Willow stump removal

A few years ago the willow tree blew over onto the garage.  All that remained since then was a stump about four inches tall. I waited and a new tree never re-grew from the roots.  The stump was annoying to mow around and to shovel snow around.  And I had to be careful when moving snow with my tractor to not hit the stump.  I had planned to have a bonfire this year and burn it.  But the dry year and fire restrictions quashed that.

While I still have lots to do to clear out the hayshed, three days ago I had a few spare minutes and I started to dig around the stump.  Each day over the past three days I removed a wheelbarrow load of the stump that I broke off by hand.

Today I was left with this, the most solid part of the stump.

I decided to use my tractor to finish the stump off.  After knocking the stump into the hole I still had to pull it out with a chain as one root was still flexible and did not break.

Sprained shoulder, broken leg

My bad year continues.   If you remember last week when I alluded to another major cattle crisis, this is it.

Last Thursday, the day after I hauled Buddy to the auction, cow #20 limped into the corral around noon.  A few weeks earlier she developed a slight limp in her left front leg.  She wasn't in pain but had some limited movement as she walked. 

On Thursday she was hopping as now her right front leg was also injured.  I put her in the north corral so she didn't have to walk far to eat or drink.  Her calf didn't want to join her mother in the corral.  The calf wanted to stay with her friends and the herd.  So I gave up trying to herd her into the corral to join her mother.  After dark the mother started bellowing for her calf to come join her and drink her milk.  The calf was with the herd in middle of the hayfield and she was crying back to her mother to come to her.  They quit after 1 am.  With the first jet takeoff at 6 am they started back up.  The calf didn't come to the corral until 7:45 am.  I was able to get the calf back with her mother.  An hour later the calf was running along the corral fence and crying because she wanted to go back to her friends and the cattle herd.  What a spoiled brat.  I kept her with her mother.

The mother was the same on Friday.  She was worse on Saturday.  She was better on Sunday.  It appeared Sunday night her left front leg was fine.  Only her right front leg was bad.  When not eating or drinking or feeding her calf the cow laid down near the feeder, water trough, or the barn.  She didn't walk unless she had to.  When laying the cow didn't appear to be in pain.

Sunday evening as the cow stood to eat hay from the barn feeder I was able to get close and look at her foot.  I was studying and focused on the cow's foot and hoof when Donna came by.  Donna asked, "What's Medora?"  Apparently she thought I answered in a crabby manner when I replied, "What do you mean... what's Medora?"  I thought she already knew Medora was a touristy town in North Dakota.  Doesn't everyone?   Hmmmm... Apparently not.  I was more interested at that time with my cow and not in talking about Medora.  So maybe I was crabby.

Donna thought the cow's foot was swollen at the hoof, and after looking on the internet thought it may be foot rot, which can be treated.  This morning I called the cattle vet and he and an assistant came over at 2 pm as the cow was too lame to load in my stock trailer and haul over to the vet's office.

We got my cow into my head gate so we could then tie a rope around her lower leg and lift it and hold it so the vet could look at and test the hoof.   The cow does not have foot rot.  She appears to have sprained her shoulder or upper leg.   We released the cow so the vet could observe it walk around the corral.  Then the vet noticed the cow's left back leg had a problem.  The lower leg had a slight swing to it as the cow walked.  As we herded the cow back into the loading corral so the vet could check the leg the vet could hear a slight popping sound as the leg moved.

Once the cow was back in the loading corral the vet checked and found the leg was broken.

Yup. Broken.

Nothing we could do.   The vet said he has seen some cows heal a broken leg if kept in an area where they didn't have to walk much and were allowed to mainly eat and rest.  That's all I can do for now. The cow was over us poking and prodding it and before all the boards were taken down to release her from the loading corral she jumped over the bottom two boards, broken leg and all.  Naturally all this activity - more walking than what she had done in days - wore her out.

If the bone heals, it will take six to eight weeks of rest.  To reduce stress on the cow I am weaning her calf from her starting now.  Short term - for a few days - the stress will be higher until she stops producing milk and her udder shrinks and she stops calling for her calf.  Initially when I opened the gate to the calf to let her out of the corral, the calf was suspicious as she thought I was tricking her.  Eventually she walked out and rejoined her friends and the herd.  She was happy until later in the day when she again wanted her mother's milk.

I don't know how the cow broke her leg. My hayfield has no rocks or obstacles where she could break her leg.  I suspect the leg break was during the jailbreak last Saturday evening when I was at the rodeo.   I talked with the neighbors who kept the cattle in their back yard until I returned home.  They said getting the cattle into their yard was orderly.  Nothing in their yard looks like it would break a leg.  I did learn the cattle had visited another neighbor over one more house and their apple tree.  Who knows where all the cattle went and what they were up to after they left my yard, or how the people herded the cattle off the road and into the neighbor's yard.  But that jailbreak resulted in:

1. a calf with an apple stuck in his throat,
2. a calf with a weeping eye from probably getting poked in its eye,
3. a calf with a sprained leg, and
4. now a cow with a broken leg.

Now if the leg doesn't heal, what happens?  More problems.

The livestock auction won't take cattle if they can't walk.  A slaughterhouse won't take them either.  Ever since Mad Cow disease where one symptom is when cattle can't stand or walk, and undercover videos by animal rights activists showing cattle going to laughter who can't walk, the federal government banned the slaughter of cattle who cannot stand and walk, even if the cause is a broken leg.

 
While my cow can currently stand and barely walk, the stress of loading her and unloading her in my stock trailer would probably end her ability to walk.  Apparently there are no more mobile butchers in the Valley.  And if I did find a mobile butcher, the two meat processing facilities are booked.  One is not taking any new cattle until February.  The other a little sooner but many weeks out.  They are processing the 4-H auctioned animals from the local fairs the past few weeks.  And the animals already scheduled for butchering.  Then it is hunting season.  They don't mix processing of wild game and domestic animals.  So getting someone to cut and wrap the meat right now is nigh near impossible.

And if I did find someone to cut and wrap the meat, a 7 year cow is only good for hamburger.  The rough guess is the cow would produce 300 to 360 pounds of hamburger.  I certainly do not have freezer space for that much meat.  And while people would buy a half or quarter when the meat was steaks, roasts, jerky, hamburger and all types of meat, most people don't really want more than ten pounds of hamburger.  I really don't have time to find and coordinate the sale to 30 plus people.

So, the best, and almost only, option is to wait and hope the leg heals.  Otherwise I lost another cow this year.

What a terrible year this has been.


When the calf looks off in the distance is because she is watching the herd in the hayfield.

Flies are bad this year.

Calling for her friends to come rescue her.

A 24 second video of the calf calling for her friends to come to her: https://youtu.be/Gvydg34_M6M

New bicycle cat

Donna got me a new bicycle cat wind spinner to replace the one the cattle destroyed a week ago Saturday.  I put it together the other day and set it out.

Here is a 30 second video of the bicycle cat riding the wind: https://youtu.be/0SWX0M1uQOE

Buddy's finale

Today I got a check from the livestock auction for Buddy.  I'm disappointed.

To me Buddy was great.  To the auction Buddy was fat.  His auction description was: Black White Faced Bull - Fat.    Therefore the buyers bid less.  I got the lowest price for a bull at the auction.  Since he was a white faced bull I knew I wouldn't get the top price, but I expected to be high up on the list of bulls sold.  I didn't even make the list.

Also annoying was that the cattle prices dropped since the last auction.  Several years ago a big drop in cattle prices occurred later in September.  Last year the drop was the first week of September.  This year the drop seems to have started mid-August. Several weeks ago the top price paid for a bull was $1.03 a pound with many sold in the ninety cent range.  This week the top price was 92 cents a pound with most sold in the eighty cent range.  A eleven cent drop since the last auction.

Buddy sold for 72 cents a pound, twenty cents off the top price.  I still got a good amount for Buddy but it is stings that he wasn't considered to be among the best.  I got a good deal when I bought Buddy so I actually made a few dollars when I sold him three years later, even after the auction's commission and other expenses from selling Buddy.

Buddy's weight?  Several guesses were 2300-something pounds.  My guess was 2420 pounds.   Buddy weighed 2560 pounds.  So maybe he was a little fat.

Along with cow #20's severe limp that started the day after I took Buddy to the auction, it is a discouraging time to me to have cattle.


I fixed the stock trailer's floor and replaced the board that cracked when Buddy stood on it.

Because I am cleaning out the hayshed and plan to store hay in there this Winter, I parked the trailer outside here where I gets some shade during part of the day.

Another major cattle jailbreak

Wait a minute.  Relax.   This time they weren't my cattle.

After the bull was added almost two weeks ago the neighbor across the road had moved those cattle to the east side of his property beyond some trees and over the creek.  This afternoon as I rode my bicycle on an errand I saw the cattle walking down his driveway.  His business is nearby and I rode over to tell him.  I found the business's gate closed and locked.  I called his phone number and got an answering machine.  I called the sheriff's department as the brand inspector's phone number no longer is in service, and the brand inspector knew who actually owned the cattle.

As I finished the calls a woman stopped by as she thought they were my cattle. She said the cattle were heading south along the road.  Then I rode back.  One cow remained in the driveway.  As I worked to get the cow into a fenced pasture another guy drove up.  The herd came partially back and were in a neighbor's front yard.

We worked to get the cow into the fenced pasture but it headed back through the trees and over the creek to apparently where the cattle had been.  A gate for the land bridge over the creek was open.  I closed it.  The creek isn't that deep but apparently they used it as a barrier as there were no real fences around.

Back at the herd, a couple other guys were there, several on ATVs.  I and a couple guys herded the cattle while a couple guys were at turning pints on the road to direct the cattle in the direction of their pasture.

The cattle are either Corriente or longhorn cattle.  All had horns.  The bull was with them.  The herd was a little over a dozen cattle.  The bull was in an ornery mood and would push aside other smaller cattle near him.  So we kept our distance as we herded them.

We went around the yard a few times before some cows went back to the road and past the fence.  They turned north on the road to go back to their pasture.   The bull, two cows and two calves were still in the yard as some as the cows on the road turned to go back to their pasture.  The bull, cows and calves turned back along the fence without going around the fence.

The guys on the road herded the cows back into their pasture.  The bull, cows and calves followed until the yard's corner fence.  Another guy and I tried to get the bull, cows and calves back along the fence to get around the fence but they kept turning back short of the fence end.

Finally the bull had enough.  As the cows on the road disappeared down the road the bull put his head down and with his horns ripped though the white vinyl fence.  He, a cow and a calf went through the fence and down the road after the herd.  The remaining cow and calf didn't want to go through the fence but, since the bull was no longer part of the group, the other guy and I were able to get closer to them and herd them past the end of the fence.

We left the cattle back in the neighbor's fenced pasture along the road.  I checked all the gates were closed.  As I spoke with the main guy who helped me I learned he also was involved in herding my cattle Saturday into my neighbor's yard.

A short time later one of the cattle owners drove up.  The landowner got my message and called him.  The landowner is down in Missoula fighting a forest fire.  Now I have the cattle owners' names and numbers so I can call them directly if the cattle get out again.  I also told the cattle owner about the broken fence.

At least they weren't my cattle this time.  I have a new major cattle problem today which I'll write about tomorrow as I should have a plan in place by then to solve the problem (if I can get time away from all these crises).

Buddy has left the ranch

Today I hauled Buddy to the livestock auction for their sale tomorrow.

Since Buddy's last fence break on Monday I have kept him in the corral.  This morning I, with Donna and Paul's help, loaded Buddy into my stock trailer. 

Buddy is too large to fit through my normal method of loading, that is, through the loading ramp and had gate.  So I used one of the gates between the north and south parts of the corral.   First I put up two temporary corral panels in the south corral to make that area much smaller.  I put a few apples in there and Buddy walked in. 

Then I backed the stock trailer up to the gate.  I used the stock trailer door as a block on the right side.  I used another corral panel as block on the left side.

I placed apples throughout the trailer's floor.  Buddy walked up to the trailer and ate the apples he could reach without stepping up to inside the trailer.  Before Buddy could take time to decide to step up, Paul shouted encouragement for Buddy to get in the trailer and waved his switch.  Buddy then turned around and walked away from the trailer.

The same thing happened a couple more times before I swung the corral gate and held it behind Buddy to block his backing up.  Buddy then put his head on the left side of the trailer against the corral panel.  One side of the panel was not secure and Buddy easily pushed the panel out and walked back into the north pasture.  The corral gate to the yard was not closed after I drove the stock trailer into the corral and I yelled for Donna to run over and close it quickly before Buddy would see the gate was open.

So we started over.

This time I swung the north/side corral gate this way and used it to block the left side, along with the corral panel wedged against the barn for extra support.

Again we went in 'circles'.  I even added a little hay to the apples in the front of the trailer. So I got more corral panels.  Eventually we blocked Buddy in where he could only stand just outside the trailer, or step inside.

He stood there.

Rather than waiting longer Donna asked me to go get my cattle prod.  By the time I returned after a few minutes Buddy was inside the trailer and the door was closed.  While I was gone Buddy decided to step inside.

It would be nice, but not essential, for Buddy to stand in the front half of the trailer with the trailer's divider closed to keep him there.  Less movement by Buddy would make for a more stable ride.  But he was so big and long I was doubtful I could close the divider.  Paul made it his mission to get Buddy in the front part.

I was working on adding a strap against the back of the trailer to better secure the sliding door when Paul thought Buddy was up far enough.  I swung the divider closed.  The bottom of the divider latched but the top part - which latches a little over halfway up the trailer - did not catch as Buddy's weight and pressure caused the trailer's side to bow out slightly.  The latch no longer reached the catch.

I gave up on getting Buddy to the front and went back to the strap.  Paul still thought there was a way to get Buddy up front and he wouldn't give up.  The next I knew Buddy was trying to turn around inside the trailer.

He got stuck.  Fast.  Hard.   His rear end was wedged against the end of the divider and his head and neck was facing back on the other side of the trailer.

This was bad.   Very bad.  The trailer was bowed out.  Either the trailer would break or, more likely, I was afraid Buddy would either break his neck or something else.  Or asphyxiate.

From outside the trailer Paul and I tried to push and help Buddy turn around but we could do nothing.  Paul wanted to keep Buddy's head up.  As I ran to get something to help us do that Buddy collapsed.  He had gotten so tired from trying to turn around he ran out of energy.  When he collapsed Buddy relaxed.  In relaxing he became un-wedged.  Buddy fell to where his body was facing forward again.

He laid there for quite a while. 

But by the time Donna and I left for Missoula and the auction Buddy was once again standing.  He stood for the entire trip.  For the most part he stood still in the front middle of the trailer and looked out either side of the trailer.  A few times he moved around.  Once he stood against one side of the trailer and looked out the other side.  This unbalanced the trailer slightly as I pulled it.  Later he backed up and stood at the back of the trailer which again changed the balance of the trailer with all the weight on back of the trailer pulling up on the hitch.  This movement was why I had wanted to hire Evan with his large trailer to haul Buddy.

But, driving a little slower than usual, I made it to the auction.

Once I opened the trailer door immediately Buddy slowly backed out of the trailer and carefully stepped down to the ground.  He had learned that turning around in the trailer was a bad idea.

There were some other cattle and bulls in the auction's holding pens and this had Buddy's attention and he quickly forgot about me.

The air today was smokier than usual.  And as I drove closer to Missoula the air got much more smoky as they had more fires.  I couldn't even see the Mission Mountains.

The normal view from June 21 when I hauled Dan's cattle to the livestock auction.

On the left edge of the following photo, above the power lines, you can make out in the smoke a helicopter with a water bucket trailing below.  The bucket is the 'dot' just above the top power line.

I started to load Buddy at 8 am.  I started my drive to Missoula a little before 10 am.  I got to Missoula after 12:30 pm and left the auction by 1 pm.  A trip to the Fudrucker's restaurant for a large burger and fries.  I was home after 4 pm.  I put away the corral panels away and 'cleaned up' the morning work mess.  From about 5 pm to 7:30 pm I washed out the trailer and floor mats and washed the pickup.  By 8 pm I fell asleep and slept hard till 11 pm when I struggled to wake up.  I don't know if it was the heat - near 90 degrees, the smoke from the fires, getting up early, or my blood pressure medicine but I slept much more than expected.  I'm wide awake now in the middle of the night.

It appears one of the trailer floor's 2" by 6" boards cracked under Buddy's weight.  I'll have to see about replacing it tomorrow once the trailer is dry.

What a day.

Two Buddy Breakouts in one day

Another day of breakouts.  I woke up at 7 am.  I checked outside and found Buddy standing by the patio.  He was looking for the apples.  Yesterday I had moved the apples to inside the garage.

Buddy had popped off a fence board and came into the yard.  The rest of the cattle were still in the hayfield.  Buddy didn't break through where he broke through on Saturday; he broke through the fence where he learned last year he could push and get through the fence.

Buddy knocked only the top board off.  As big as he is it is surprising he could jump over the other boards.

I nailed the board back on the fence.  I added for now another thicker board on the other side of the fence posts to stop Buddy from pushing through here again.

Beulah was still in the corral nursing her calf who had recovered from having something stuck in his throat.

Here is a 38 second video of the calf drinking: https://youtu.be/EAf0O35SNdI

Once the calf finally finished drinking, since the calf has fully recovered, I let the two out of the corral to rejoin the herd in the hayfield.


Now to encourage Buddy to go into the corral.

Where are the apples?

Buddy ignored me and wouldn't move.  He wanted to stand here.  The way my luck has been lately I wasn't going to push him.

I waited a little bit and Buddy came to the corral. He ate some grass near the corral well, then walked over to my English Walnut (I believe) tree.  He started to rub against the tree.  That I didn't like.  I have spent a lot of time protecting that tree from the cattle and getting it to grow.

I grabbed a corral panel and used it to encourage/push Buddy into the corral.  With the panel at least I had something between us in case Buddy decided to resist or charge me.   He moved into the corral.

Then a hot air balloon floated towards us.  The last thing I wanted right now was for the balloon to land in my pasture.

The balloon turned south.

Is it going to land in my south pasture or my neighbor's field?

But then the pilot turned up the gas and the balloon rose and continued south.  I don't know where it landed.  At least it was out of my hair.

By now it was after 8 am.  Even though I had gone to bed earlier than normal last night I was still tired and went back to bed.   I slept until 11 am.  I almost missed the eclipse.  I got up.  A few minutes later as the eclipse began I noticed the temperature dropped a little bit.  It never got dark.  The light just seemed strange or odd while the eclipse was happening.  In the end it was no big deal.


I had 20 sprinkler pipes to drag from the west side of the ranch to the east side.  I planned on dragging half the pipes, then go do a favor for my neighbor Jan.  Since Buddy's Saturday breakout I had left the driveway's gates closed.  Earlier today I had gotten fallen apples from several neighbors.  Since the cattle were taking their afternoon siesta in the shade of the trees at the far corner of the hayfield I opened the driveway gates and left them open.

As I dragged the pipes across the hayfield the cattle started grazing again.  I kept an eye on them.  Buddy went into the south corral to drink from the water trough.  Earlier I had spread a bag of apples along the corral fence for the cattle to find.  Some did.

The cattle drifted over to check out what I was doing with the pipes.  Eventually Buddy came over.  Buddy was with the group and no signs he would go to the fence.  I got two more pipes.  As I drug the pipes Buddy walked over to the fence where he broke through in the morning.  The new board should dissuade him.  He studied the board.  He pushed against it.

Ummm....

The board held.  Then Buddy put his head up higher and pushed against it with his neck and chest.  Then harder.  If the board didn't break Buddy may push the fence over.  I dropped the pipes and walked towards Buddy and yelled for him to stop.

Buddy broke the board.  He had trouble getting through the fence so he put his head down and pushed against the lower boards.  Then he walked through the fence.  By now I was doing the 100 yard dash to the fence.  Buddy was almost through the fence when I jumped the fence and got into the yard by the house.  Other cattle saw what was happening and the two closest cows started to run towards the broken fence.

By the time I reached the front yard Buddy and one cow were through the fence.  I ran to the open driveway gates and unhooked them to close them.  As I moved to the gates Buddy turned and began walking towards the opening.  I swung both gates and after one miss was able to grab both gates.  Then I realized the chain to 'lock' the gates was still on the fence.  I ran to grab the chain and then had to grab both gates again.  I got the chain around the gates just as Buddy reached the gates.

With the gates closed Buddy turned and began to eat grass.

*Whew!!!*

Then I looked over to the broken fence to see that half the herd now had poured through the gates with the remaining cattle standing in the hayfield outside the opening bellowing for the other cattle to move so they could also get through the opening.  I tried to position the broken and fallen boards to somewhat block the opening.  It worked for a few minutes until the cattle pushed the boards aside.  By then I had gone and got a corral panel.  Mama had just come through the opening.  Using the corral panel I pushed Mama back into the hayfield and then put the corral panel outside the opening.  This stopped the rest of the cattle from coming through the opening.

I opened the corral gate and then started to herd the cows and calves in that direction.   I didn't include Buddy.  Usually he will follow the cows.  Lots of yelling and waving my sorting stick and I got everyone but Buddy back into the corral.  Then I got the cattle moved from the north side to the south side and the dividing gate shut.

Now to get Buddy inside the corral.

By now Donna arrived.   She says I am too easy on Buddy.  Buddy was near the corral.  Donna grabbed a broom and waved it and shouted at Buddy and he ran into the corral.  That was quick.

As you can see, Buddy did more damage this afternoon.

(If you look in the background sky in the previous photo you can see yet another hot air balloon.)

I am in the process of cleaning out the hayshed.  I found a couple of boards where I could replace the two worst boards.  I still will leave the corral panel in place for a few days.

So.  I have a  problem.  Buddy will keep breaking the yard fence unless I spent quite a bit of time to reinforce it.  I may have enough temporary corral panels.

I could let the cattle into one of the pastures.  But they still have plenty to eat in the hayfield.  The barley and oats there will not last as long as grass because the barley and oats are going to seed and once they finish the nutrients will be in the seeds and not the plants.  The plants will become like straw. The grass will last past a hard freeze.  So I want the cattle to eat the hayfield down more and want to save the grass for later.  If the cattle eat the grass now I may not have enough grass left to last until snow.

Or Buddy can go to the livestock auction this week.

This week's auction was my earlier plan.   Due to Buddy's large size I had decided to hire Evan to haul Buddy for me.  It would save me time and potential trouble.   That was my plan until Evan told me he had no cattle this week to haul from up my way.  To come up and haul just Buddy down to the auction would not be cost effective for both Evan and I.  So I planned on waiting two more weeks to when Evan could haul Buddy.

My plans have changed.  I am not letting Buddy out of the corral and I am not waiting two more weeks.  I plan on hauling Buddy myself on Wednesday for the auction on Thursday.

So we'll see how this goes.  Wish me good luck.... for once.

I did have a bit of good news today.  I finally trapped the pocket gopher living near my rhubarb plants.  This has been one of the harder gophers to trap.  For weeks now the gopher has been filling the traps with dirt, burying the traps, and/or plugging the tunnels.  I ran out of tunnels just below the ground surface and had follow the second level tunnels a foot deep.  And still the gopher would plug the tunnels or bury the trap in dirt until I finally caught it in a trap tonight. Now to finish off the last few pocket gophers in the pastures.

(Btw - it was dark by the time I drug the last of the sprinkler pipes over to the east side of the ranch.)

Major cattle jailbreak

Saturday night Donna and I went to the rodeo at the NW Montana Fair.  I was gone from 6 pm till after 10 pm.  It was dark when I got home.  When I got home I noticed something was wrong.   My bicycle was leaning like a strong wind tipped it.  The broom was laying down.  I checked the patio.  The extra bags of apples were torn and strewn around with many missing.  It appeared as if one or more cattle had gotten out of the hayfield and into the yard.

The headlights from Donna's car showed where the cattle broke through the fence in the front yard.

Now, where are the cattle?!!

They were at my northern neighbor's house.  In their backyard.   Around 8:30 pm the cattle showed up south of their house at their apple tree.  They were eating many apples that had fallen on the ground and the lower apples still in the tree.  The neighbor's back yard is fenced with a chain-link fence so they can let their dogs run free.  The neighbors opened the gate and the cattle went inside, where they remained until I got home.

It was dark with no moon.  One option was to herd the cattle back out to the road then down to either my NE pasture gate or my driveway.  Not an appealing idea, especially in the dark.

I chose the other option.  I cut my fence just outside the neighbor's fence.  I used three temporary corral panels to create a route from the chain-link gate to my fence opening.

I closed all my gates except the one to the corral.   I had my pickup stationed outside the cut fence both for light and for herding.  The major problem with the cattle in the NE pasture is all my hay bales are there.

Buddy ambled out first checking the grass and gate opening.  He turned left and walked to the pickup into the blinding lights.  The other cattle followed.  Donna was driving and I was walking and using my sorting stick to try to get the cattle to turn right.  They walked south past the pickup and then I realized I forgot to close the gate to the fruit tree & garden area.  Keeping an eye on where Buddy was standing I ran over and closed the gate.

Between me and the pickup we turned the cattle towards the corral.  Then they saw the hay bales and ran over there.  We were on it honking and yelling and got the cattle to move on.  A few had 20 seconds to tear into a couple hay bales.

We got the cattle into the corral and I closed the gate.   The barn has a yard light which I had turned on.  Now walk among them to count and recount to make sure all were there.  They were.

The next problem was Beulah's calf.  He appeared to have something stuck in his throat.  He could breathe but was foaming at his mouth and was stretching his neck and trying to cough.  After some debate on what could be done I called the cattle vet.  It was now 11:45 pm.

He said to look for sign of bloating.  This would mean the calf could not belch out gas created by the digestive process.  If no bloating it was up to me whether I wanted to wait and see if the object would work its way down its throat.

Back out to look at the calf.  No signs of bloating.  I had put out some hay south of the barn for the cattle to eat but they decided to lay down and chew their cud.  Beulah's calf walked south of the barn and Beulah followed.  I closed the gate and they were the only cattle south of the barn.

The calf was uncomfortable but did not appear to be in immanent danger. I decided to wait till morning to see if how the calf was doing.  I checked at 6 am.  The calf was the same.  I waited.

At 9 am I fixed the fence.  I replaced the old thin short fence posts with a medium sized taller fence post and re-nailed the fence boards.  I added a temporary wire across the top of a half dozen fence posts.

I got two of my corral panels and blocked Beulah and her calf in the east side of the south corral.  The calf had put his mouth into the water trough but was unable to drink.  By now Beulah's udder was full and she bellowed and bellowed and wanted her calf to drink and drain it.

Then I moved the rest of the cattle from the north corral through the south corral and out to the hayfield.  In the meantime Donna noticed one calf had a very watery eye as if something had poked it.  I'll need to watch that the calf doesn't get an infection and pinkeye and go blind.  Mama's calf has a bad limp with her back right leg.  The hit's keep on coming.

A short time later I saw eight of the calves crowding around where I had fixed the fence.  They had remembered where they had gotten through.  They were checking out my work and the new fence post.

With the cattle out of the corral I moved Beulah and her calf to the loading corral.  I called the vet and made an appointment at the clinic at 11:30 am.

The vet checked out the calf.  He had a fever of 103.9 degrees.  High.  The vet put his arm down the calf's throat as far as he could reach.  Nothing blocking the airway.  He put a metal tube in the calf's throat and threaded a plastic hose. The vet believed the hose came up against a small object at the base of the throat and the entrance to the stomach.  He pushed it into the stomach.  I slowly pumped water down the calf's throat.  No water came back up as if an object were blocking passage.

A shot for pain and an antibiotic shot and we waited.  The calf perked up quickly and soon began to occasionally swallow.  No more foaming at the mouth.

I took the calf home and when he was reunited with his mother he immediately began to drink from her to the relief of everyone.  I am leaving Beulah and her calf in the corral for 24 hours to keep an eye on them.  Also, because a few days ago Beulah developed a limp with her left front leg.  One thing after another.  So far the calf seems to have recovered.   I noticed earlier in the afternoon he was head butting Beulah's udder to get her to lower milk into her udder.  But I think there was no milk at the time as the calf had drained her dry and she had not produced enough milk in the short time since what was drained.

What was blocking the calf's throat?  I am not positive but I am fairly sure it was an apple that was too large for the calf to eat.  This is my smallest calf.  I have a feeling that in the feeding frenzy the calf may have been bumped and was unable to spit the apple out before swallowing.  I had observed the calf a few days ago attempt to eat an apple too big for its mouth.  It spit the apple back out.  At that time only one other calf was next to him and he had time to find an apple the appropriate size for him.

The emergency vet visit cost me $186.


When the cattle were in the neighbor's backyard last night they bent out part of the east side of the fence to the concern of the neighbors.  Once the cattle were taken care of I worked on fixing the fence.  Daisy came and kept me company as I worked.  I was able to bend the fence and poles straight again to the satisfaction of the neighbors.

Then I fixed my cut fence.  With the wires cut I also took the opportunity to move the barb wires for a half dozen fence posts from the outside of the posts to the inside.  This is very old fence made back when the neighboring property was a field and not a house lot.  Having the wires inside will reduce the chance of the cattle pushing out the staples and breaking the wires and getting out of the pasture.

So.  I didn't get any of my planned tasks done today was all day was spent recovering from the cattle's jailbreak.

In the morning, with the light, I checked for the damage in the yard.  It could have been worse.  Other than the apples, bicycle and broom, most stuff was not touched.  My trees and shrubs still had leaves  An exception was my 'bicycle cat' that moves when the wind blows.  The cattle broke it.

It appears that after eating half my bagged apples the cattle had decided to go on a road trip and visit the neighbors even through there were plenty of young tender grass to eat in my lawn.   What a mess.

Cow magnet

If you remember back to last December when my cow, Rose, died, before she died the vet put a magnet down her throat in case the cause of her illness was a sharp piece of metal she may have swallowed.  Rose has decomposed and went back into the ground.  I checked her remains and found the magnet.  No metal was attached to it.  That's not to say metal was not in her as I didn't sift through all of her remains due to the smell.  The magnet may not have had a chance to get close to any metal before Rose died.

Here is what a cow magnet looks like after having gone into a cow.  It is heavy for its size.

Baled the hay

Last Sunday I had cut the neighbor's lower field.  Tuesday there was a 20% chance of rain.  Of course, since I had hay down, it rained.   Fortunately not much.   Wednesday I baled the hay.  It took a little less than two and a half hours.  It went smooth.  The only 'problem' was when I cut the twine, the end of the twine would shrink back into the tube and I would have to use a wire to push it back out.  I was using twine from a new roll and sometimes it acts like this until more twine is used.  Otherwise, no belts twisted, the bales were uniform and the twine wrapped snug around the bales.  The way things should work.

I got eight full bales of grass hay.  With these eight bales I have a bale or two more than what I used last Winter to feed the cattle.  So I should be good for this Winter.   And I am done making hay for the year!

Apples and pocket gopher

It is that time of year for apples.  For the past week I have been gathering fallen apples from several neighbors' trees.  The grass around my trees was tallish and until I looked closer, I didn't realized how many apples had fallen from my trees.  I thought I would take a few minutes Friday afternoon to pick up the apples that had fallen.  It took much longer than that.  I filled 8 plastic grocery bags full with apples.  After I gathered the apples I decided to mow the grass so I could easily see and pick up apples in the future.  The grass was much taller under the trees than what now remains un-mowed.  I raked up the mowed grass and tossed it over the fence for the cattle to eat along with several bags of apples.

I am still trapping pocket gophers.  With all my attention to the hayfield and south pasture I only just noticed a pocket gopher came in the area near my rhubarb and strawberry plants.  So far this pocket gopher prefers to fill the trap with dirt to going into it.  I've had to clear dirt from the trap several times Friday.