Head gate step

The past year or so I had a problem when loading cattle through the head gate into the stock trailer.  The dirt between the head gate and the trailer had eroded away - mostly with help from the cattle who walked and rubbed on the dirt.  This meant the cattle would step down after passing through the head gate before stepping up into the trailer.  If the cattle rushed or pushed one could potentially break its leg.

Initially I thought of making a concrete pad outside the head gate.  My neighbor, Curtis - who has a cement mixer I could use - suggested I use some of my railroad ties instead.  That was the plan until I cleaned out the hayshed.  I used some of the dense heavy wood I moved out of the hayshed.  While all the other wood that sat directly on the ground in the hayshed had rotted, the yellow pieces that sat on the ground did not rot.  They were merely discolored.  So I used this heavy yellow wood instead of railroad ties.

I figured it would take me several days to make this step.  That usually meant it would take twice as long.  For once a project went smoothly.  All but one board was the correct length, and that board only needed a minor trim.  I finished the project in only one day.

Before.

After.

After, with the head gate open.

While I only needed to have the step go just past the head gate doors, I went a little further to be on the safe side (and that way I didn't have to cut boards).  When I use my chainsaw later this Fall I will trim the last two boards to be the same length as the others.

To hold the boards in place I drilled through the boards and then pounded rebar through the boards down into the ground.  The boards are solidly in place.

I tested the new step with the stock trailer.  The step just fits under the trailer nicely.

Cow 20 walking and apples

Cow 20 is getting better.  This is the cow that sprained her left front leg/shoulder and broke her back right leg.

Here is a 16 second video of her walking today: https://youtu.be/STbTDcwvR3I


I am still giving the cattle apples.  Cow 20 gets more than the rest.

Here is a 28 second video of her eating a few apples: https://youtu.be/EB0a-1QRcf4

Bicycle pile

As part of cleaning my hayshed I also removed the ten bicycles I had stored in there.  These are bicycles I bought on the cheap at auctions when they didn't sell.  I bought the bicycles for parts.  Of course it is hard to use parts off them when the bicycles were buried in the hayshed.

Over the part half week, around the rains, I stripped the parts off the bicycles.  It is easier to find and use a part when looking for it in a box.  Today I finished stripping the bicycles.  I kept the one bicycle frame sitting by itself in the middle of the photo.

Shortly after I started working on the bicycles.

Done.

I kept 5 wheels.  These will be junked.

Mountain snow

Last week our high temperatures were near 90 degrees.  This week rain and cold and high temperatures near 50 degrees.  This afternoon the clouds lifted for a while and I can see snow on the mountains.  At least the heavy smoke is gone.

Hay tarp and more heavy lifting

Now that I have the hay bales inside the hayshed I have been working on cleanup.   I raked and hauled three pickup loads of flaked and loose hay into the barn.  Today I put a large tarp over the hay bales at the entrance to the hay shed.  Tonight a cold front is passing through and the winds are howling.  This will be a test as whether I (probably) need to fasten the tarp better.

I started to move stuff back alongside the hayshed.  The harrow sections, portable wooden fence sections, and concrete blocks.  I moved the sheets of MDF boards inside the garage to protect them from getting wet.  I still have more cleanup work to do before I can move on to my next project.

Tractor tire and hay

My tractor's tire was flat again this morning.  It was a mighty struggle to take off the wheel's lug nuts.  I don't think the lug nuts had ever been removed as the yellow paint was still on the threads.  Half of the nuts didn't unscrew - the whole bolt unscrewed out of the rim.

Les Schwab Tires fixed my flat tire for free.  Apparently their free flat repair extends from passenger vehicles to tractor tires too.  They found a small hole in the tire's tube.  No sign of what made the hole.  Their guess was a sharp rock.

The tire is fixed and back on the tractor.

How a front tire should look.

The flat tire

Here is how the hay looks now that it stored inside the hayshed.  As you can see the hay doesn't quite fit inside.

Now on the to-do list is raking and cleaning up the flaked off and loose hay left behind during the move.  Also I need to finish moving and stacking some of the stuff that will now be stored outside, and cleaning up the stuff I plan to get rid of.

Our weather pattern is predicted to finally change on Thursday so I got the hay inside just in time.

Cattle jailbreak and more challenges

My bad luck / terrible year continues.

Shortly before 9 am I heard the cattle mooing.  Mooing in a way that something was up.  I looked out and saw well over half the herd had broken through a fence and were now in the south pasture with the rest mooing and lining up to go through the fence.  Yes, the grass was greener on the other side of the fence.  I had been planning to let the cattle into the south pasture either this afternoon or in a day or two depending on getting a better look at the hayfield once I finished restacking my hay bales.  There is still stuff to eat in the hayfield even though it had been eaten down pretty well.  Once again the cattle forced my hand.  Most likely Maria, cow #7.

I went out as one cow was still in the hayfield.  Apparently she didn't see how the other cattle got through the fence, or she didn't want to go through the fence.  She stood at the gate to the middle pasture and looked at the cows in the south pasture and mooed.  I opened a gate to the south pasture and eventually she came over and through the gate.

I checked and found two old wooden fence posts were broken,  The fence leaned down / over.  Also a top barb wire was broken between two posts.  The cattle jumped over the broken fence.  You know, back this Winter my planned fence rebuilds for this year were the NE pasture fence by the road, the corral to hayshed fence, and the hayfield / south pasture fence.  You know how my year has gone.  I was lucky to have completed the NE pasture fence rebuild and half of the corral to hayshed fence rebuild.  The hayfield / south pasture fence?  Looks like next year.

The main challenge for the day was completing the hay bale move into the hayshed.  I only had 18 bales left to move.  Piece of cake to finish, right?  Wrong!  When I checked on the hay and tractor in the morning I found the right front tractor tire was flat.  Completely flat.

You have got to be kidding me!!!

Yesterday I had driven only around a small area moving hay bales.  But I must have driven over a small nail or something to cause my tire to go flat.  I had to get groceries in the morning so I brought along my portable air tank and filled it.  Someday I will have to buy an air compressor.   It ended up taking two tanks of air to re-inflate my tractor tire.

No sound of air escaping.  And it is Sunday and the tire repair stores are closed.  So I moved the hay bales.  With an urgency as I didn't know how long the tire would stay inflated.  The problem was I again had some bad bales that wanted to fall apart, or bales where the twine loosened when I lifted the bales and started to unravel.  I had to take time to re-wrap as best I could the bales where I could re-wrap the twine.  Else the bales would start to flake and fall apart.  I had two bales that started to fall apart as soon as I lifted them.  One bale lost 1/5 of itself immediately.  The other bale I knew to be a really dicey bale.  But I had a small spot and this was the only bale that would fit.  By the time I set the bale in the spot only a fifth to a fourth of the bale remained.  Then I had to get the pickup and pick up the part of the bale that flaked and fell off outside the hayshed entrance hampering movement.  I filled a pickup bed with this loose hay and later put it in the barn.

I eventually moved all the hay bales.  Notice I didn't say I got all the bales inside the hayshed.  I needed three rows to stack all the bales as in the second to last row I could only have 3-2-1 levels instead of my normal 4-3-2 levels.  That mean I had to have a third row for the last three bales.  This last row of three went past the hayshed entrance by a foot or two.  So I can't close the hayshed gate.  Later I will also have to hang/drape a tarp over the last row of bales as I don't trust the barley/oats/peas loose bales to shed water like a normal large round bale.

Here is the view of the bales taken this morning in the sunlight. It was getting dark when I finished so I don't yet have a final photo of the bales in the hayshed.

I still have lots of loose hay to pick up tomorrow from where the bales used to sit.  And while the tractor tire stayed inflated all day, most likely I will have to take it in to be fixed tomorrow.

Putting hay into the hayshed

Once again I was over optimistic.  I thought that since the hay bales were just outside the hayshed it would take me just the afternoon to move the bales into the shed.

Wrong!

I still don't have all the bales in the shed.

In the morning I measured and found I couldn't fit the hay rake in the shed with the bale and haybine.  My estimates did have me easily fitting all the bales into the hayshed and maybe at the end I would have room for the rake.

Just fits inside the hayshed.

I decided to set the bales on two layers of wooden pallets.  I planned on having multiple levels of bales and the added weight may be too much for some pallets.  Here you can see the mini-row that is between the haybine and baler hitches, and the outer pallets of the first true row.

The length of the hayshed is 64 ft.  The baler and haybine took up 16 ft.  The hay bales measure 5 ft long by 6 ft wide.  The hayshed is 24 ft wide.  I could fit four bales across on the first level; three bales on the second level, and on the third level 2 bales.  And I should be able to fit 3 bales (2 plus 1) between the hitches of the baler and haybine in the mini-row.

Nine bales a row.  I have around 65 bales.  9 times 7 is 63.    7 times 5 ft is 35 ft.   35 plus 16 equals 51 ft.  I should have 13 ft left over for the hay rake and other stuff.

Umm... well... it didn't get off to a good start.

The first two bales seemed wide.  I put one bale in place and searched for another bale that would fit.  I found one.

A problem with moving bales is the bale blocks my view.  I usually place the bales against one another.  The challenge is the first bale in a row, especially since these bales would start at the baler and haybine and not the hayshed wall.  I couldn't tell the bale was 'in place' when the pressure on the bale pushed against the tractor's bale spear.  I didn't want the bale to push against the baler or haybine.

I had four bales to start as end bales.  When moving the first bales I thought I saw Donna.  Great.  She can watch to make sure the first bales didn't push against the baler or haybine.  But when I looked again she was gone.  I got out of the tractor and looked all around for her in case she went over to look at the injured cow.  No sign of Donna.  Must have been my imagination.

So it took me a long time to set the first bales as I had to get in and out of the tractor repeatedly, especially when the tractor would move back slightly when I took it out of gear and got out of the tractor.  Finally I got the first four bales set.

Then I went to place a bale on the two bales on the mini-row between the baler and haybine hitches.   After I slowly pulled the bale spear out of the bale, the bale immediately slid backwards and off the bottom bales and tipped and fell onto the haybine.



Oh my god!  Did I just break my haybine?

I had set the bale on top of the lower bales where it appeared from the tractor that the bales matched up.  But apparently they weren't matched/set right.

I had to remove all the bales I had painstakingly just set.  Then I tried to spear the bale on the haybine.  But since the bale tipped on its end my spear would not penetrate the side of the bale and I started to push the bale along the haybine into the hayshed wall.   So I tried to  spear the bale from the bottom as part of the bottom was exposed in front of the haybine.   The bale spear has one long big spear and two smaller shorter spears to prevent the bale from spinning after it is lifted.  One or both of the bottom spears caught the haybine's reel so I had to try again.

On my second try I speared the bale just enough to lift it off the haybine and get the bale to the ground.  I looked over the haybine and it *appears* to be fine.  I guess I'll find out next year when I cut hay.

So back to pain of setting the first four bales again.  I again tried to set a bale on the bottom two mini-row bales.  But I didn't feel comfortable with how the bale was sitting and gave up on setting a second level on these two bales.  Even if I set the bale ok, when I set the first full row, the full row bale would press against the mini-row bale and this second level bale could get pushed just enough to be fall down onto the haybine again.

The baler and haybine were parked and I didn't want to move them.  But next year I won't be parking them here and will start the rows against the hayshed wall.

On to the first full row.  I took care not to push hard against the mini-row.  This is where I discovered the hayshed was not exactly 24 ft wide.  It is 24 ft wide on the outside.  Subtract 4+ inches for the plywood and 2by6 boards for the walls.  23 ft 8 inches still should fit 4 bales.  Then subtract another 10+ inches for each pole that hold the walls and roof.  I am now down to a little over 22 ft.  Four large bales would not fit.  There goes my plan to fit all the bales in the hayshed.

I had the four slightly smaller bales I had bought from Dan.  And I had two half bales from my baling.  Plus a few bales that kind of - but not completely - fell apart.  I used these bales to fill the first level of four bales.

The first full row still was a mess.  The fourth bale was a partial/messed up bale.  When it came to the second level I was unable to set three bales on the bottom four bales. When I tried to set a third bale as a kind of 2 1/2 level the bale slipped off my bale spear and fell as seen in the photo below.  Part of why the bale fell was the mini-row had no second level to help support the first row's bale.  At least the bale stopped at the mini-row's first level and did not go all the way back to the haybine.

I forget if it was the second or third row before the bales started stacking the way I had expected them to.  Below is how the bales are supposed to stack.

It got dark before I could get all the bales inside the hayshed.  I have 14 bales left to stack.  Three levels is the maximum my tractor can lift.  I had to be careful and slow with the third level not to touch the roof rafters when tipping and lifting the bales up.

The lower two left bales in the previous photo are grass hay.  The rest are barley, oats and peas hay.

I am running out of room in the hayshed.  It appears I will be able to just fit all the bales in the hayshed - but who knows what challenges will happen tomorrow.  So much for the extra 13 ft left over.


In the afternoon a breeze came up and slowly blew away some of the thick forest fire smoke.  Before sunset I saw some clouds to the West.  Rain clouds?  Did the weather forecasters get the forecast wrong?  Do I need to get the rest of the bales inside the hayshed?   Nah.  With all this thick smoke it has been a long time since I had seen clouds.  The clouds dissipated after sunset.

Hayshed skirt

Thursday and Friday I worked more on my hayshed now that it is cleaned out.  I decided to completely close the bottom so the Winter wind doesn't blow snow into the shed and the hay.

I thought this work would take a day.  Once again I was over optimistic.

My plan was to cut some of my odds and ends of roofing sheet metal into strips to attach to the bottom of the hayshed.  The outside of the wooden hayshed was covered in sheet metal in 1980 by my dad. That is why you see the plywood when inside and metal when outside.

My odds and ends of sheet metal.

Curtis lent one of his electric metal shears.  I never knew they existed.  They made cutting the metal sheets easy.

The remainder after the metal was cut.

The plan was to slip my newly cut metal strips an inch or so between the outside metal sheets and the wooden plywood and 2by6 boards.  The metal strips would go down into the ground where I dug a trench.

Thursday I started on the north side.  I started with long strips of metal.  I quickly found it was not easy to slip the new strips between the outside metal and boards.  It took me forever to slip the first three long pieces into place.  Making it harder was being off balance by the trench, the dirt piled next to it, and the small room between my shed and Curtis's stuff.  I also found that while the outside metal was nailed five or six inches from the bottom, the outside metal tended to be held fast to the wood.  The nails had not loosened over the decades.  And some of the wood was soft or starting to rot as in some places the dirt actually went up to the bottom of the wood.  That seemed to make slipping my strips harder as they would catch on the wood.

After the first three pieces were installed I cut shorter pieces as they were a little bit easier to work between the metal and wood.  Thursday I was one piece from the end when it got dark.

Today I finished the north side.

The west side had dirt to the wood all the length.  Unlike the north side, I found on the west side grass had grown up between the metal sheets and the wood.  For quite a length as you can see in the photo below.  It is surprising grass would grow so long in a dark and tight space, but I guess it was ever hopeful of finally reaching the light.

After the first couple of new pieces were installed, I decided pull the remaining bottom nails in order to loosen the outside metal sheets.  These sheets were so tight to the wood, coupled with the grass, that I could not slip my strips under the metal sheets.  I was able to get all the nails out.  Yesterday when I tried to pull some nails on the north side, half of the nails wouldn't come out and instead the nail's heads broke off.

With the nails out, the sheets loosened and the grass removed, the installation of my strips went well.

New metal strips added.

Dirt replaced.

The south wall was a little rockier to dig.  I also pulled all of the bottom nails.  I didn't break any nail heads.  While it was now easier to install longer metal strips I continued to use the shorter strips as I have plenty of short pieces of metal that don't have many uses.

After I finished adding a "skirt" to the hayshed, re-nailed the metal sheets and filled the dirt back in, I moved my haybine and baler into the hayshed.  The hayshed is 24 ft wide and the haybine and baler just fit inside the shed side by side.

I am not sure if I can also fit my hay rake inside the shed.  It was dark once I got the haybine and baler inside so I'll measure tomorrow.  With luck I will also get all my hay inside the shed tomorrow.

Clean hayshed

Today I finally finished clearing out my hayshed of all the stuff I stored in there over the last 16 years. Now I have room to put my hay bales inside the shed once I do a little work around the bottom of the hayshed.

The ground is not level inside the hayshed so this afternoon I spent time raking to try to level the ground somewhat.  Note to self: keep an eye out for a back blade for my tractor so I don't have to rake by hand in the future to level ground.

Looking at all that stuff in the hayshed I had no enthusiasm for this job.  In the beginning I was spending about an hour each day on removing stuff.  That was because I either had other projects that had to be done each day, or I would find something else more interesting to so.  And the high temperatures in the 90s made work slow.

Also add in the problems with the bull and the cow with the broken leg and one week I didn't get much done at all.

In the beginning, each day, I couldn't see progress, or much of a dent on stuff in the hayshed, and that was discouraging too.  Once my other projects finished, the temperatures got a touch cooler, and I could finally see some progress, I spent more and more time each day moving stuff.

Since most stuff would now be stored outside, and I wanted to move most stuff only once, moving stuff was slow.  I had to plan out where stuff would go, how much space was needed, and how I would have access to it later when I needed to use it.  Adding complexity was that same type of items were in various parts of the hayshed, some visible, some not.   For example, most fence posts were visible but later I found several small piles of posts hidden under other piles of wood and forgotten.

I have more wooden fence posts than I realized.

All the boards were a challenge.  I have many different lengths and widths.  I wanted the boards in the new location to be stacked according to length and size.  What a puzzle to put together!  The new stacks are good, though by the end the later boards are not perfectly placed as I no longer wanted to partially restack some boards when later similar boards were found.

The following photo was taken August 10 when I started this project...

Today's view...

On one side I had placed items on cement blocks.  Over time you can see this example of how the cement blocks sunk into the ground under all that weight.

Panoramic views:

The rolls of wire I left on the walls for now are barbless wire.

I even got rid of some stuff.  Boards that had sat on the ground and not on concrete blocks were rotting and no good.  Also I had items I had not used in all these years and I decided to get rid of.  I gave Curtis a desk, sheets of aluminum, garbage container, roll of rubber, and some small pieces of old rough cut wood that had come from my house's bathroom remodel.   That wood is now trendy and Curtis has an artist's eye on how to make interesting things from wood like this.

Heavy lifting day

I am still cleaning out the hayshed.  I only have some sheets of plywood left to remove before the shed is clean.  Today I moved a number of heavy items: rolls and rolls of barb wire, 93 concrete blocks, and over 60 wooden pallets.

Inside most of these rolls are smaller rolls of barb wire.