Car, north pasture and fence

Daisy and I were woken up at 8:30 am from a sound sleep when Donna called.  Her car had broken down and she needed it towed home.

After I towed Donna's car home I finished moving irrigation pipes.  I had gone on an all day hike on Saturday and the irrigation pump was shut off once 24 hours of irrigating was done.  Once I had all the pipes moved Donna and I restarted the irrigation pump.  It took a half dozen tries before the pump started to pump water.

Then I noticed cow #7 stretching though the middle fence to get to alfalfa in the hay field.  One wooden post had broken, and since the ground was soft from my earlier irrigation, several nearby metal t-posts had a lean to them.  Of course is cow #7 as she loves to reach through the fences to eat.  She was really stretching against the barb wires but thankfully they held.  I chased her away from the fence even though that hurt her feelings.  I put in a metal t-post to replace the broken wooden post.  I straightened the leaning t-posts.

After making and eating breakfast I fell asleep for several hours.

After 4 pm I heard the cattle making a minor ruckus in the NE part of the middle pasture.  They were looking into the north pasture.  I went and found Buddy entering the corral.  He has broken the top wire of the three strand middle/north pasture fence and then hopped over the fence.  After putting the small hay bales in the barn a few days ago I had left the barn door open to give them air in case they weren't completely dry.  I quickly went out and shut the barn door.  I had a little trouble as one of the door's rollers had earlier come off the track when Wyatt unloaded the bales against the barn and barn door.  Buddy was relaxed as he walked about the corral checking things out.  I was able to get the wheel back on track and the door closed before he wandered over to see what I was doing.

I was thinking about letting the cattle into the north pasture in a couple days but I guess now is as good of a time as any.  I let the rest of the cattle into the north pasture.  Certainly easier than getting Buddy out of the north pasture.

I then went and fixed the fence where Buddy had broken the wire.

What do you mean I'm not suppose to be in the corral?

The herd in the north pasture

Looking at Daisy

Even with all the tender green grass the calves were fascinated by my walnut tree.   Notice how I have wire on the fence to protect the tree leaves.  Even so the leaves that grow through the wire get eaten.  The cattle love this tree's leaves.

Beulah's calf

Clyde (red calf) and the other calves.

Here is a 29 second video of the cattle in the north pasture:  https://youtu.be/ry-Alzi5g7A


While I had planned on starting to spray weeds today, with the cattle in the north pasture, now was a good time to re-do more of the south pasture fence.  While the cattle never have gotten through this four strand fence, it still makes me nervous; especially as Wyatt's field is not fenced and is mostly alfalfa.

I spent the rest of the day working on the fence.  I am pretty sure the cattle will stay n the north pasture for the time being as that pasture has fresh tender grass.  Still... I don't trust the cattle.   So I am simultaneously taking the old fence posts out and putting new fence posts in.  Most of the old wood posts are rotted and useless.  I am also going with a pattern of one wood post, then three metal t-posts.  Of course 99% of the new posts (on an eight feet spacing) do not match the old posts' location.

Old fence.  Notice how the cattle had stretched the fence wires in order to reach through the fence.

Old fence with one last railroad rail as a post.

Railroad rail removed, along with rotted and bad wooden posts.

Notice how much of the railroad rail was in the ground.  Considering this is July - when the ground gets hard - I was surprised I was able to pull the rail out of the ground by hand and did not have to use a shovel to dig it out.  Last year when it was dry I had to use a shovel to get the rails out of the ground.