Ditch burning

Rain and cold (and maybe later a skiff of snow) is forecast starting Tuesday and for the rest of the week.   The weather today was mostly good for burning the ditches.  The wind was a little stronger than I would have liked.  The direction was from the south, southeast, and east.  The wind here is often variable in direction and speed.  South is perfect. SE and east are not ideal as the wind would blow the fire towards the hayfield.  This year I have harrowed the hayfield much more than usual thereby greatly reducing the opportunity for a fire to escape.

As I burn the ditches every year the fuel load is not heavy.

A long way to go.

Partially done.

A little while after I starting burning, the wind shifted from south to SE and east.  The fire now wanted to also burn into the hayfield.  Further from the fence the harrowing mixed dirt with grass.  But I didn't trust the fire.  Between the sun, wind and heat the fire was easily burning the grass.  And fire can grow exponentially.   So I knocked the fire out.    Then I raked a line along the fence removing dead grass.   When I started the fire again I burned along the raked line first further creating a barrier.  Then I went back and started the fire in the ditch.

Below is the only time the fire jumped the barrier.

Having burnt the south ditch I decided to try burning the north ditch.   This is trickier to burn as neighbor's place (and their tall grass) is closer and downwind from the fire.   And the pine trees near here drop needles and pine cones adding to the fuel load.   But I safely burned this ditch as I again raked a line and burnt a barrier.

So I have completed my burning for the year and can check that off my "to-do" list.


In the evening I noticed a long line of fire and a couple fire trucks in the field across the road from me.  The fire was across the field closer to the highway.  The fire was knocked down quite a bit by the time I thought of taking the following photo.

Five big hay bales

Saturday I got the rest of my big hay bales from Tim.  He wanted me to get them sooner than later as he was getting lots of calls asking to buy hay from him.

I borrowed Dan's trailer to haul the bales.  I can fit three of the bales on the trailer.

The trailer hitch normally isn't this close to the ground.  The ground where the pickup and trailer is located in the photo is kind of a "V" at this location.

For the first load I easily pushed the first bale off the trailer onto a wooden pallet on the ground.  My neighbor was outside and he offered to come over and help me push the rest of the bales off the trailer.

The second load was two bales.  Tim had more bales and I offered to buy an extra one to make three bales but he had promised the rest of the bales to others who needed the hay.

I strap the bales down to make sure they don't roll off the trailer as I drive. With only two bales I had an extra amount strap to ratchet in.  For the load with the two bales my strap jammed when starting to tighten it.   I fiddled and fiddled with the strap's latch but couldn't get the strap loose or to tighten it further.  I had also brought a log and another large board and used them to wedge under the hay bales.  I decided to drive home this way.

A few miles down the road I remembered my route had a hill.  I also noticed the hay bales looked like they bounced slightly as I drove over bumps in he road - or was it my imagination?  I pulled off the road to again work on the strap.  Braking and pulling down off the road caused the first bale to roll forward.  It did stay on the trailer.  *whew!*

I still was unable to loosen the strap.  I was able to fasten it a different way on the trailer to take up the extra slack.  The strap wasn't really tight but did add extra protection.

I made it home safely without losing either bale.  *whew*

Tomorrow I will work on fixing the strap and latch.

Water witch

Donna's pickup wouldn't start on Friday so I towed it to her house for her to fix.

Donna can witch water.  Using two pieces of wire she showed me how.  It was near her well where a vein of water is located.  She had me try it and - surprise - the wires turned by themselves as I approached the water vein.  The wire in my left hand strongly crossed to the right on its own as I walked over the vein.  The wire in my right hand kind of wanted to cross to the left but ended up only wobbling weakly back and forth a few times.    I approached the water vein several times and each time the left wire strongly turned right on its own.

Wow.

Bicycle Cat

A 'bicycle elf' (Donna) was by early this morning before I got up and left me... Bicycle Cat!

Isn't she amazing?!  And she looks similar to Daisy.  Daisy wasn't too sure about Bicycle Cat initially, especially when the wind made the wheels spin.

Here is an 18 second video of Bicycle Cat in action: http://youtu.be/To6d0RiDl_g

Thanks Donna!

Harrow start

I started dragging the harrow around the hayfield Monday.  Usually I don't get to doing so until April.  Advantages to doing the work now is:

• No dust
• Only a little of the green grass has come up.

It is hard to see the five harrow sections as I had drug the harrow for a while before remembering to take a photo.  Right off the bat the long pipe in front broke in two pieces and I had to add an extra chain for pulling.

I hope to get most everything harrowed this week.  I will wait to do the north pasture until after I keep the cattle in the corral. I'm waiting to do so until the last minute as the corral is still wet and the grass hasn't really started growing in the north pasture.  The later and less I feed hay in the corral means the less manure I have to shovel later.

Another year, another pocket gopher

Spring must be here.  I caught my first pocket gopher of the year.  I saw the fresh dirt mounds Friday when I worked on the two tree trunks, set the trap Saturday and on Sunday, less than 24 hours later, caught the pocket gopher.

Another big bale for the calves

Daisy inspects the bale before I haul it out for the calves.

While the cows' hay bale is already out in the pasture, some of them were taking a break to chew their cud when I wanted to bring the hay into the corral for the calves.  Since Buddy was part of the group I waited for them to finish and move back to the pasture.

Of course Mama and then Number 7 decided to come to the gate and look at the pickup and hay bale before getting a drink of water then leaving for the pasture.  Anything to drag it out.

Number 7 will be a first time mother soon.  Both she and Mama appear to be the farthest along in their pregnancies.

Here you can kind of see where number 7 has licked her belly.   I notice that the cows do that more when they are far along in their pregnancy.

The calves are waiting for their hay.  Of course Daisy is right along with me and the action.

Finally the new bale is placed for the calves.  Daisy is inspecting the final result.

The calves again buzzed about as I tried to push the bale out of the pickup.  The calves distracted me and I forgot to completely remove the pickup's tailgate.  The tailgate's latch broke and now I need to buy a new one.

Pulling trees

After I got the new large bale situated for the cows I decided to pull the two trees that had fallen across the fence into the neighbor's property.  The trees fell a few years ago and initially I waited for the trees to die and dry.  Last year the property was sold but I was too busy to clean up the trees.  The other day I cut the remaining limbs from the trees and cut the ends off them.  Friday afternoon I pulled the trees completely onto my property.

I pulled the two trees next to another tree that had blown over last year, I cut the limbs from, but hadn't cut up into pieces yet for log splitting.  I hadn't needed to cut the tops from these two trees as I easily pulled them.

The trees lay across my barb wire fence pushing it down but not breaking any wires.  Even though I cut all the limbs from the trees I figured the movement of the trees may break the wires.  No wires were broke but the fence wires were stretched and three old wood posts that were on their way to rotting were broke off.

Back home to get four steel posts.  (That's when I saw the cows fighting).

Below, in the foreground, is the remaining stump of the first tree that was blown over.   This large tree was blown into the smaller tree breaking it off leaving the taller stump.

Now that I removed the trees, where are my fence wires?

So what I thought could be a quick fence repair turned into something bigger.  Four new posts and a total of eight fence posts that had to be re-fastened. Add in that I hadn't brought a hammer and needed to remove the staples fastening the wires to the broken wooden posts. Slow going with just a screwdriver.  Add in five loose strands of barb wire to begin with, and one wire a tree had grown around (see below), and my 'quick' repair took the rest of the afternoon. Add in that I had tossed the tree limbs next to the fence not realizing I would later need to access the fence from this side to string the wires and re-fasten them.   Anything to make an annoying job harder.  I was not a happy camper. I should had gotten a clue as to how this day would go when I woke up in the morning with Daisy's back feet against my face as she was stretched out laying and sleeping next to me.

I used a fence stretcher to remove the slack from the five wires and re-strung the wires.  Better to do this than chase cattle later.

The finished result.  Finally.

Hay bale, Buddy and fighting

Time for another large hay bale for the cows.  With the snow gone the cows will pick at the grass in between eating the last stemy part of the previous hay bale.  In the cold Winter the bale would last 4.5 days.  When it got warmer the bale would last 5.5 to 6 days.  Now it lasts 7 days with a little left over.

So I pulled out another bale.  With no reason to entice them with a small bale and then closing the corral gate as I worked, I waited until they were out at the river end of the pasture.

First problem: the bale fell off the wooden pallet when I was in the north pasture but before my destination location.  I decided to pull the bale across the ground. The bale would jump about as I pulled it so I quit short of my destination.

Several calves in the corral started bawling and making a racket.  Shhhh!!!!  I don't want the cows to notice me.

Next step: get the metal feeder.  As soon as I backed the pickup up to the feeder the cattle noticed from way across the pasture.  They came running.  I was able to flip the feeder on its side before they arrived.  Buddy came first and was excited.  I had the pickup door open so I jumped in the pickup and slammed the door shut.  He stood in front of the pickup and jumped about.  The new bale was closer to the corral and he eyed it but didn't make the connection.  When Beulah and the rest of the cows arrived it didn't take them long to realize that bale was for them to eat and they ran over to it.  Buddy quickly followed.

Buddy

I began to roll the feeder over.  The cattle were all excited and some were butting their heads against the bale and getting it to roll a little bit.  I finally got the feeder rolled over to the bale before the cows could demolish the bale.  I was able to flip the feeder over the bale and also warn the cattle away so they wouldn't get bonked on their heads.

Lastly I had to cut and remove the twine from the bale with the feeder around the bale and the cattle eating the bale.  That made the job harder.  But I got it done.

*sigh*

Always excitement.

 
When I first put the metal feeder over the bale Cow number 90 stood to one side as the others ate.  A little later only Momma was standing to the side as the others ate.  I let the cow with the bad leg out of the corral to join the other cows as her leg appears to be healed.  A short time later Mama was fighting with two cows: a black cow (number 90?) and either the cow was the former bad leg or the other cow that looks like her.  A bit later it was just Mama and the black cow.  Both were trying to reach the udder of the other cow.  Mama got the other cow's udder and began to suck.  Within seconds the other cow quit fighting and stood still as Mama sucked.

Then a few minutes later Mama come running into the corral with the black cow in hot pursuit.  The corral is slippery with mud and manure and when Mama tried to turn around the black cow rammed her and knocked her down and kept pushing her until Mama was on her side and back.  Before I could get over to break it up Mama got up and took off running as seen below.  Outside the corral Mama got away and they stopped fighting.  Later in the evening all seemed well.  I hope so as both cows should be pregnant and Mama certainly looks pregnant.  Mama is in the early stages of springing.  I don't want them fighting and possibly hurting their babies.

Females!  They hold grudges and love to fight.  And fight dirty.

Later when I put the chain around the next bale in preparation to pulling it next week, Daisy joined me.  After I pulled the tarp back down over the bales and moved some boards and cement blocks, I found a dead mouse by the hoe I use to snag the chain around the bale.  It took Daisy only minutes to catch and kill a mouse.  She was nowhere to be seen but she left the mouse by the hoe to show me she was on the job.  Number 20 for the year so far.

One thousand

I've ridden over one thousand miles so far this year on my bicycle.  1025 to be exact.  An average of over 85 miles a week - so see... that's not that much.  But then that is also over 12 miles a day.  So you decide.

In addition to riding 30 miles today I cut the limbs off a recently fallen spruce tree.  And then I cut a section off the top of the trunks of four fallen trees to shorten them up a bit until I get around to cutting them up completely later this year.  All this was done with a handsaw as I hadn't planned on cutting so much and I didn't feel like starting up the chainsaw.   You know me about doing it the hard way! 

Signs of Spring

Snow on the ranch only exists in shaded areas or are remnants from earlier piles of snow.

Yesterday the Washington State semi trucks started hauling seed potatoes.

The river is rising.

When it is not raining Daisy spends much more time outside.

Tulips south of the house started to come out of the ground.

Grass has started to green.
I saw a few yarrow weeds greening up. 

Two big bales

The stars aligned and both sets of cattle got big bales today.

First off were the cows.  Pulling another big bale to the north pasture went smooth.  In an hour I was done.  It is so much easier and nicer to do this without snow, rain, mud, wind, etc.

I got another big bale from Tim for the calves.  This bale seemed a touch bigger.  When he placed it in the pickup bed the back half of the bale did not sit on the pickup bed floor.  By the time I got home, as you can see, the bale is almost on the bed's floor.

I thought with the bale wedged between the pickup bed's sides I would have trouble getting the bale out.  But I was able to push it out -- with some effort.

The hardest part of all this is that the calves didn't want to wait for me to push the bale out of the pickup bed.  I was afraid the bale would land on one or more of the calves after I pushed the bale from the pickup bed.  I had to get and use my sorting stick to get the calves to move away from the bale.  Several times, as they kept swarming back to the bale.

Finally they stayed away just long enough for me to push the bale to the ground.

To get the twine off the bale I ended up standing on top of the bale and unwinding the twine from around the bale.  The cattle didn't make it easy when they ate from the bale at the same time.

I made sure to wire up the broken feeder to prevent the calves from crawling into the hay once the bale is eaten down.


This morning when I went out to give the cattle several small bales before getting the big bales, I found two cows fighting.  #40 and #90 were really going at it.  Around and around with each trying to reach and suck from the other's udder.  Typical mean female cow fighting.   The temperature was just below freezing and the ground slippery from frost.  A few times a cow would slip and go down.  Fortunately they quit fighting so they could eat hay.  They ate at opposite ends of the feeder.   I didn't see them fight later as they spent the day in the corral until I let them out later to eat from the big bale.  I did notice #90 hesitate before joining the herd at the big bale.  These dang female cows get a grudge, fight dirty, and won't let it go.

Irrigation shed roof done

If you remember back last November I was working on re-doing my irrigation shed's roof when Winter arrived.  I had everything done except putting down the new shingles.

http://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2014/11/irrigation-shed-roof.html

The weather since last weekend has been sunny and warm.  While there is plenty of snow left on the ground I was able over the last couple of days to shingle the irrigation shed and now I am done.  I can now cross this job off last year's to-do list.

You can see where the tar paper faded over Winter.

Done.  I also brought out and installed the white 'window' piece I had made last November before Winter came. 

Yesterday Daisy came out with me to work.  Actually, due to all the snow and water from melting snow I carried Daisy out to the shed.  Daisy doesn't like to be carried as she is an independent female.   She tolerated being carried well for the most part, though she was starting to do a low rumble growl by the time we reached the shed.

After a little exploring Daisy came up on the roof with me as I worked.

After a bit she settled down for a nap.  I was surprised she was so relaxed as I nailed all the shingles to the roof. I would have expected the noise would have bothered her.

Catching some Z's on a warm afternoon.

It was only when I left the roof to get something from the ground that Daisy decided she wanted down off the roof.  I lifted her down to the ground.

After more exploring Daisy settled into the old tree stump and remained there until it was time for us to return home.

Time to go home Daisy.

Okay.

I was able to carry Daisy 3/4 the way home before she insisted on getting down when we came to a large area of snow free ground.  She walked the rest of the way home across the snow, mud and water.  She had wet paws but that was how she preferred to travel.  Like I said, she is an independent female.

Piss and Vinegar

Late this afternoon it looked like the horned steer was standing inside the metal hay feeder. I walked over and found the steer and another calf standing inside the feeder. Tromping on the hay. 

As I walked through the corral to the feeder the other calves ran over to me and began jumping around.

"Hey, how come they are in the feeder?"  "Why can't I go in the feeder?"  "Oh boy!  They are in trouble now!"

I chased the two calves out of the feeder.   Then I tossed out the two piles of manure they had left behind in the hay.

This is the broken feeder and once the hay was down to level of the ring the two calves slipped though the broken part to get into the feeder.  I got some extra wire and wired the broken parts of the feeder to the corral fence.  That should stop this kind of behavior.

The calves were all worked up.  They ran and jumped around me whenever I walked around the corral.  As I wired up the feeder several tried to rub their head against my body.

"Shoo!  Shoo!   Go away!!"

Daisy must have heard me cuss up a blue streak as she then showed up and came into the corral.  The next I knew she was on top of the fence above me and the feeder.   Supervising.

When I finished and left the corral  the calves turned their attention from me towards Daisy.  The calves couldn't reach Daisy on top of the fence but then there was the gate in the fence and Daisy needed to get to the ground to get around the gate.  The calves all stood below the railroad tie Daisy sat on.  Eventually the calves lost interest and Daisy was able to get down and come over to me.


Just now I called for Daisy to come in the house.  Yup, on the house roof again.  I had to reach up and lift her down.