Working between snow squalls

So much for my plans for the day.  I planned to finish cutting the willow trunk.  However the weather had other plans.  First the wind was blowing preventing me from using a ladder and cutting with a chain saw.  Then I found the cut I had made Monday had swelled so it was difficult to get my saw blade into the cut.  I am not sure if the swelling was because the tree trunk is getting water and sap in preparation for Spring and growth, or if the rain from the night before caused the swelling.  By the time I cut down to where I left off on Monday the wind picked up even more.  It blew so hard I was concerned that, if I did complete the cut, the tree trunk wouldn't fall straight down but would be blown towards the truck.  And the wind was making it difficult for me to stand on top of the truck.  So I called it quits for the day.

I then raked the rocks off the lawn along each side the driveway.  The rocks got on the lawn when I shoveled snow off my driveway over Winter.  I have over 200 ft of driveway.

When I finished raking I worked on fixing my wooden cattle feeder.  If you remember from when I had cattle several years ago a few of the heifers wanted to stand in the hay in the feeder and they broke a few boards on the bottom. I had two years to fix the feeder and now here I am finally fixing it. After repairing the broken boards I raised the feeder's floor by a few inches so the feeder is not as deep.  I also lowered the feeder's overall height by an inch.  Intermittent snow squalls slowed my work.   By dark I had everything done except putting the feeder's bottom boards back on.  That won't take long to do tomorrow.

This is the feeder flipped upside down as I am working on it.

In the morning I heard a pack of coyotes barking and howling along the ridge to the NW.  In the evening, just as I quit work, I heard the large pack of coyotes barking and howling between the river and ridge to the SW of the ranch.  The coyotes may have been chasing something, like one of the deer that stays in that area.

I checked on my hay stored in the barn.  The hay is green and smells fresh.  A good smell.

At times the snow was pretty intense...