Cattle into the hayfield, and heifers that were old

This morning I let the cattle into the hayfield.  The pastures are pretty much eaten down and the hayfield grew nicely after the second hay cutting.  The last week's overnight low temperatures have been in the mid to low 20s so the grass and alfalfa aren't really growing anymore.  And I won't be asked if I plan on doing a third hay cutting of my field. 

Before letting the cattle into the hayfield I gave them a bag of apples.  It is near the end of apples are most have fallen from the trees.

The two smaller animals in the back are the heifers I am keeping.

Now, into the hayfield.

My heifers were sold at auction on Friday.  I did better than I expected. They weighed 510 pounds each and sold for 2.97 a pound.  I got more for my heifers than I did for my steers.  That was a first for me.  And this was the most I ever got for heifers.   A handful of other sellers with heifers near my heifer's weight sold for a little over $3 a pound up to 3.16 a pound.  But I was near the high end of the market.

Barn painted

I finished repainting the barn.   The only time earlier I had put paint on the barn was back in 2009 when I had a little red paint left due to painting the house's trim red.

Here is text and photos from my blog post about this back in July 2009:

So I think I have finished painting the fascia on the house, garage and well pump shed. I still had paint left in the can so I decided to finish the can by painting the barn. I ended up painting two walls of the barn's addition. I had to do a little scraping of old paint off the bottom two boards of each wall.

Tammy picked out a pretty red, don't you think? Even though the white trim has not been repainted the red already makes it stand out.

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Last month when Kelly stopped by to check on deer hunting this year, and his deer stand, he also asked if I wanted some red paint.  Kelly has a business where he paints stuff for people.  He had two cans of paint he didn't want or need.   Red paint?  Sure.  I could paint something red.

Kelly gave me more paint than I expected.  Two five-gallon pails of paint. The red paint is in the black pails.  Ignore the paint in the grey pails.  That is the paint for the tool shed.

The red color is called "Cape Cod Red".

Originally I had planned on first re-painting the tool shed with other paint I have.  But I would have to pressure wash the tool shed to clean off the loose and flaky paint on it before painting it.  I decided to paint the barn instead.  It took me a number of weeks to paint the barn.  That is because I was also doing other things around the same time.  For over a week I only got 45 minutes to an hour of painting done each day.  So the barn painting was off to a slow start.

Then it got to time to start weaning the calves and they would be in the south corral.  To get that part of the barn done I picked up the pace and spent more time over a couple days to get that part of the barn painted before the calves came.

Due to the feeder I couldn't use the tall ladder to reach the peak of the barn.  I used a smaller ladder.  The feeder roof held up.  You can see how the shade from the roof overhang slowed the old paint from fading away.

Here is the finished south side of the barn.  The boards over the one window are because much of the six glass panes are broken.  Another day I will get a new larger single pane to replace the six missing smaller panes.  Year ago I did that to the window that is now under the feeder I later built.

While the barn addition had been painted back in 2009, the color faded over 15 years.  I decided to repaint the side in the south coral.

Then on the west side of the barn I got part of it painted.  I ran out of paint from the first five-gallon pail before I got the side doors painted.

From the second pail of paint I got the side doors painted even though the calves were now in the south corral.  Since I only had one five-gallon pail of paint left, and it didn't have to be painted now, I skipped painting the side of the barn under the side roof.

To get the part of the barn in south corral painted took an entire five-gallon pail of paint.  How much of the rest of the barn will get painted with the other five-gallon pail of paint?  For sure I wanted the north side of the barn painted.   As you can see the barn had two colors: red and brown. I'm sure the brown paint was due to my dad.  He probably got some discounted on-sale cheap paint.  I never liked the look.

The hay loft door needed work and paint.  On the barn and hay loft door the raised wood sections are used to cover the areas where the board pieces meet each other.  The barn most likely was built in 1940/1941 and I don't think 4 by 10 sheets of wood were available back then.  To cover the gaps at where the board pieces came together, a board was nailed over those areas.   The hay loft door had minor raised boards that most has deteriorated over time.  I replaced three of the four pieces.  Unlike the old raised pieces that had been painted white, I painted them red.  I left the frame as white.

I still had paint left.  On to the east side.  Let's see how much of this side I can paint.   Here you can see the new paint on the right. (When I took the photo the new paint already covered the brown paint.)  The old and faded paint on the left.  The brighter red was an area I had painted back in 2009 when I also painted the barn addition.

I was surprised that I was able to paint the entire east side.  And I painted the north side of the addition.  The last strokes to paint the addition were the last paint I had.  I had exactly the amount of paint needed to paint the barn (other than what was under the barn roof on the west side.)   Who would have thought?

Kelly said the red paint had primer as part of the paint.  I hadn't painted since 2009.  I found this paint to be more liquidly than the paint I knew before.  The paint flowed.  When I held the brush end of the brush up to paint, paint would flow down the handle of the brush.  My hands and arms got a good amount of paint on them.  And this paint was harder to remove off my hands and arms.  I think today after days of washing and scrubbing them of paint I got most all of it off me.  My clothes however.  That may remain forever.  Washing the clothes today appears to not remove much of any paint.

And I found my painting shoulder to be slightly sore each night when I went to bed as I used a hand brush to paint the barn.  The raised boards made using a roller to paint unworkable.

Well, this project is now done.  On to the next project.

Corral and loading corral

This afternoon I finally finished painting the barn.  More on that in another post once I get photos taken of the new paint job.

I had time left so I got the chainsaw and trimmed the railroad ties in front of the loading corral.  Some of the ties were a bit longer so I evened them out.  I have spikes in the ties and into the ground holding the ties in place, so I didn't trim the ties any shorter.   Next year I'll try to remember to move some dirt to make the other trailers be a little taller.

I had more time available and I got the lawnmower out and mowed the weeds down in the corral.  The cows earlier had eaten what they wanted off the weeds, then the weeds died.  The look did not appeal to me.

I used my rake to flip the manure in half the yard.  I need more time for the manure to completely dry before mowing to even out the grass height in the yard.  At least the yard looks better than the tall weeds did in the corral.

Heifer calves to auction

This morning I hauled my six heifer calves to the stockyards in Ronan so they could be taken to Ramsey, MT for the auction on Friday.   It is easier to do than before when I hauled cattle to the auction in Missoula.  I have less to drive and I can start loading the cattle later when it is light outside and not dark.

I had told Donna that I would start at 8:30 am.  But I woke up earlier and then started earlier.  The calves were very cooperative this morning and followed me from the south corral to the loading corral and then walked into the stock trailer.  I had the calves loaded and had just driven out of the corral when Donna and Rusty arrived.  I put a rachet strap around the back of the stock trailer to better hold that back gate in place and we were on our way.

At the stockyard I saw that it had improved it since I was last there in August.  A new unloading area.  They got rid of the wooden fencing and put in metal poles.  Much of the other parts of the corral were improved.  New fence boards.  New and more gates.  I didn't notice any bent gates.  A nice job was done and I no longer worry about a cattle breakout from the pens.

When unloading my calves I met a couple from Eureka for whom this was the first time here and they weren't sure what to do.  They initially thought I may be a worker who transports the cattle to the auction.  I explained what they had and should do and helped them unload their calves and place them in an empty pen.

Then I was off to back home.   I recently bought a pressure washer so I no longer have to borrow Donna's pressure washer.  I put mine together and used it to clean my stockyard.  It worked well.

Here is my loading corral.  I put the railroad ties outside the gate to make it easier for the cattle to step into the stock trailer.  My trailer is a touch higher so I can back up to the open gate.  Tony's and Leah's trailers were not as high and they could only back up to the railroad ties, and not over the ties.  With a little gap between their trailers and the gate I would stand a wooden pallet on one side and the other person would stand on the other side so they cattle wouldn't try to turn and squeeze through the gap instead of going into the trailer.

My trailer must be just above the railroad ties.  Today after I loaded the calves and went to drive away the trailer rubbed on the railroad ties and it took effort to drive away.  That never happened before.  The dirt may have gotten lower this year.  I may move some dirt here or maybe trim the railroad ties to be a bit shorter.

At the Ronan stockyard heading to their pen.

In their pen at the stockyard.

A larger view of the stockyard.  Other cattle were already there.

Flathead Lake during the drive home.

Now to see what my calves weigh and what I will get at the auction.  Hope for the best.