Busy, and hand

I'm trying to stay awake as I write this...

Tuesday I heard from the dermatologist's office.  The skin biopsy results from the growth on my hand says it is a spindle cell proliferation.  (https://en.wikivet.net/Spindle_Cell_Tumours)   There are other articles on the internet but I found them to be medically technical.

It can be difficult to differentiate between the different forms of spindle cell tumours, and also to distinguish between spindle cell neoplasia and a fibroplastic spindle cell proliferative response.

The office had the biopsy sent for a second opinion.  They determined the growth is benign and no further treatment is needed. Hmmm.   Once my hand heals I'll see if their slicing the growth off for the biopsy will get rid of this, or whether it will re-grow.

I asked how I could have gotten this.  The answer: bad luck.

Okay...


The cattle are doing fine.  They broke the salt feeder and I had to fix it.

Some people drink coffee in the morning to wake up and get going for the day.  Me?  I go for a 8 to 10 mile bicycle ride in the morning.  Last Friday I passed three yard sales as I rode.  At one sale I got a box of four curtains.  Free.  They need some hemming or something like that the lady said.  I plan to use them in my garage and barn.  I have window blinds on two barn windows.  I had old worn out coats and shirts covering the other two windows.  I can replace the coats and shirts with curtains.

At another sale I bought a clock for two dollars.  Before Tammy I had a print on the wall here.  She had a clock and wanted it there so I moved my print.  I found I liked a clock there.  When Tammy left she took her clock.  Over the Winter I searched for a new clock to hang here.  But I could never find a clock I liked, especially since the more expensive the clocks got the pickier I got to find the 'right' one.  But the price was right for this clock and I like it.  The downside is that it has a loud ticking sound and I haven't tuned it out yet.

I finally took the time to mow the fruit tree and garden area.  The cattle had eaten the grass down but they left tall strands all over as you can see in the following photo. The strands were longer than the mower body and stiff and dry so sometimes I had to go back and forth to get them cut down.

Since I had the mower out I also mowed the entire yard again.  I had been watering the yard around the house and that stayed green and grew.  I raked that up and gave it to the cattle.  The rest of the yard had spotty growth but I mowed it anyway.

Since I was mowing I took time to trim a number of tree branches where the cattle had eaten the leaves off lower branches.  I also trimmed a number of branches on high on a box elder tree south of the house.  This is the one I had cut back in 2009.  (http://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2009/11/owl-ent-tree.html)   The weather did some damage to the tree trunk from the top and the birds continue to carve holes in the trunk.  So the branches growing near the top are dead or dying.  I trimmed them off.  I will cut the trunk shorter later this year when I fire up the chainsaw.

I also trimmed tree branches scraping the top of the metal pole shed roof.  Then I cut the branches higher above the tool shed roof so I can re-shingle it hopefully sooner than later.

The cattle love eating box elder leaves so over several days I dumped the branches over the fence into the hayfield.  A feeding frenzy would ensue.  The next day I would retrieve the bare branches.

Apples are starting to fall from the trees.  They are small.  I feed them to the cattle when only a few are around.  Mama, of course, is the smart one and occasionally peels off from the herd to come drink water and see if she can beg some apples from me. A few times Beulah found out and had a fit.


Each year I resolve to spray weeds in May and June when it is best to spray them.  Each year it is July and August before I get to spraying.  No different this year.  I noticed some Canada thistle starting to have seed pods that look like they would open soon.  So I re-prioritized my to-do list and am now spraying instead of re-shingling the tool shed roof.   The past few years I have hit the weeds hard and knocked them back quite a bit.  However I found in the past if I didn't keep hitting them hard they would bounce back.  So, while the weeds are much less, I am spraying.  Even if this is a poor time to spray I found in past years spraying at this dry time of Summer did have an effect in killing quite a number of weeds.  It just takes much longer for the spray to kill the weed as their metabolism is very slow right now due to the lack of moisture.

The very dry conditions are also keeping the weeds down.  So far the yarrow is almost non-existent.  While yarrow is very moisture sensitive I thought that may be why I'm hardly finding any.  But Tuesday afternoon I looked across the fence at the northern neighbor's field and saw some yarrow.  So my spraying the past few years did have an effect in my pasture.

One side effect of the drought is that in a large part in the areas I have checked, the only green things are the weeds as the grass is brown.

I have sprayed two tanks and covered: the yards, fruit tree and garden area, ditch, NE pasture and three-fourths of the north pasture.  Tuesday it took four hours to empty the sprayer.  Past years I would go through a tank of herbicide in an hour.


A pocket gopher tried to move into the north pasture.  He didn't last long.  Number 8 for the year.

The recent forecast of rain was a bust. Only a little more than a trace.

Pump, tractor and hay

New irrigation pump I ordered three weeks ago.... I called the company and they said it will be a week before they get the pump from the manufacturer, then another week for it to be delivered to me.  They said they couldn't have the pump sent directly to me from the manufactuer.


I finally heard from Tim.  He hadn't gotten the calf table from Zon yet.  He didn't bring me the squeeze cute from South Dakota as it was just him when he left and couldn't load it himself.  The tractor I want to buy from him... he said the local John Deere dealer said it was worth $44,000.  Too rich for me and much more than the other model 6400 tractors I see for sale around the U.S.  So I have to look elsewhere for a tractor.  I see a model 6400 for sale in Graham, Washington near where my relatives live.  Maybe I need to pay them a visit and come home with a tractor.


The local phone company added some bogus charges in my latest bill so I had to call and get them to remove them.  I read tonight that Montana plans to sue them for poor response times and poor service.


My neighbor Curt sold me his share of the hay Johnny cut for him.  Johnny is also short of hay so he took his share instead of payment. It is so hot and dry that Johnny was able to cut the hay Monday morning, rake it Tuesday afternoon, and bale it late Tuesday afternoon.  Therefore the hay is greener and much better than the hay my neighbor cut and let sit to dry out for a week before baling.

Curt said last year the field produced 24 large bales.  This year... seven bales. Curt's, and therefore my share, was only three bales.  But it is three more bales than I had earlier.  David, who cuts for Johnny, said he had seen on average only a third of the amount of hay this year than last year.  It is dry here and hay is in short supply.  Johnny, who I bought some hay from this past Spring, said he will be short of hay this year.  He, and I, may have to look east of the mountains for hay.

How did I get the three bales home?  I borrowed Curt's trailer and David was able to load the three bales on the trailer for me after he baled them. Ii then had to roll the about 1200 lb bales off the trailer once I got home.  That was no easy task as you can see the trailer leans down in front.

Four bales down... forty-six more to go.


My neighbor finished baling his small bales Tuesday evening and I got them put away into the barn.  While I usually buy 330 bales to fill the barn, this year my neighbor only had 269 bales for me.  I bought all he had.  He said he only got a quarter of his normal hay crop.

Water, hay and Daisy

Still dry.  I wanted to water some of the hayfield, if only a very small part.  Due to the cattle I had to put the sprinkler on top of a railroad tie in the corral fence.

Wyatt finally started to bale his hay Sunday night - a week after he cut it. He brought me one load of hay.  The rest will be baled and come on Monday.   This year's hay is not the best. It is dry.  Last year's hay - which I have a few bales left in the barn - is greener than this year's hay.

Daisy supervised.

Later she decided she needed to be on the stack of hay.

Unfortunately she laid on the hay outside the barn.  I had to work around her.  When it came time for her to move she didn't want to.  She was giving me the 'stink eye' until I got the camera out.  She closed her eyes because she didn't want to look at the flash.

I tried to lift her off the hay but she was having none of that.  I finally had to tip the bale a little bit to encourage her to move.

No hay, hand, heifers and roof

It rains (sprinkles) just enough each day to get stuff wet.  Therefore my neighbor did not bale the hay on Thursday or Friday.

No hay on Thursday was kind of ok as I saw a nurse practitioner at a local dermatology office that morning.  I have a growth on the back of my hand that is not a wart.  She said skin cancer is often found on hands.  She numbed the site and then used a razor blade to slice off what stuck up above my hand.  It will be sent to a lab for analysis as to what it is and I'll find out in a week to ten days.

Initially they put a band-aid on the back of my hand but when I said I would be tossing hay bales in the afternoon they put a larger bandage on my hand and then wrapped it.

On Thursday the black heifer appeared to no longer be in heat.  By noon Buddy returned to the herd and was no longer laying outside the corral to be near her.  Therefore I let the heifers out of the corral and into the hayfield.  The herd was at the south end of the hayfield so it took a while for the heifers to make their way across the field to join the herd.

Rose should be coming into heat on Saturday.  I noticed late in the afternoon Buddy was hanging around her.  Two days out and he already knows she will be coming into heat soon.  Probably before even she knows.  On Friday Buddy was hanging closer to her, starting to lick her and rest his head on her back.  He looked like he wanted to mount her but held back.  Saturday should be the big day for her.

Rose was the heifer who went 'boy crazy' the last two times she was in heat so it will be interesting to see how she likes what she has wanted.  So far I'm not sure how she is taking to Buddy shadowing her every move.  She wanted Buddy's attention before but since she is not in full blown heat right now she may be overwhelmed with his attention and puzzled as to why she is the special female in his life.


On Thursday I finished the well pump's shed.  The shingle color is Aspen White.  The photo makes it appear to be even whiter than the white it is.

Just as I finished putting all the tools away it began to rain.  What timing!

With the occasional rain I haven't started removing the shingles to work on the tool shed roof.


Later Thursday evening I took the pipes off the old pump and took them apart into their smaller pieces.  With some effort I was able to unscrew all the pipes.  As rusty as they were I thought I may have to cut some of the pipes to get them apart.

The pump is heavy.  I weighed it.  It weighs 80 lbs.  The newer pumps around that horsepower don't weigh anything near that.  The new 7.5 hp pump I am buying weighs 84 lbs, almost as much as the old 1 hp pump.

Friday I replaced my worn out bicycle chain.  Now I need to get a new freewheel as the new chain skips on the two worn cogs.

Also on Friday I fixed most of the corral's loading ramp's gate that Dan's last cow broke.  I have one more board to nail tomorrow after I go hiking.

Buddy, heifers and irrigation pipe

One of the black heifers was in heat Wednesday. I'm not sure if it is the same one as Tuesday.  Buddy patrolled the fence and called for the heifers.   When working on my well pump shed I noticed Buddy might be in the middle pasture.  Sure enough he was!  He had just gotten through or over the fence and was in a very fast trot over to the north pasture fence where the heifers were eating.  Uh, oh.  Buddy knows how to get through the north pasture fence section that is three strands of barb wire.  The heifers were at the area where the six strands end and the three strands begin.

I went out there.   By now the entire herd saw something was going on and they all came to the hayfield/middle pasture fence.  While the fence was damaged due to Buddy none of the other cattle crossed over the fence.   With some effort I herded the heifers into the corral.

Buddy watched and realized being in the middle pasture was not where the action was at.  I got to a gate but by now he had returned to where he crossed earlier.  He jumped over the fence.  Actually half over landing on top of the wires.  He then hopped the rest of the way over - clumsily.  I was holding my breath but he doesn't appear to have injured his family jewels.

For most the rest of the day he haunted the outside of the corral while I kept the heifers inside.  I had planned on releasing the heifers to the hayfield with the herd Wednesday night once the 48 hours of licking the bloat blocks had passed.  But looking at the calender I hope to wait till the heifer is out of heat.  I would prefer to give her three more weeks before getting pregnant.  Getting bred now would mean a calf the end of April.  Three weeks later would mean a middle May calf and I am fine with that if it gives her three more weeks of growth.

Once I fixed the fence Buddy broke Donna and I moved the irrigation pipes I plan to buy from her late mother's estate.  Arriving with my pickup I discovered I didn't have the right type of hitch.  I had a receiver hitch with a ball.  The trailer holding the pipes was a different type of hitch.

Donna got her tractor and used it to pull the trailer with the pipes to my pasture.  We had concerns whether the tractor and trailer would be able to turn into my driveway.  We had ruled out turning in the NE pasture gate.  To turn in Donna had to swing out into the other lane once the traffic let up, but she made it.

Donna and I had spent some time looking for connectors, risers and sprinkler heads for most of the pipes.  We found some but others were missing.  We are sure we had seen them all in the outbuildings when we initially checked weeks ago.

Rain, wires, heifers

I want it to rain, but I don't want it to rain.... right now.  That is because Wyatt cut his field Sunday night and then plans to bale it on Thursday.  So his hay is laying on the ground drying.   That is, until a rain shower came over Tuesday afternoon.  Not in the forecast, not suppose to happen in NW Montana right now - but it did.  *sigh*

The rain also threw another wrench into my plans.   Monday I put the new roof on the pump house for the well.  I didn't use the former tongue in groove boards.  They were old, they were very dry.  Instead I used two sheets of plywood.

The old roof

The new roof

My plan was to shingle it today.   Earlier in the day I had gone to Home Depot and Lowes to buy shingles and the metal edging you see in the above photo.  I already had felt.

It rained before I could put the felt on the roof.  Now I have to wait till tomorrow to work on the roof as I am waiting for it to completely dry.


I prepared the barn for the Thursday's new hay.  A few weeks ago to make room for the electrician to work I cleared the stuff out of the barn's tack room and into the barn itself.  Now I needed to move the stuff out of the barn.  Since the electrician finished the electrical work (other than the last bit of wiring once the new pump arrives), I removed the old wire from the barn.  Once I fill the barn with new hay I wouldn't be able to access the old wiring.

It appears the electrician removed the connections to the old wiring except for the wire that comes out of the garage.  This wire also goes to the tool shed and barn.  Those wire ends had been cut and taped off in those buildings.  When I worked on removing the old wire in the barn I saw a spark.  That is when I then traced back and found the one spot the electrician had missed cutting/un-wiring.  I removed the fuses so I could work on removing the wire from the barn without getting shocked.

Because I plan to re-shingle the tool shed after I shingle the pump house I removed the old wires from the tool shed.  To do so I had to use an extension  ladder to get up the light pole.  The ladder wasn't quite high enough but I was able to cut the wires and remove them by standing on the top rungs of the ladder and holding onto the light pole.  *whew*

While up there I cut and removed the wires going to the barn.  It looks strange now to not see overhead wires going to the barn.   For now I left the wires going from the light pole to the garage.

One of the three heifers must be in heat or coming into heat.  Buddy spent a lot of time Tuesday along the fence next to their pasture.  When he wasn't around a black heifer would stand by the fence and call out to him.   At one point Buddy got his head through the fence wires to better smell the heifers.  Everyone moved away from the fence when I came out there.  I added a couple extra wires to the existing wires to try to keep those wires together to stop Buddy from putting his head through the fence again.

Three heifers and sunset

The three heifers are still separated from the herd (and the bull!).  The past day or so Buddy has been calling out to the heifers.  Today has been three weeks since Buddy got with the cows.  It would seem he has bred all of them in their initial heat cycle since he has been with them.

Here are a few photos of the heifers from Sunday.  When they are in the pasture by the corral they don't look a big as when I seen them Sunday near the river.

Sunday night's sunset.

Three Dog Night Libby concert

Saturday Donna and I drove to Libby, MT to the Big Sky Bash concert put on by the CARD foundation.  The musical acts were Copper Mountain Band and Three Dog Night.

The CARD Foundation is pleased to announce its 5th annual Big Sky Bash concert to benefit the Center for Asbestos Related Disease (CARD). Legendary music icons, Three Dog Night and local favorite Copper Mountain Band will be performing in Libby on Saturday, July 11th, 2015, with gates opening at 6pm, and music playing from 7pm until midnight at J Neils Park. 

Legendary music icons, Three Dog Night celebrate their 4th decade, performing to sell-out crowds and bringing along some of the most astonishing chart statistics in popular music including 21 consecutive Top 40 hits, including 3 #1 singles, 11 Top 10's, and 12 straight RIAA Certified Gold LPs. 

Copper Mountain Band is a high-energy, mainstream, country music group with family roots that lie deep in the history of Montana. Copper Mountain Band appeals to all audiences as they incorporate music from many genres and styles into their performances. They have found a way to give cover tunes a whole new dimension and they have outstanding original material as well. They have also received praise for their rendition of Cher’s "Just Like Jesse James". They are a one-of-a-kind group with a fiery passion for their craft.

The concert was bring your own seating, else sit on the grass.  We brought folding chairs to sit on.

Three Dog Night has more hits than I remembered.  Surprisingly, while I like their music, I never owned any of their albums.

The band played most, but not all of their hits.  Not played was Pieces of April.  The original members - who must be in their mid to late sixties, were good though age appears to have limited their vocal range.  Their playing was excellent.  They played two recent (2009) songs and both very very good.

They were also excellent on "Mama Told Me Not To Come".  They had fun with the song with a funny interlude where they updated the song to be current, or a rap song, complete with the singer looking like a rapper.   Here is how they performed the song back in 1970 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaQzQAlNn4


Three Dog Night.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Dog_Night

Official photo (the person on the right side died of cancer this past May)

Here is the view from the stage.  I'm in the crowd on the left side.

Three Dog Night performing

Sitting in front of us and to our side were a half dozen women (grandmas).  I wouldn't be surprised if they had attended Three Dog Night's concerts back in the 1970s.   A ladies night out with only one husband along.  And they were drinking.  And drinking.  And they were dancing.  Fortunately they only danced nearby for a short time.  For most of the concert they danced in front of the stage.

When they came back after Three Dog Night finished (although two of them met the band backstage and got their autographs on several of the band's original album covers), they were all lit up.  When the woman next to me sat down she fell over in her chair and landed against and on me.  She was embarrassed and very drunk.  We then had an amusing conversation.   The women left before the next band came on stage.  Fortunately the woman who fell on me said she would not drive and was calling her husband to come get her.  I wonder how much of the concert she remembered the next day.  And many of these women looked to be in their sixties while acting like teenagers.  Wow.

Sunset between musical acts

After Three Dog Night left the stage after almost an hour and a half performance, the Copper Mountain Band (http://www.coppermountainband.com/) performed.  Or part of the band.  One member was in the local crowbar hotel (jail); one member was missing, and the remaining three members played the concert.  Near the end of the concert the female lead singer said this would be their last performance and that the band is going "on hiatus". It sure sounded like the band was breaking up.  Before she left, the drunk woman who fell on me had told me her friend told her that the band wasn't going to play tonight as they broke up because "they had issues".

At any rate the three remaining band members still put on an excellent high energy show that lasted till midnight.  I don't remember the title of the last song they played, but is was really appropriate lyrics as it was a sad "it's over breakup song".  The female lead singer invited a half dozen women up on stage to dance to the last song of the night.

Copper Mountain Band   (Three members with one member's aunt sitting in on keyboards for the 'Knocking on Heavens Door' song)

Here is one of the Copper Mountain's original songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4rVcs7fkao


A lot the the audience had dwindled away by concert's end.   Walking in front of us - until we could pass them - were a group of drunk middle aged women.  When walking on the pavement from the grass one complained her feet were now hurting.  She was too drunk to realize she wasn't wearing shoes.  These were grown middle aged women - not kids.

Then we had an almost two hour drive back to Kalispell getting back at 2 am.  We only saw one deer on the side of the road and it was still as a statue, fortunately.

Into the hayfield

With this hot and dry weather things are accelerated.  Last year the cattle didn't go into the neighbor's field until the middle of July.  Then the first week of August the cattle went into the hayfield.  This year...  Friday night, July 10, after finishing another fence rebuild along the west hayfield fence, I moved the cattle from the neighbor's field to my hayfield, just short of a month earlier than last year.  The neighbor's field was already partially eaten down and partially dried up.

The cattle were happy to get into the hayfield.  They got right down to munching on the grass and alfalfa.  As I walked back to the house I occasionally stopped and gathered some of the goatsbeard seed balls.  While the cattle ate they also made their way back to the house/barn end of the hayfield and reached it before I did.  Pretty much the rest of the evening they hung around this end of the hayfield and didn't do their usual walk the boundaries of a new field.  Right now they are resting on the other side of the fence from the house and occasionally I hear them sigh or belch.

Initially Buddy the bull was so happy to eat the hayfield grass he wasn't hanging around any cows.  The three heifers across the fence in the north pasture made a ruckus (mainly Rose did).  Buddy walked over to chat with and sniff them.  Later I saw Buddy and Dan's one horned cow 'bother' my cow #60.  My cow looks to be in standing heat.  Dan's cow is in pre-heat.  I believe my cow will be bred tonight or tomorrow.  That will make an April 18 or 19 calf birth.  Buddy tolerates the one horned cow sniffing and trying to mount cow 60, but not the cow's calf getting too close.


From the neighbor's field I brought back my bloat blocks and water trough.  Daisy was happy to see the water trough back as she prefers to drink from it than her water dish.   She didn't even wait until it was completely filled.

The calves are fascinated by Daisy.

After the water trough was filled I put the hose under my walnut tree.  Daisy can put two and two together and realizes there will be water there.  She was drinking from the tires until I came with the camera.

Bonus photos.... the neighbor got a couple goats Friday afternoon to eat his backyard down, and later the leafy splurge weeds in his pasture.   That explains why the cattle were hanging around the neighbor's backyard fence earlier Friday.

Tires and hats

My rear bicycle tire blew out this afternoon less than a mile from home. Bang!  I discovered the tire had a bad cut.  The inner tube must have squeezed out of the tire until it was pinched or encountered a sharp rock.

The tire still has some miles left on it so I placed a small piece of another old tire inside this tire at the cut.  This prevents the new inner tube from squeezing out of the cut.

I then checked my front tire which was in very bad shape.  It had a hole in it.  The inner tube in this tire is thicker and had not popped.  Earlier in the week Walmart finally had gotten the 27 inch tires my bicycle needs.  I replaced the front tire.

Below is my new hat and old hat.  I have had this Ohio State hat since the late 1990s when I found it alongside a road in Minnesota when bicycling. I have no connection to Ohio State.  After 16 or so years the hat is pretty worn out and I have been working on transitioning to a new hat by occasionally wearing other hats.  People who know me know I have a hard time giving up clothing I like.

Thursday Donna presented me with the new Ohio State hat, which is pretty much identical to the old one.  I guess she thought that was the only way I'll give up my old hat.  I'll have to start transitioning to using the new hat.

June's south pasture fence section rebuild

Over two days back in mid June I rebuilt a section of the south pasture fence boarding the neighbor's property.  I only could do it when the cattle were rotated into the middle pasture.  Other stuff had to be done so I only had two days to work on the fence before the cattle were coming back into this pasture.  This was the fence I was working on and had to finish when my water well pump pipe rusted through and I had to fix the well.

I haven't had any jailbreaks through this fence, but with only four strands of old barb wire on five foot six inch t-posts (before they are pounded into the ground), and other odds items as posts, I wanted to rebuild this fence sooner than later.

I replaced the old posts with fifteen posts.  The t-posts were six foot tall (before being pounded into the ground). I added strands of wire to have seven strands total.  120 feet of fence was rebuilt.

Right after I finished I let the cattle back into the south pasture.


Last year I put a gate in the corner and rebuilt 102 feet of the fence, that is why there is 6 strands of wire going to four strands in the photo below.

One of the fence "posts".  An old railroad rail.

I had to dig the rails out of the ground as they were crooked.  The rails were about 6 and 1/2 feet long.

Before the rebuild...

Yes, this pipe was a fence post.  The differing gaps is because the cattle put their heads through the fence and move the wire.  These 'posts' had no way to fix the wire in place. At least the rails usually had 'notches' cut in them to try to keep the wires in place (with varying degrees of success).

The leaning wood post was one of the few posts I kept, even if it was not on an eight foot post span.  The 'post' was more of a tree trunk and was still solid.

The end of the newest rebuild and the start of the old un-rebuilt fence.

Packing up to go home now that the rebuild was done.  Four of the five rails I dug out of the ground.