Longest day irritations

Happy Summer Solstice!

I am waiting for a four day stretch of dry weather before cutting the grass for hay.  So far three days is the longest between rain.  Lots of people this year have gotten caught with their hay lying in the field when it rained.  Maybe this weekend may be the start of a four day dry period.  I'll see...   The weather forecast lately seems to change once we get closer to those days.  Otherwise this is frustrating as I am ready to go for cutting the grass and am holding off on larger projects until the hay is done.

I also want to redo the steel mainline irrigation pipe across the pasture so I am ready to irrigate once I cut and bale the hay.   But this is a hassle as the long ago owners cut one section of steel pipe to be shorter and added a sleeve to join and work with a 90 degree elbow.  Replacing the sleeve and elbow is proving to be tricky.  I see tomorrow if my irrigation guy has - or can make - the parts I need.

In the meantime I mowed the yard.  I got the yard mowed but not the extra areas as the lawnmower - which was acting odd - quit.  Acting odd in that I had to leave the choke on to run the lawnmower. Eventually that work around failed.  I replaced the spark plug and that didn't solve the problem.  Donna had a similar problem.  She said the ethonol in the gas ruined her lawnmower's carburetor.  And the same thing happened to her son-in-law and daughter's lawnmower.  Curtis has also heard of this happening.  Guess I'll have to take my lawnmower in to the shop tomorrow.

While dealing with the lawnmower the cattle started to make a loud ruckus out in the middle pasture.  So much racket I had to walk out there.  I found Beulah and Cow #60 in the south pasture with around eight calves.  The rest of the cows were in the middle pasture along the fence and loudly mooing up a storm.

I went to the gate and the cattle in each pasture did also.  But the cattle in the middle pasture wanted to go into the south pasture much more than the south pasture cattle wanted to go back into the middle pasture.  The middle pasture is full of tall grass.  But you know cattle...

Once Buddy came to, and stood by, the gate I gave up.  It is two days earlier than I had planned to move the cattle into the south pasture but I went ahead and opened the gate and let everyone into the south pasture.  The cattle went crazy with excitement and ran around and around before settling down to eat.

I walked the fence all the way to the river to find where the cattle crossed the fence.  I didn't find any sign of a broken fence.  The river is still high enough that the gravel bars the cattle used in the past to move between pastures are still underwater.  The cattle weren't wet; and even the big cows made it across, I serious doubt the calves could have crossed the water.

So how did the cows and calves get from one pasture to another?  Other than the broken lawnmower this is the most annoying part of all this.