Busy rush before snow

Wednesday (tomorrow) snow will arrive.  And not just a dusting - here today and gone tomorrow - but perhaps snow that will last until Spring.  4 to 8 inches, and maybe more snow, depending on where the cold front and the moist air front collide, and for how long.   Right now snow is predicted every day till Saturday.  Then more colder air with high temperatures struggling to reach freezing.

So the past few days I have been in a rush to get things done as this snow looks to shut work down for the year.  For those of you hogging all the global warming, you need to share.  We want warmer weather too.

I got most of the loafing shed rebuilt.  More on that in another post later.

Last night I won the bidding on several items at a local auction.  I got...

4 three inch irrigation pipes

7 more three inch irrigation pipes

16 foot gate

A standalone temporary corral panel gate

Today I needed to pick up my items. In the morning, when I tried to pull my irrigation trailer with my pickup I discovered the trailer's wheels were frozen and would not move.  Oh no!   I can't get my new pipes without my trailer.  And I have a very busy day planned and didn't have time for problems.

Moving forward and backward over and over did not free the wheels.  I asked my neighbor Curtis and he said the trailer's differential was the problem.   I would have to take the differential apart - a major job.   Or perhaps water somehow got into the differential case and was now frozen as the temperature was still well below freezing.

I have a weed burning propane tank and after heating the differential case for ten minutes the wheels started moving.   Hurray!!

I was able to bring home the pipes on the trailer and the corral panel gate in my pickup.  Then I had to immediately hook up my stock trailer and load Buster to take him to the Majestic Valley Arena to meet Evan.  Evan was collecting cattle from the area to haul down to the Missoula Livestock Auction for the Thursday auction.  Then I didn't have haul Buster all the way to Missoula myself, which wouldn't be worth it.

Back home I let the bull out into the hayfield to be with the cows.  He immediately walked up to one cow and sniffed her.  Then I opened the gate to the north pasture and called the cows.  They came running all excited to be in a new pasture.  Even cow #20 moved right along.  Once in the north pasture the bull and cow #60 briefly sparred before everyone got down to eating the taller grass.  Even though the hayfield and other pastures had been eaten down, my cows were all still fat.

Then I moved the remaining heifers to the south corral where the bull had been.  I needed the north corral open so the cows would have access to the water trough.  The heifers are much too young to be exposed to the bull.

After lunch at Mudman's restaurant I came home to wash out the stock trailer.  I had kept Buster in the back half of the trailer when I hauled him to meet Evan, but even in the short time Buster was in the trailer he made a mess.

Thne back uptown to get gasoline, groceries and pick up my 16 foot gate.

Back home I unloaded the new irrigation pipes from the trailer and put the trailer away.  I moved the salt blocks from the middle pasture to the north pasture for the cows.  I rolled the mineral lick to the south corral so the heifers can continue to lick it as desired.  I gave the heifers more hay.

I picked up and put away all my tools I used to work on the loafing shed rebuild and placed a few heavy items on the roof on the parts of the roofing I hadn't nailed down yet and I have a few more fixes left to do.  I picked up odds and ends of small pieces of wood around the backyard I didn't want to be buried under snow.

I also rode 18 miles on my bicycle to reach my mileage goal of 670 miles for the month.

If the weather is bad in the morning I am going to sleep in.

Fruit tree and garden gate replace

I replaced the gate to the fruit tree and garden area.  I had the gate and board fence done last week before I took my calves to auction.  I only just finished removing the old corner fence.  Even with Daisy supervising the fence removal it took about as long as the new fence build as I kept having other events eating up my time.

As you can see in some of the photos, the old gate was two chain link fence gates I used for the past decade.   They worked well until this year when Maria (cow #7) pushed against them.  She had popped off, on one side of one gate, the clips holding the links in place.  She was trying to squeeze through the gate when I caught her.

Hmmm... time to upgrade this gate sooner than later.

I installed a regular HW livestock gate.  As you can see I added boards on each side of the gate.  This is because I decided to "cut the corner off".  The "corner" wasn't used - or needed - for the fruit tree and garden area.   Also, having the gate at this angle is more convenient for entering this area.  And, the old fence for the corner was wimpy.

Nice having a tractor to hold the gate as I decided where to drill through the posts for the bolts.

A much nicer gate, and better and cleaner looking fence.

Instead of using my normal railroad tie to hold the gate I used some large fence posts.  Using a rounded fence post allows me to open the gate more than a 180 degree radius.  That should come in handy when carrying the long irrigation pipes in and out of this area.

I used some of my 8 ft tall fence posts.    The light - blonde - fence posts were not treated.  My neighbor Curtis thought he had some preservative, but when he looked, he didn't.  So, I used some used motor oil.  I put the posts in a bucket and poured the oil on the posts a number of times to get the oil to soak into the wood.  After several days of soaking, and shortly before I put the posts into the ground, I "painted' the soaked area with roofing sealant, making sure not to "paint" the bottom end of the post (no sense sealing in any moisture that may migrate down inside the post from above the treated area).

I wrapped the sticky sealed part of the post to make handling the post easier as the sealant was still sticky.  And the plastic is yet another barrier to water and rot.

My main concern was to treat the posts at ground level and four or so inches lower as this is where posts normally rot first.  For whatever reason I miscalculated and the top of my sealed and wrapped area was a few inches below ground.  So I had to add more oil and sealant and plastic.

I hope my treatment of the posts allow them to remain rot-free for many years.


I have lots of roofing sealant left over from my previous roofing project.  I had the can sitting in this location so the sealant would warm up in the sun one morning.  My neighbor Jan came over later looking for me while I was gone.  She ended up turning around in my yard near here.  She had her two dogs in her SUV with her.  The calves were still in the corral.  I imagine it was a 3-ring circus and that is why Jan didn't see the can.  She ran over it denting the can.  Fortunately, only a small amount of sealant leaked out onto the grass from the lid.

As you can see in the following photo I did a little more than replace the gate. I added a 15 feet section at the corner.  The whole fence over to the yard fence on the right side of the photo was bad.  When I took down the corner fence and gates I also took down the entire fence over to the yard fence.  The old fence was so bad I had to use the corral panels to supplement the fence so I wouldn't worry about the cattle getting through the fence.  With the corral panels in place, why did I need the old bad barb wire fence to catch and tear on my clothes?

I don't have the fence rebuilt all the way to the yard fence.  That will wait till later.   It took longer to assemble the materials for the fence than I expected.  Both the boards and the posts were at the very bottom of their respective piles for posts and boards and took an afternoon to get.

Four of the posts needed to be treated, which took time.

And lastly, I need to fix the loafing shed roof which blew off in the windstorm last week.  The 30 feet left of fence to be rebuilt will have to wait until another day (or year).

Calf sale results

I got my check and statement from the livestock auction. 

From pulling them in my stock trailer I knew the cattle were heavier.  Last year the nine calves weighed 4335 pounds.   This year the nine calves weighed 5310 pounds.  Last year the heifer's average weight was 488 pounds.  This year their average weight was 588 pounds.  Exactly 100 pounds more.   Last year the steer's average weight was 474 pounds.  That was the average weight sold at auction; Dan bought my largest steers and they weighed over 500 pounds each.   This year five of the six steer's average weight was 595 pounds.  Again about 100 pounds more.  A difference this year is most calves were born about 10 days earlier and I sold the calves two weeks later than last year.

The sixth steer's weight was 570 pounds.   Which brings me to prices.  Prices were higher this year than last year, though still not as high as two years ago.  Still, a nice improvement.

One steer sold for less money, which was a surprise.  The black steer, Sugar's calf, was separated from the other steers and sold separately.  While I got $1.625 a pound for the five steers (and I was told that was a little higher than usual for 600 pound calves); I only got $1.11 a pound for the black steer.  51.5 cents a pound less!!  Today I called the auction to learn why.  I was told the steer was a poor quality steer.  Again a surprise as several people who had seen the steer this Summer thought it was a good looking steer.   I was told it was short, and his weight for his size was considered high.  He mentioned bloating, though he said my steer was rounded on both sides and not just one side as with bloating.  Since the steer wasn't obviously fat, the buyers thought it was poor quality due to the size versus weight ratio.

Anything to knock the price lower.   But seriously, 51.5 cents a pound less?!  The buyer got a great deal.

I'm no expert but I still think it was a good calf.  The auction suggested I get rid of the cow if she produces calves like this.  Well, the calf was from an unknown bull as I bought Sugar last Fall.  Next year Sugar's calf will be Buddy's calf so I'll be interested in seeing how that calf looks and how much I get for that calf.  I think part of the situation was that the other five calves looked like Buddy and this was a different looking calf.

Cow 20

Here are a couple photos of cow #20 (the cow that broke her leg in August).   The photos were taken last week, the day before I took the calves to the auction.  Cow 20 healed and is doing fine now.

Lower snow level

The snow is getting lower.  Winter is coming.

Calves to auction

That time of the year.  Time to take the calves to auction.  Actually it is a little later than I usually take calves to auction.  This year I decided to wait a few more weeks to allow the calves to grow, and the cattle prices to rise.  The prices have been inching up the past few weeks.  I hope the prices continue to rise this Thursday.

I started off a little before 8:30 am scraping the underside of the trailer's receiver hitch.  I wanted to improve the contact with the pickup to ensure the trailer's lights work properly.

I am keeping three heifers as replacement heifers, so once I got the calves in the loading corral I sorted the replacement heifers back out into the main corral.  Cow #20 - the one with the healed broken leg - is good.  So Donna and I herded  her into the corral with the bull, then out the next gate into the hayfield to be with the other cows.  We watched to make sure the other cows didn't start fighting with her.  Some cows came up and sniffed her and all seemed to be getting along.

Loading the ten calves was a challenge.  They are so tame they preferred to stand and look at me rather than run away.  I had trouble turning them around, and keep turned around. Donna was trying to entice them with apples down the runway to the trailer but only a couple calves followed her.

Eventually we got most of the calves in the trailer.  Not all the calves.  It was a struggle to get the ninth calf into the trailer.  Finally we got the other calves in the trailer to move slightly and squeeze together more so the back half of the ninth calf would fit inside.  Then we closed the door.    Looking inside there was room for about a half a calf if all the rest squeezed together super tight.  The last calf was Buster, the Holstein.  The biggest calf.  He was the most resistant in going down the loading chute.  Even when I had him in the middle of the group he would work his way to the back.

I had to leave him behind.

I never had a problem with ten calves in the trailer before.  The calves really are bigger this year.  They started to be born about ten days earlier and they are leaving for market two weeks later.  So it makes sense they are bigger.  And last year when Dan bought four steers, he had bought the four biggest steers.

I had six steers and three heifers to sell this year.  Well, seven steers counting Buster, the Holstein.

Buster refused to come out of the loading chute until the truck and trailer were out of the corral, and both Donna and I were far away from the loading corral.  He had been standing there locked leg refusing to move at all; then once we were away he quickly came out and ran out of the corral to join the three heifers.

We were finally on our way around 10:20 am.

This felt like the heaviest load I have ever hauled in my trailer.  As I drove I could feel the calves move about in the very small space open inside the trailer.  Usually when the trailer moves the cattle stop milling about.  It took much longer for the calves to stop moving.  And a few times on the trip they would begin moving for a little bit - which I felt as I drove.

It took longer than usual at two and a half hours to reach the auction in Missoula as I drove slower due to the extra weight.  The check-in lady was by herself and was harried.  A load of cattle had just been unloaded as I got there, then after she did my paperwork three more large stock trailer with cattle arrived. Another auction worker told me there would be lots of cattle sold on Thursday.  When I got my cattle trip permit in Kalispell on Tuesday the worker told me she had written lots of permits this week.

Unlike last year when Clyde tried to get back into the trailer to return home, these calves all wanted out. The concrete was slippery from the manure and several calves slipped when they hopped out of the trailer.  No one seemed to get injured.

It was like night and day towing the trailer when empty.  Sometimes it didn't feel like I was towing anything.

I drove around Flathead Lake on the east side which is curvier, less hilly and has a slower speed limit.  I was going the 50 mph speed limit when a car two vehicles back passed me and the pickup behind me.  He had passed the pickup when we could see an oncoming car.  He briefly hesitated.  I am not sure there was room between the pickup and my trailer for the car to get between in time.  So he gunned it and passed me.  Donna and I both thought the two cars would have a head-on collision next to us between my pickup and the guardrail across the other lane right next to Flathead Lake. But he just slipped in front of me before the oncoming car reached us.  This must have has a sobering effect on the driver as we noticed that he declined to pass the pickup a distance ahead of us once the car caught up to that pickup.  Another crazy Montana driver.

We made it home without further incident.  I parked the trailer in the NE pasture so I could wash the manure out.  There was so much manure it had been oozing out of the side door.  Once I parked Buster immediately came over and checked the trailer out.  I think he was disappointed I hadn't brought the other calves back home.

Then the long and dirty task of washing the manure out of the trailer.  Tomorrow I will finish cleaning the rubber mats as it got too dark to clean them well.

The 10 (well.. 9) good-looking calves going to market.

And once again, the Mission Mountains near St Ignatius, Montana seen on our drive home.  I do believe that snow will stay until Spring.

Wind damage

The weather forecast had strong winds for today.  15-25 mph with gusts to 40 mph was the prediction.  At the airport near here the strongest sustained wind was 43 mph with a peak gust of 54 mph.  It did get windy in the early afternoon before I went uptown, in line with the weather prediction.  Before I went I decided to wash clothes as the wind would help dry my jeans on the clothesline.  I even moved my RV to allow the breeze to better reach my clothes.   Then I went uptown to get the items I won on the Monday night local auction.

I got 5 temporary corral panels.  I do have a number of panels but this group of five has one panel that had been modified to have a second set of "catches" used to pin two panels together.  With this panel I can split another line of panels to be perpendicular to the first line.

I also bought a temporary panel with a gate in it.  This I really wanted when I saw it.  It was one of six sold.

Not the panels I bought, but an example of what they look like.

The green panels normally sell new for $99.  I got mine for $64.40.  The panel with the gate normally sells for $260.  I bought mine for $92.  Maybe I should have bought a second panel even though right now I can only think of a use for just one panel.


When uptown I didn't really notice that the wind had picked up.  The wind was much stronger than predicted.  When I got home I found my clothesline was broken and my clothes scattered in the yard and the NE pasture.

I have a rotted post in the fence past the clothesline.  The fence boards were holding it upright but the fence was swaying back and forth.  I put a board on each side to brace the fence post as seen on the left side of the previous photo.

I discovered my bicycle cat wind spinner was missing the front wheel.  I eventually found the wheel out in the NE pasture.

My rain gutter downspouts were blown off and other stuff was strewn around the yard.

Then I noticed the cattle's loafing shed.  Almost a third of the roof was missing.  Usually when we get strong winds from a strong weather front, the wind comes from the north.  This time the wind came from the south and blew right into the loafing shed's opening.

The remaining roof was lifting in the wind gusts.  I grabbed a hold of the roof and pulled it back down.  Then I ran and got a chain and chained the roof down in front and in back.

The three middle posts appeared to have been tree trunks.  They had rotted just below ground level and all three had been pulled up out of the ground.  The back wall is leaning back a little bit.

I found the roof behind the loafing shed.

So my plans for this Fall have been drastically altered.  Now the top item on my agenda is to fix the loafing shed.  I'll have to replace the three posts in the front, then see how - or if - I can get the roof back on the shed.

The wind stripped all of the leaves from the box elder trees in the yard. I imagine that once I get out to the pasture I'll find one or more trees down.  The wind is still blowing strong and not predicted to die down until after midnight.  Earlier a few panels high on the hayshed were rattling in the wind. They looked like they will hold.  Still, I'll have climb up there and re-nail the ones that look to be loosening.

When I first got home the cows were in the middle pasture all excited.  They all looked to be ok.  Once they finally got used to the wind they settled down.

Snow

Yesterday morning and this morning I woke up to some snow covering the grass.  Both days the snow had melted by mid morning.

Each day I had been putting out some of the loose hay to supplement the calves.

In addition this morning, due to the snow covering much of the grass, I tossed three and a half bales over the fence into the hayfield to supplement the cows until the snow melted.  Since I was tossing the small bales on the ground and not in a feeder, and I was curious if the cows would eat the old hay I got from Donna, I tossed that old hay.  Looks like they ate it all.

I had three piles of hay and all the other cows wouldn't let Sugar eat with them.  So I got some of the apples and fed her through the fence far enough away that the other cows didn't realize what we were doing.

The bull is doing good.  The previous owners had named him "Charlie".  Neither Donna nor Dan like that name for a bull.  I think of "Charlie the tuna" so I am not fond of the name for a bull.  This afternoon I was talking with Jan.  Her son has a black cat named "Tobey".   Since the new bull is shorter than Buddy, "Tobey" seems to fit as I imagine a person named "Tobey" as being short.  Or maybe I am thinking of Tobey Maguire who played Spider-Man in a few movies.  So I am leaning to calling the bull, "Tobey".

I also finally lit my wood stove last night.  It has been cold and damp outside the past few days.  Yesterday outside temperature was 43 degrees at the high.  Inside the house it was 49.9 degrees.  Even for me that was getting a little chilly.

Dehorning Buster

I had banded Buster's horn back on July 24.   http://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2017/07/dehorning-my-holstein-calf.html

A few weeks ago I saw that one of his horns had fallen off.  Yesterday, before I ear tagged the new bull, I checked Buster's remaining horn.  The rubber band was missing.  The horn had been squeezed almost halfway off before the band disappeared.  It is to late to re-band and remove the horn before sending the calves to auction.  So I cut it off.

Initially I couldn't find my dehorner tool and searched and searched until Donna asked, "Did you leave it in the barn?"   Duh.   That is where I found it.

Since the horn has been squeezed so much by the band it was fairly easy to cut the rest of the horn off.  It still bled a little bit.  It was nice that the horn was half dead before I cut it completely off.

Below shows where the other horn had been squeezed off by the band.

New bull

I hadn't planned on getting a new bull to replace Buddy until next Spring.  That way I didn't have to either segregate the bull or the replacement heifers all Winter.  Well.... I saw an ad on Craigslist from someone selling a good looking bull for a great price.   A price that would make the hassle of segregation this Winter worth it.

The bull seemed perfect for me.  The bull was born on July 1, 2015 so it was only 2 years, 3 months old.  The bull was an all black Angus.  Due to the bull's history, if I wanted to I could pursue registering the bull.  But since I don't have registered Angus cows, I mostly likely won't bother registering the bull.  And the bull has a good easy going disposition.

The bull was outside of Polson, Montana so I hooked up my stock trailer, called Donna as second opinion on the bull's quality, and drove down.

The owner lives on Peace Drive.  Apparently people like that name as the road sign was missing as people keep stealing the sign.  A little extra driving as I drove a mile past the road, but I did find the ranch once I turned around.

Lots of black cattle in the area. I seen only a handful of red or white-faced cattle.  The most concentrated large numbers of cattle I have ever seen.  Many fields were filled with black cows and calves.   Hundreds upon hundreds of cattle.  Many hundreds.  And hundreds and hundreds of large round hay bales stacked three high in multiple long rows.

The weather on the drive was scattered rain showers.  Some areas in the distance had dark blue dense rain clouds stretching all the way to the ground.  The hillsides miles to the south of the owner's ranch were white.  She said it rained and hailed hard before we arrived. She showed us some hail still in the shade of her place.  It was hail and not snow on the higher hillsides.  A few hours later when we left the hillsides were still white with hail.

The owner specializes in breeding mini Aussie dogs.  Her boyfriend was into cattle.  He had gotten the bull to breed their Corriente cows, but after the horned cows chased him he sold the cows.  Before he could get replacement cows without horns he had a heart attack and died.  He was only 56.  So since she only had a bull she was selling it.

The only question is how fertile the bull is.  With no offspring or a semen test there is no certainty he is not "shooting blanks".  If he can't perform it could be a lost year for calves.

Still, the bull seems perfect for me so I bought it.  I also bought the metal hay feeder she had even though it was beat up.  I loaded the feeder into my pickup after taking it apart.  The young guy helping her had to use a grinder to cut a rusted bolt we couldn't unscrew.

Their little corral made of metal panels had no loading chute.  So I gathered three bent metal panels and made a small chute at the end of my trailer which I had backed up to the corral gate.

The bull was easy going and the loading of him into the trailer went smoothly.  We went slowly to not pressure and agitate the bull.  I slowly maneuvered the panels to make the space smaller and smaller until the bull only had room to step into the trailer.

We took some of their old ugly and smelly hay that the bull had been eating and put it in front of the trailer to entice the bull.  I am not sure if that enticed the bull or whether he tired of me pressing a panel against his rear but he stepped into the trailer.  he walked to the front of the trailer and I was able to close the divider to keep him in the front half of the trailer.  The less room he had to move made towing the trailer easier.  The smell of the old hay bothered Donna all the way back to the ranch.

The new bull is less than half the size of Buddy so I was able to close the divider and the bull was also able to turn around in the trailer.

The drive home was uneventful.  I got home a little before dark.  Earlier in the day, now that the calves have calmed down, I had let them and cow #20 out of the corral and into the NE pasture.  I added fresh hay to the south corral's feeder and placed the bull in there for him to adjust to his new home.

The bull has no brands so today Donna helped me put an ear tag on the bull so I have at least something in case the bull decides to run away.  Even though the bull had watched me work on the Holstein calf in the head gate earlier, once I was ready to work on the bull he cooperated perfectly.  When I opened the gate to the south corral he walked out.  He walked straight over to the loading corral and walked to the back, then walked the loading ramp and into the head gate locking him in place.  It all happened so fast I didn't get a chance to close the intermediate gates.

The bull only had a minor reaction to getting the ear tag.  When I released the bull from the head gate he walked straight back over to and into the south corral.

That was incredibly easy!

The bull looks to be about 1000 to 1100 pounds.  Dan came over to look at the bull tonight and he agrees with me. Both Donna and Dan are impressed how good the bull looks, with both especially pleased with the bull's head and face.

Compared to Buddy who weighed 2540 pounds, this new bull looks small as he is less than half the size of Buddy.  But he will grow and even at this size should be able to mount the cows.  He does seem to have a nice long penis.