Haybine, golf balls and lawn mower

Yesterday Wyatt fixed my haybine.  He did not have to weld the u-joint onto the haybine's PTO shaft.  The new knuckle on the u-joint was tight on the PTO shaft and all that was needed was some filing on the worn spines on the PTO shaft.

Here you can see the new knuckle against the collar holding the PTO shaft.

Still trapping pocket gophers.  Current area they are located is where I have the irrigation sprinklers now.  So I had to suspend trapping for a little bit.  There are pocket gophers in the south and one in the middle pastures but the curious cattle mess with the traps and the markers so it is hard to trap the gophers when the cattle can get to the traps.

Over the past few weeks I have found three golf balls in the south pasture and hayfield.  The last being found tonight.  A neighbor south of my south neighbor likes to hit golf balls.  Usually in Wyatt's field as Wyatt doesn't mind.  Over the years I would find one golf ball a year in my south pasture.  But I am concerned the cattle may try to eat a golf ball as these cattle try to eat everything.  I talked with the neighbor to my south and he has found quite a number of balls in his pasture and not pleased at this.  So I went and spoke with neighbors.  I spoke with the wife whose husband hits the golf balls and asked them not to hit the balls towards my pasture, or my southern neighbor's pasture.

A dry cold front passed through this evening with strong winds.  On my abbreviated bicycle ride I saw a guy out mowing the tall dry grass in his extended yard.  The grass was so high it killed his lawn mower engine.  Our fire restrictions forbid gas engines from operation in places like this between the hours of 1 pm to 1 am.   If he hit a rock and caused a spark and then a fire, with the strong winds he would not be able to stop it.  As the lawn mower engine was stopped as I rode by I commented that in this wind that if he hit something and caused a spark he wouldn't be able to stop a fire.  He answered back, "I know" as he tried to restart his lawn mower.  He wasn't all that far from Donna's place so a fire would have been at her place in a matter of minutes.

By noon today I finished mowing my yard.  I planned on raking the grass from the taller areas and giving it to the cattle, but by the time I rested the grass had already quickly dried quite a bit and I felt it then wasn't worth the effort to rake it up.  I don't have a bagger for my mower.