gophers. I have no gophers in the south pasture. The pocket gopher mounds are no where near this hole. Maybe it is a badger den?

Birds

While pulling goat's beard weeds in the hayfield I had some small bird chirping at me. I have seen these little birds other years when pulling weeds. They must have their nests on the ground somewhere as I never have come across them. The birds can sit on alfalfa plants so one can hear their "chirp. chirp. chirp." and not see them.

Today the bird sat on the north power line tower and "chirped" at me. Initially it was neat to hear the bird. After 10 minutes of constant 'chirping' it got annoying. Another nest must be along the west fence as I heard chirping when nearby.

Later I heard a different bird warning call. I looked up to see several large birds circling above the hayfield floating on thermals. In all I seen 5 of these birds. Two at a lower level, two at a higher level, and the last bird well high. While I could tell they were very large birds I couldn't tell if they were eagles or hawks.

They circled over the north hayfield before their circling took them northward. Looking for gophers or pocket gophers from my traps I imagine.

Gophers

My two new conibear traps are now "broken in". Both traps were tripped with one empty trap and one dead gopher.

When walking out to check my traps I could see at a distance three gophers running from the "subdivision" that I had cleared and shut down last week. Hmmm... I found that three of the "subdivision's" holes were reopened. After removing gophers from several traps I moved those traps back to clear out this "subdivision" once again. With all the gophers (46) I have trapped in the past two weeks I am a little surprised to find them expanding to reclaim that "subdivision". I guess it is a nice area, else their existing holes are crowded with gophers.

Chris

Just as I finished pulling weeds late afternoon Chris rode by on his mountain bicycle. He stopped to talk. I haven't talked with him in over three years as his daughter is now two. I'm not sure if his daughter was even a "gleam in his eye" when we last spoke. I did know he had a daughter as I talked with his mom a few times the past few years.

We caught up on the major events in his life and where he is working now. Before I got cattle his parents had pastured their two horses at my place during the summers. I showed him the new corral fence work I had done this spring.

Chris makes beer and I gave him a small bottle of my beet wine. Chris said he can make mead using honey. So if I get a lot of honey this year, we may make mead. Bees, do your stuff!

Cattle

The cattle are doing fine. Yesterday some were in a bad mood as they were pushing one another. They weren't wrestling testing their strength like steers do. They were pushing one another as if to say "Get away from me. Get out of here. Don't crowd me. Don't touch me." They seem to be in a better mood today. Overall they are happy cattle.

Tonight I heard a banging of metal. Huh? Then I seen one of the cattle near the stack of irrigation pipes. *sigh* I'll have to walk by there tomorrow to see if they knocked some pipes off the pile.

When I am nearby in the hayfield pulling weeds some of the cattle stand near the fence and watch me. "Pulling out green edible stuff! What, is he crazy?" ...perhaps.

Weeds and a wink

Weeds

More goat's beard weed picking today. I had errands to run this morning, then had to check on my gopher and pocket gopher traps, then I got down to serious weed pulling.

Today I wore a glove on my weed pulling hand to keep the goat's beard sap off my hand.It otherwise takes a lot of scrubbing to get the sap off. I also wore the glove as my hand is getting sore from pulling weed after weed after weed. My hand seems to be getting weaker, or the weed roots tougher to pull from the ground, or a combination of the two. Other years the same thing happened and I thought the weeds were harder to pull because the ground got drier and therefore harder. With all the rain this year that has not happened yet.

This morning when I looked out over my hayfield I could only see a few yellow flowers here and there on the north side. Even when I stood near the top of my fence. Success!

I started checking for weeds near where I left off yesterday and reached the other side of the north power line tower. Getting into unchecked territory went slower as the weeds were more numerous. I then switched to the south pasture in an effort to complete checking it. I did not succeed as it got dark before I could check the SE corner.

On my way home I walked through the hayfield. Even in the rapidly darkening field I was able to pick out the large seed pods. The dew was forming fast. By the time I got home my shoes were wet and my lower pant legs were soaked.

Today I found a half dozen pods opened to seed balls. They opened even though the day was cool and cloudy (and of course a rain sprinkle when I first went to the first to check for weeds). I imagine a large number of seed pods will open when we first get a warm and sunny day. And one of the those type of days is in the forecast soon.

Wink

This morning I ran my weekly collection of errands. I bought two more conibear traps. I bought two blocks of "bloat blocker". These are needed to prepare the cattle before I let them into the hayfield. Because the hayfield is part mature alfalfa, the bloat blocks are needed to prevent the cattle from getting bloated because they pigged out on the alfalfa. The "bloat blocker" blocks are not cheap. They cost $18 each.

I get so focused on tasks that I later wondered as I walked the hayfield and pulled weeds, "Was she flirting with me?" I stopped at the Food Bank and learned there was no extra bread for my cattle this week. As I was at the door to leave I talked with the old lady who runs the place. I don't remember what we were talking about, but whatever it was I saw an attractive woman, who while kneeling down to get a bag off the floor, look up at me and give me a wink.

I noticed the wink, but it didn't register at the time as I was focused on the conversation with the old lady and also on the rest of my errands that I needed to complete that morning. Was that a wink because she was flirting with me? I guess I'll never know.


By the way, I reached a milestone in trapping pocket gophers today. 150 for the year. I am on track to easily exceed my total (209) for all of last year. Especially considering all the fresh mounds of dirt I find as I pick weeds in my hayfield. And the south pasture which I cleared this spring... quite a number of fresh mounds of dirt. *sigh*

Goat's beard

I decided I will call the "Western Salsify/Salsify/Western Goat's Beard/Goat's Beard" weeds: Goat's Beard. I tried calling them salsify as I believe that is their plant classification/family. But it doesn't sound "right".

"I pulled salsify today." "I picked some salsify." "Lots of salsify to pick."

It sounds like I am making a Mexican dish. Some salsa or salad. Not pulling weeds. Salsify just doesn't sound like a weed. Goat's beard sounds like a weed. Goat's beard it is.

Now that I have settled on their name, I have to pick/pull/get rid of them from my property. My plan of having the cattle eat them is not working. Not that the cattle aren't willing, it's just the hayfield is the last area in their pasture rotation and I have realized that won't be till after the goat's beard has gone to seed. So I am back to pulling and spraying them again this year.

During a rainy day last week I rode my bicycle along the road one morning during a lull in the rain. I had plenty of yellow flowers scattered throughout my hayfield eager for the sun. *sigh*

Then I looked at my neighbor's field across the road. He doesn't hay his small field. Instead he mows it once in July. Always after the goat's beard has gone to seed. Previous years when I had extra time I picked his flowers and seeds closest to the road (and therefore closest to my property). Floating seeds don't respect property boundaries.

This year he has more yellow goat's beard flowers than ever. His field looks yellow and green, like the Green Bay Packers football team. My field is green with some yellow. My efforts the past few years have had an effect, though I would have expected very few goat's beard weeds what with all the effort I have put in to eradicate them completely. I guess I got to take small victories when I can.

Last Sunday my neighbor was spraying in his field here and there using a backpack sprayer. I spoke with him. He was spraying the Canadian and Bull thistle, and whatever weeds he saw. He said he also planned to spray the weeds that look like big dandelions. I pointed out his field was thick with them. He then said he might mow his field. I pointed out I saw two goat's beard plants that already went to seed a half mile south of us, so if he plans to mow to get rid of them it should be sooner than later. Aren't I a helpful neighbor...

The past month, when checking my pocket gopher traps in the hayfield, I had been pulling the weeds I came across. Since last Monday I have made a concerted effort to get rid of the weeds. To do this I walk the hayfield east/west and go from north to south. I try to search logically rather than go wherever I see the next flower or plant. The southern part of the field is where the plants are thicker and takes more time to clear.

Even after the flowers close to hide their yellow I have seen enough plants that I can pick out many of their stalks hiding among the grass. Notice I said "many" and not most or all. Sometimes I find a plant by feel as when I brush against it or step on their stiff stalk. A plant can be right in front of me, unseen among the tall grass, until I step on it.

Last Monday I searched until calling it quits when I reached the northern power line tower. This two thirds of the field holds probably half or less or the weeds. I was hungry, thirsty and hot as the sky was clear and the temperature in the 80s F. When I got home I found I had been out picking weeds for 5 hours! Time flies...

The next morning I looked out across the hayfield from the north: yellow flowers scattered throughout. *groan* Didn't my efforts the previous day have any effect?

Between the rain and errands I didn't get much time to make a concerted effort the remainder of last week to pick more goat's beard. Yesterday and today I dedicated time to picking weeds. It took two days and I still haven't gotten back to the power line tower where I had reached last Monday. To be fair I spent a good deal of time in the south pasture picking the weeds. As the cattle haven't been in this field yet I have weeds to pick. My pasture rotation plan is turning out to be work for me in more ways than one.

As quite a number of plants have the wispy white sticking out of a mature seed pod (the goat's beard), I now have to carry a plastic grocery bag with me to hold the seed pods and mature looking flowers. I have filled a bag and a half so far.

While I try to get up earlier in the morning to pick the weeds when the flowers are open and therefore easier to spot, I am having trouble doing so. I have taken to picking the weeds also in the evening. I find the light when the sun is lower in the western sky highlights the thicker and paler green weeds and seed pods from among the grass. When the sun is overhead the weeds tend to blend in the tall grass - though, I either have an eye to spot them else there are so many any idiot can find some. I probably fall into the later as this evening when searching for my pocket gopher traps I kept finding weed after weed in an area searched thoroughly in the morning and day.

Today was a mostly cloudy day until a few breaks in the clouds towards evening. The flowers stayed open longer to get the sun. The downside was the heavy dew did not dry. My shoes, socks, and pants below the knees were soaked. After a change of shoes and socks over lunch, I returned to the field to check pocket gopher traps and also pick more weeds. A light shower passed overhead. *sigh* Now this pair of shoes and socks are wet.

I did see a beautiful rainbow after the shower. It was bright and very thick. I like how the mountains are behind the rainbow. It adds to the picture. And one knows the pot of gold has to be in the Valley! As the rain shower lessened, the rainbow did also. Not in an overall fading way; but the southern end of the rainbow disappeared, and this continued on up till only the northern arch went from the ground up into the rain cloud. The part of the rainbow that was left was just as bright and thick as when the entire rainbow could be seen. I got to buy a camera!

Tonight I found my first open seed pod in my field. *augh!* For several days now I have seen a couple open pods here and there along the road a half mile or more to the south. The weather hasn't been warm enough to trigger the seed pods to open - or so I thought. In the past years the pods didn't seem to open till almost July. Then again, yesterday I notice my alfalfa is starting to bloom. With all this rain everything seems to be earlier than usual this year.

I have lots of mature goat's beard weeds south of my power line towers. If the weeds are starting to open now, I'm doomed. And I hope for a westerly breeze to keep my eastern neighbor's millions upon millions of seeds away from my field. An east breeze and next year will be a nightmare.

Looks to be another month lost this year to fighting these weeds.

Birch Grove auction

I did pretty well Saturday; I was only an hour late to the nearby auction. I arrived at 11 am which is pretty good considering I had gone to bed at 3 am that morning, and I had the crazy bicycle ride in the rain hours earlier.

The auction was a retirement auction for a collector and restorer of old tractors and farm machinery along with tools, license plates, and other stuff. I had ridden my bicycle past the auction site earlier in the week and wondered where all the stuff could be as I could only see a small house and a few acres behind the house. He may have only had a few acres but behind the trees were a number of metal buildings that were his workshops and storage areas. From the condition of the items they were all stored inside.

I'm not looking for antique stuff; the auction ad mentioned tools, equipment, and other farm stuff. The only things I was interested in were some boxes of bolts, nuts, and nails, and one box of old miscellaneous traps, and maybe a livestock watering tank. These items were hours later, but it was a nice enough day and the items being sold were different than the unusual items at other auctions.

Shortly after I arrived they sold a very tall wooden stepladder, very long wooden ladder, and one piece of a small aluminum extension ladder. Usually ladders sell for a good price. The step ladder sold for $15. This is a low price and I started to think about if I wanted it. Before I could decide it was sold.

The long wooden ladder sold for only $10. Again to my surprise, and while I pondered, it too was sold.

The aluminum ladder interested me as I need one catch for my aluminum ladder. While this ladder's catch was different maybe I could still use it. The auctioneer tried to sell a box of miscellaneous junk and had no bidders so they suddenly threw the ladder in with it. A bid of $1. As I raised my hand to answer the call for $2 the auctioneer sold it all for $1 to the initial bidder. Darn. I would have paid $2 on the chance the catch would work for my ladder.

The owner also collected the chrome car names they use to put on cars. My first car had one. I thought it looked cool, but it was a pain to clean around. He also collected a number of hood ornaments. These were popular on 1950s cars. He had them all mounted on large black plywood pieces. I saw an ornament similar to one I had on my first car. No, my car wasn't a 1950s model (it was from 1960), but I loved the hood ornament (an airplane shape) I had found so much I drilled holes in my car hood and installed it on my car. I had the only 1960 Chevy with a hood ornament. My current car wouldn't look good with a hood ornament so I didn't buy any at the auction. And they didn't go cheap. Though if I really wanted one, it was worth the price.

I didn't get any nails, bolts or nuts. They were on a flatbed trailer with lots of boxes of other miscellaneous shop items. Some items were sold a box at a time, but by the end of the trailer they were grabbing two, three or four boxes and selling them as a group. The owner had sorted the bolts, nuts, washers of different sizes into boxes for each size. I was interested in only a middle, or common size. And sometimes the group of boxes had stuff unrelated to bolts, etc. I bid on some of them, but wouldn't go over $5 so I lost out to a couple of other guys who wanted the stuff and would bid it higher. One old (70ish) guy annoyed me and not just because he out bid me for the nuts and bolts. He smoked a lot and was a little pushy.

A cattle dehorner went for $20, the same price that two of them together sold for at the last auction I attended.

Finally the trailer with the box of traps. By now the weather had changed. I had been keeping an eye on rain showers north of the auction site. The rain at the north end of the valley tends to go straight east and into and through the Badrock Canyon gap to Glacier Park. And it did also today but we still got some light sprinkles when they moved to this trailer with the traps. Still, not enough rain to chase people away.

The box of traps had two conibear traps, quite a number of small leghold traps, and several large animal leghold traps. I didn't even get into the bidding mix as a young 20ish Amish fellow started the bidding at $20 and it quickly escalated from there. The traps sold for $50.

When he walked over to get his box another older Amish fellow with a long pronounced beard (the kind that only runs along the jaw line and chin) told the 20ish man that traps don't work that well for him to catch a woman. The 20ish guy wasn't amused.

I asked if he wanted the conibear traps. He looked through the box and found the two. He asked what I'd pay for them and I said $5. He wasn't that keen on the offer and decided to keep them. Oh well, at my last auction I had paid $7.50 for 3 conibear traps and 5 leghold traps. There will be other auctions. Traps are a common item at farm auctions.

The Amish man with the pronounced beard bought a box of miscellaneous stuff. In the box there was a pint jar of white powder. The owner was nearby and came over to say that this was ash he collected after Mt. St. Helens exploded in 1980.

The owner also collected cast iron tractor and farm machinery seats. They were neat. Most of the seats were not solid, instead they had lots of holes. Many looked like spiderwebs. A number had a name spelled out on the back slightly upright part of the seats. The seats looked to be heavy!

Here are some similar seats as to what I had seen at the auction:


He also had the front plates for grain drills and other old equipment that had company names and logos on them. One long flatbed trailer was covered with all these items. Earlier I overheard one fellow say that half the seats belonged to his grandfather, and the grandfather had brought them from North Dakota when he moved out here. The grandfather ended up selling the seats to the current owner many years ago.

The current owner and his wife are also originally from North Dakota. I remember in the 1970s many of the newcomers to the Flathead Valley came from North Dakota. So many that the locals would tell North Dakota jokes to put them down. You know, the standard ethnic jokes but with "North Dakotan" substituted. They even published small books of North Dakota jokes. My father even owned one. Now-a-days it is Californians who move to the Valley. Some things change, others don't. The long time residents still resent outsiders, but instead of telling jokes, now they grumble and make mean comments.

Even though it was mid afternoon everyone gathered around the trailer as we were all curious as to what the seats would sell for. The auctioneer sold choice on any item. The initial winner paid $75 each for seven of the cast iron seats. I believe there were almost three dozen seats as the final buyer bought the final 13 seats for $25 each.

I wasn't interested in owning the seats as they looked mighty uncomfortable. Several seats had a very large hump in the front in the middle.

A couple old guys on my right made a comment to one another that those seats were for the women. *wink* *wink* A few women standing on my left didn't seem amused by the old guys comments. Later one of the guys bought one of the seats and the other fellow kidded him it must be for his wife.

Many of the buyers for the seats were about the only people who didn't look like old farmers. The very old farmers commented they remembered how hard those seats felt.

Most of the people at the auction looked to be long time native Montana farmers/ranchers. Only a few people here and there looked to be "outsiders". I saw a few auction regulars. I even saw one of our three County Commissioners; Watne the one who is retiring this year. He was dressed in Conoco hat and work shirt. You know, the type with the person's first name on a patch over their pocket. At $56,000 a year I guess being a full time County Commissioner doesn't pay enough. Watne was there for a while looking stuff over and chatting with a few people. I didn't see if he bought anything.

Later the auctioneer sold old metal milk cans. An attractive young women with a long thick mane of blonde hair in a wheelchair and a cast on her foot up to her knee bought two of the four cans, then bought the old restored milk can cart for $500.

There were many other old restored hand or horse drawn farm machinery. The one Amish fellow I spoke with (not the 20ish trapper buyer) told me he had used similar machinery back in the 1970s in Ohio before he moved to Montana.

I didn't get the stock tank. I didn't really need another one so I dropped out at $25 and the other bidder got it for $20. Afterwards I kicked myself as, even though the outside was rusty it didn't leak and was still sound. The tank was worth more than $20 and I should have kept bidding. Eventually I'd find a use for it.

After more antique farm machinery they sold the antique tractors. A very old steel wheel tractor - which supposedly ran - sold for $300 after the wife put the kibosh on her husband from bidding more. The other 6 tractors - all but one restored and painted - sold for $1000 to $2050. A John Deere Model A, Cocksutt, a Ford, etc. All ran and looked very nice.

And with that the auction was over at 5:45 pm.

I spoke with a few people during the auction while waiting. I was curious as to what religious order these differently dressed people belonged to. They didn't dress in black as they were in blue with some grey. The one woman wore a plain dress and bonnet. All the men wore hats, but they weren't straw hats. Just different looking. Even the boy wore a hat. I figured they were Mennonites. I asked and learned they were Amish. "But you aren't all in black." He said they were "old order" Amish. They wore plain clothes and weren't restricted to black. The all-black clothes Amish tend to be the more conservative in the range of Amish belief. He said the "old order" were in the middle of the range of beliefs. He had a slight accent so I had him repeat a few words now and then.

He said that all Amish forgo cars and electricity. He said some people who drive claim to be Amish, but he said they aren't. He said some Amish people give in and eventually start driving cars. He said when that happens they are no longer Amish people.

He said he lived west of Eureka, MT (pop 1009), west of Lake Kookunusa. NW Montana. Remote.

"If you don't drive, then how'd you get here?"

"By train."

"No, I mean 'here' to the auction."

"We have someone who drives us. For the Amish who need to travel they have a contract with a man who has a van and he drives us."

I didn't think of it at the time, but what's the difference between driving yourself and someone giving you a ride. I can understand a little the idea of taking a train as many people ride the train as it is public transportation. By hiring a driver is not public transportation. A question for another time perhaps.

It also made sense as to why the Amish guy paid so much for the traps and only would sell the conibear traps to me for a higher price. He doesn't get a chance to get out to buy stuff. Going to the CHS store and buying new traps for a few dollars more is a big inconvenience for him as he would have to hire a driver and be part of a group, so not everyone would be able to shop where they wanted to go.

He also mentioned other areas in western Montana with Amish communities. How other places people have tried to start a community but can't get the critical mass of families to make a go of it.

We also talked about how upon turning 18 the young can leave the Amish life and live in the world and then later come back and rejoin the Amish community if they desire. He said they lose a lot of people this way as quite a number don't return. The longer they are away in the world the less likely they will return. More so lately as with the economy doing so well it is easy for them to get work that pays well. Not much money to be made in an agricultural life.

Earlier while I was sitting on a piece of farm equipment and waiting, a woman came over to also sit down. She was from Sunburst, MT, (pop. 413) near the Canadian border and the Sweetgrass Hills. She and her husband come over to the Valley a few times a year for short vacations. They were interested in the large Red Wing crocks but didn't buy any as they sold high. The same for the milk cans.

We talked a bit about the Sweetgrass Hills and how most of the land on them was private and not open to the public. She said the view of the prairie from the top of the one she hiked up was great. I believe there are three hills. I can see them whenever I drive the Hi-Line to North Dakota. Some day I want to hike to the top of one of the hills.

With how the land rises from the east, the Rocky Mountains aren't visible till you are close to them. So the Sweetgrass Hills are the only thing to see for many miles when crossing the Hi-Line. For people traveling east to west across Montana, and unfamiliar to the state, think upon seeing these hills that this is finally the start of the Rocky Mountains after so many miles of prairie. Nope. I suppose in many other states these would be considered mountains, but next to the Rocky Mountains they are considered hills. Beautiful, nonetheless.

Oh yeah, the food sold at the auction smelled really good. I had just eaten prior to coming to the auction so I passed on the food. Even though I wasn't hungry, the food still smelled really good.

So I didn't buy anything at this auction, but I had a nice day.

River flow and dam

As you can see from the following chart, once the rain stopped my river stopped rising for the most part. Since last midnight to 10:30 pm tonight the river rose from 1000 CFS to 1010. Tonight when I checked the river I could see it was higher than yesterday, but as the tracking station is a few miles upstream of me, the increase in the river flow I saw was probably the increase tracked late yesterday that made its way down to my place.

Also in the news today is that a small dam broke this afternoon on the Stillwater River north of Olney, MT. The Stillwater River is west / northwest of me and doesn't affect me as it joins the Whitefish River some miles south of me. The Stillwater River initially had a flash flood watch and now has "just" a flood warning. That's all I know as today is Saturday and the TV news isn't as thorough (as if it is thorough the other days ), and it is broadcast from Missoula - 120 miles from here. So it is not really the local news, and no video.

River flow from recent rain

Tuesday night to midnight Thursday/Friday it has rained, and rained, and rained. Don't believe me? Look below at USGS's measured stream flow for my river.

This afternoon, after checking my gopher traps, I could see the river was higher than the 890 CFS peak over a week ago. Then 5 hours later, when checking the traps a second time, I could see the river was even higher. The water is not just brown but the color of mud. Lots of erosion going on.

The local news said 10 rock slides went across Going-to-the-sun road in Glacier Nat'l Park. Avalanche Creek in the Park went over its banks closing the hiking trail. (Francis, Tina, Larry... remember that trail?) The west reservoir road near Hungry Horse Dam is completely washed out in one area as shown on the 6 pm news.

Here is the chart from the USGS for tonight. I took the chart with the 10:30 pm reading as the flow was 991 CFS. The 12:30 am flow was at 1000 CFS exactly, and the chart was resized to go to a maximum of of 2000 CFS. The increase is not as dramatic on that chart.

Note that on Thursday morning (15th) the flow was less than 750 CFS. (I seem to remember it at 741). A pretty steep increase of 250 CFS in a day and a half!

(Click on the images to see their larger version.)