Loafing shed complete

This afternoon I finished the repairs on my loafing shed.  I added some metal pieces to cover the gaps in the roof and wall where the roof was rebuilt after it had blown off, and a little beyond where the roof blew off.   No, the pieces don't match.  The loafing shed is old, beat up, this is the backside, and one works with what they have.   It is snowing tonight, so once again I just finish a project in time.

Hayfield gate

Since this back to normal to slightly warmer weather came the snow melted away. (Thank you again for sharing some of your global warming with us. We all out here appreciate it as no one is ready for Winter to start.)   With the nicer weather I went back to redoing some of my gates.  Yesterday I finished the hayfield gate.

I replaced the old barb wire string gate with two 12 foot metal gates.  I put this higher on my to-do list after this Summer I saw Buddy the bull standing at - and kind of over - the gate when the neighbor's bull was across the road.  Buddy could have took one step forward and easily walked through the old gate.  If he only knew.

Even though the left railroad tie is kind of wimpy, I kept it.  I didn't feel like re-doing that side with different railroad ties, especially since I didn't know if the weather would hold.  It is not important for both sides to match, though visually it would be nice.

Once the gates were done I let the cattle have access again to the hayfield.  The first thing they did was go over to check out the gates.

Black Friday

The predicted windstorm for Thanksgiving Day did not happen.  Hurray!!!

Today I did a little Black Friday shopping for the cattle.  Usually Murdoch's Farm and Ranch store's Black Friday event is 15% off.  This year their sale was only 10% off.  So I didn't buy a new 16 foot green HW gate as I don't want to pay more than $150 for a gate, even if it is new.

I did stock up on salt blocks for the cattle to last the next year.   I also bought two Vitalix mineral tubs for the cattle.  I like to supplement the cattle's hay with a mineral lick at the end of their pregnancy.  This year I bought two tubs to length the time they can lick the minerals.  If I remember right a 250 lb tub will last them six weeks.  The sale price was $101 so the mineral tubs are not cheap.

The tubs are heavy.  It took three of us to safely lift the tubs into my pickup.  Two people can lift the tubs but when two of us lifted the first tub the other guy had trouble lifting the tub high enough and started to wobble until the other employee quickly came over to help us.

So I used my tractor to lift the tubs out of the pickup.  For now I will store the tubs in the barn until I use them later this Winter.

After the 8.3 inches of snow melted, the corral is muddy as you can see below.

Lately the turkeys have been hanging around the hayfield.  Other than on Thanksgiving Day when they disappeared.

The sun came out late this afternoon.

Prepping for Thanksgiving storm

The weather forecast is saying we will have very strong winds tomorrow afternoon when a strong cold front passes us.  Winds 15 to 25 mph with gusts 50 to 60 mph.  And from the same direction as the previous strong windstorm that blew part of the loafing shed roof off.

Oh, great.  Not again.

While there are several thin wires over the patio roof to supposedly help hold down the sheets on the roof, today I added some heavy items to the top of the three metal sheets I had placed on the patio roof.

I also did more nailing on the loafing shed roof.  While I had earlier nailed enough to put the roof back together, I hadn't completed adding all the nails and extra little boards.  I did so today.

I am not sure if it was the light or me, but often I had had trouble hitting the nail on the head. One railroad tie post was so dense I had trouble completely hammering in the nails without them starting to bend.

I hope my repair work enables the loafing shed to retain its roof this time.

Thank you to all who shared some of their global warming with us so our temperatures could return to average to a little above average and melt much of the snow that fell earlier this month.  With the exposed grass I haven't had to put out hay for the cattle the past week.  I do put out one small hay bale at sundown for a treat for the cattle.  Well, now they expect it.  This afternoon as I nailed the loafing shed the cattle thought I was going to feed them early.  When I didn't they mooed and bellyached to me and it was annoying.

But the cattle can scrounge on grass.  The cat are all fat and don't need a large all-you-can-eat hay bale right now.  It is hard to ration their feed using a large bale.  Recently I saw this on Craigslist...

With this towable feeder I could limit the cattle to their recommended daily amount.  The problem: the owner is asking $4000 for this used item.  At that price I will pass.  And since my tractor doesn't have a grapple arm I would have to learn how to tip a bale off the spear and into the feeder.


This afternoon I found this gate back in my pasture. It looks like Curtis finished the welding job for me.  As you can see the bottom green rail is mostly rusted through.  I used an extra pipe I had gotten from my hayshed when I cleaned it out and had Curtis weld the pipe as a bottom rail.  The gate is a little heavier than a normal 12 foot gate but it also is strong.  And I plan on using a railroad tie for a post to hold the gate.

With the nicer weather I am also redoing the gate for the hayfield to the road.  I get a little done each day the past few days between the rain.  I now have all the posts for the gate in the ground so if the weather changes I can still finish the gate work this year.  I'm so happy we got some of our global warming back this year.

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow everyone!

Patio roof fix

The years have not been kind to the patio roof.  This year's strong winds broke a few pieces of the fiberglass sheets and the early snow made those broken sections larger.  I already have replacement sheets for the roof but when I do replace all the sheets that make up the roof I want to fix the supporting frame.  And I want to trim some of the tree branches above the roof, which if they fall wrong after being cut would go right through the roof.  So I have put the project off until I have more time.

Since the snow earlier this month we have been slightly warmer so some of the 8.3 inches of snow had melted, making a further mess in the patio.  Today I got some extra metal sheets and placed them over the three large holes in the roof.  That should keep snow and rain (mostly) out until next year when I need to make time to redo the roof.

Loafing shed rebuild

I completed most of the loafing shed rebuild before snow and Winter came the beginning of this month.

In case you forgot, here are a few photos of the damage.

The roof

I had to focus and concentrate on the rebuild as the weather forecast didn't give me much time.  I was able to get the roof back on a day before the snow came on November 1.   I have some finish work left on the roof but it can wait until Spring.


I had to replace the three tree trunk posts.  Once I did, and before I attached the roof to the new posts, I pushed the back wall back to stand straight again.

To replace the tree trunk posts I lifted the roof and placed temporary posts to hold the roof upright.

The calves checking out the hole I dug for the first post.

Here is one of the tree trunk posts.  As you can see it had rotted away a few inches below ground level.  While I don't know the entire history of the ranch and loafing shed, I suspect the tree trunk posts were used starting back in 1941 or 1942 when I believe the loafing shed was built.

Here are all the remains I dug out of one of the tree trunk posts.  I found that two posts went 36 inches deep and the other post was 40 inches deep.  As you can see I do not have 36 to 40 inches of rotted post.  I found what remained of the posts usually were at the bottom and that is why I know how deep the posts originally were dug.  The first foot or two usually had completely decayed or was in such bad shape the form did not hold when I dug it up.

I had three 10 foot railroad ties and they were perfect to use as new posts.  They should last my lifetime. The posts only needed to be about 7 1/2 feet tall and therefore I could bury the post 2 1/2 feet deep which is deep enough to be solid.  Solid is important as the cattle like to rub against the edge of the posts.   The tree trunk posts were pretty smooth from decades of rubbing.

I took the roof apart rather than try to attempt to lift it back into place.  I was able to use almost all of the boards, only needing a few to replace or buttress the ones that split or broke.   While the supporting boards were 2x6s, as you can see, the frame to attach the metal sheets were rough cut lumber.

The next day it snowed.  Part of why this post about the rebuild is 'late' is that I was waiting for a sunny day to take a good photo of the rebuilt shed.

We finally had a little sun and I got a better photo showing the rebuilt shed.

The following photos show the remaining work.  While I placed the railroad ties in the same place the old tree trunks were located, I found I must have rebuilt some of the roof just a touch longer.  The metal formerly overhung the frame just a touch and I now found part of the new frame was just a touch longer than the metal sheets.  So the remaining work is to use some odds and ends of metal sheets I have laying around and eliminate the small opening at the back end.  Not so good to have the water run off the metal onto the wooden frame.

Hay feeder for the corral

If you remember to back when I bought my current bull, I also bought a used - and slightly damaged - metal feeder.  The feeder was missing two of the uprights that prevent the cattle from climbing into the hay.  I still have pieces of an old broken feeder, and while they are of different styles, I was able to use two of the uprights on my newer feeder.

I screwed the pieces together then I had Curtis do some welds to strengthen their connection.  When I got the feeder back yesterday I also added bolts as the bottom to further strengthen the connection.

Today I brought a large hay bale into the corral for the three heifers and cow and the put the three feeder sections together around the bale.

To distract the heifers and cow I gave them a large bucket of apples in the wooden feeder next to the barn.    They were all over to the hay bale before I got all of the twine off the bale.  They dodged around the bale eating as I finished the work.

With the large bale I no longer have to put hay from the small bales out for the heifers and cow twice a day.  The cattle have already eaten up all the loose hay from this past Summer.  And with the above freezing temperatures the past few days and partial snow melt it got really muddy mucky next to the wooden feeder.

One section with a missing piece.

Replacement piece

Section with replacement piece screwed on.

After final weld and bolting.

After final weld and bolting.

All put together.

The cow likes to burrow her head into the bale to eat.

Tonight Kelly shot the buck he wounded last weekend.  This was the first time Kelly seen the buck come out of the trees since he first shot him.   The buck had a slight limp as the earlier wound was through the leg.  This time Kelly shot the buck through the heart.  When cleaning out the organs Kelly found the heart in two pieces.  Even though my help this time was only to help lift the buck into his pickup (Kelly's wife was with him during the hunt and helped clean out the buck), I still got a little blood on me.  It never fails.   I washed the blood off the coat but left the little bit of blood on my patched pants.  It just adds more 'flavor and style' to my pants. 

Thousand dollar pants

Another pair of pants came to an end the other day.  It had gotten to the point where I had to patch the pants multiple times after wearing them.  Then I had to patch them after washing them.  It got too much - even for me.   The pants became a pair of pants trying to get out of another pair.

This Summer at the Murdoch's store a woman told me that if I went to New York City I could sell my pants for a thousand dollars.   Well... the pants were one of a kind.   But I removed the patches that are still good to use on other pants and burnt the little of the pants that remained.   Maybe I should have sold the pants on Ebay?

Don't worry... I still have more patched pants. I can create them as fast as I wear them around the ranch.

Holstein calf results

Today I got the check from the auction for my Holstein calf.  The result was not pretty.

Three weeks ago - when I sold my calves - Holstein cows weighing a thousand to sixteen hundred pounds sold for 63 to 65 cents a pound.  Two weeks ago Holstein cows weighing twelve hundred to fourteen hundred pounds were selling for 60 to 63 cents a pound.  This week Holstein cows over a thousand pounds sold for 55 cents pound.   Not a week to sell a Holstein calf.  I am not sure why Holstein prices were trending down as the overall calf market the past few weeks has been steady to a few cents a pound higher.

When I talked with the livestock auction owner a few weeks ago he said Holstein calves weighing around 550 pounds were selling for 80 to 90 cents a pound.

While I don't have experience estimating the weight of a Holstein, my calf weighed more than I thought.  I thought he would weigh 550 to 600 pounds.  Remember, my beef steer calves weighed on average 595 pounds.  My Holstein calf weighed 645 pounds.  He weighed more than Donna, Dan or I had estimated.

The bad news... the price I got for him.  60 cents a pound.



My beef steers sold for 1.625 a pound.  Because it was a Holstein I expected to get less per pound - but not this much less.   I paid $150 for him as a newborn calf.  I had expensive vet bills plus the auction and transport costs and I probably broke even to making only a few dollars on him.  Not really worthwhile from a financial aspect.  It was a learning experience.  An experience - grafting a Holstein calf on a cow who lost her calf - I would think twice about doing again.  Knowing now what I now know, I would have been better off keeping the Holstein and feeding him over Winter and then selling him in the Spring.  He would have put on more weight and I mostly likely would get almost as much or more cents a pound.

This is the second steer I got hammered on price this year.  Making money raising cattle... not an easy proposition.

Surprisingly, Sunday's wind didn't blow the snow off the shrubs.

Sunday it stormed most of the day.  Wind and snow.  Miserable.  The cattle mostly stayed in the shelter of the loafing shed.  Daisy and I stayed inside and made sure the woodstove was fed.  Snow blew everywhere.  I did notice Sunday afternoon that cow #20 - the one who had broken her leg this Summer - was by herself at the water trough.  Her front leg - the one that acts up in Winter - seemed stiff.  In the howling wind I herded her into the south coral to be with the heifers.  No need for cow 20 to have to walk more than necessary on the snow.

The Winter weather forecast is for a cold and snowy Winter.  What I didn't realize is that also meant a longer Winter.  Not even a week into November and I and others are already sick of Winter.

Today was a decent day.  Sun and no wind.  The temperature was near freezing as the snow melted a little in the sun.  I shoveled off the front driveway and paths to buildings in the backyard.

While I was concerned at having enough hay due to feeding three heifers in addition to the cows and bull, and feeding the cattle starting weeks earlier than normal; I found the cattle are eating the oats/barley/pea hay quicker than usual.  Usually a large hay bale lasts three to three and a half days.  For two bales now the cattle have eaten each bale in two days.  I had to put out a third bale late this afternoon. At this rate my hay won't last until Spring.  It is always something.