Lumpy jaw

The hits keep coming...

I took my cow to the vet this morning.   The diagnosis: lumpy jaw.  (https://www.beefmagazine.com/mag/beef_lump_jaw)  My cow's version of lumpy jaw is a bone infection.  It can be treated but the chance of success are so-so.   I was planning on selling cow 40 and cow 80 since I have replacement heifers.   Now I will sell cow 120 (lumpy jaw) instead of cow 80 (who usually calves a cycle or two late).  I probably won't get much for her.


The sprinkler head I replaced a few days ago quit working.  It just sat in one spot and didn't rotate.  So I replaced it with another sprinkler.  That one was bad too.  (The pitfalls of used sprinklers.)  The next sprinkler worked.

Tomorrow the north sprinkler line will move from the hayfield to the north and middle pastures.  One more day and the south line will move into the south pasture.  Good, as the pastures are starting to turn brown.  The hayfield is nice and green.  Very little pennycress weeds are left.  A smattering of other weeds.  The main threat now is clover.  Parts of the hayfield are a mass of clover.  If it's not one thing it's another.   I still am moving the irrigation lines twice a day.


I got half of the wood in the pickup unloaded before I had to take the cow to the vet.  I know, not the greatest wood but I find this type of decaying wood useful in the Fall or Spring when I want a fire for some warmth but not an intense fire in the woodstove.

After the vet visit I washed out the stock trailer.  Even if the cattle defecate just before getting in the trailer, they will defecate in the trailer.  Tomorrow the trailer's wood floor should be dry and I can park the trailer and unload the rest of the wood.

One of my stacks of wood to be split is in the corner of the middle pasture.  My mainline's valve openings are every 60 feet, except for a 40 foot gap where the pastures meet the hayfield.  The stack of wood, of course, is in the middle of the 40 feet.  So the wood gets soaked.  Before I moved the one line to one side of the stack I carted off three wheelbarrow loads of logs and moved them to the yard to be split later.

I may not be getting much done other than moving irrigation lines, but on a 90 degree day I did get a few other things done.

Weeds, etc.

Irrigation now going smoothly.  I am still moving pipes twice a day.  I am now past the corral so the line now extends fully from south border to north border of the ranch.   31 pipes.  The extra four pipes don't appear to have substantially reduced the water pressure.  This morning I was half asleep and made the mistake of turning off the third line before turning on the second line.  With only one line open the water pressure was intense.  I raced to open the second line before the mainline pipes came apart.    One connection now has a small leak.  Nothing worth re-doing the pipe connection.

Before extending the line across the north pasture and blocking my access to the pastures, I drove to the pastures and gathered some wood for this Winter's fireplace heat.  I got a pickup load.  Need to unload the wood before hauling the cow to the vet tomorrow.  Last year I didn't gather these wood pieces in time before irrigating and ended up soaking them for the season.

Back before I started irrigating, and after I baled and stacked my hay, I used the haybine to cut the yarrow weeds in the middle pasture, and then the baler to bale and remove the weeds.  Before my haying misadventures I had been spraying to kill the weeds.  But since the haying took so long the yarrow went to seed and the plants started to go dormant.  Last year I used a lawn mower to mow the yarrow patches.  Using the haybine and baler were easier and quicker.

I could easily see the line where I had stopped spraying the weeds.

Dead yarrow from late spraying

Live yarrow

Fixing the irrigation leak

Accomplishments today:

1. Getting up early so I can move my irrigation pipes twice in one day,
2. Not falling asleep in the grocery store later when shopping (though I felt like it at times),
3. Surviving the crazy Flathead drivers driving fast and aggressive this morning (the out of state drivers looked a little scared),
4. Getting some hours of extra sleep after a full breakfast,
5. Fixing the irrigation pipe leak.

Fixing the leak took much longer than expected.

Below are some of the collars for the hook system to hold pipes together.  Below is my dad's repair job of a leak.  Now that I fixed that damaged pipe another way I have these collars to use as they were intended: to hook pipes together.  To fix the current pipe leak I planned to add a hook and collar to a steel pipe to hook to another pipe.  The problem?  While I brought all the tools I forgot the hook and collar and had to walk back to get it.

Then walking to the leak I noticed one of the sprinkler heads not throwing water like it should.  I walked back and got my wire used to unplug sprinkler nozzles.  When I restarted the sprinkler I found the spring that drives the clapper against the water now quit working.

*sigh*

I walked back and got another sprinkler head and once I turned off the irrigation pump I replaced bad sprinkler.  When I turned the pump back on I found the next sprinkler over was now acting odd.  It was moving really slow.  But it was moving.  So I "called it a day" with sprinkler repairs.

Below is the leak in the mainline pipes.  That is 20 feet the water is spraying.

In the close up view below you can see the pipes are not completely together.  Also the one gasket is broken and partially out.  So another walk back to get a new gasket.

This is the 7th pipe from the end.  I had to take all 7 apart.  I decided that another (the 5th) pipe should also have a collar and hook since I had it apart.  Another walk back to get another hook and collar.

Then when I put the hook and collar on the steel pipes I discovered I had no room to put a hook and collar on.

Huh?

Below is a successful placing of a hook and collar from back when I replaced the two damaged pipes.

But this connection (seen below) doesn't have room for a collar.  What gives?  The male and female sections should all be the same size.  The half circle used for the clamp for steel to steel pipe connections is welded on so I couldn't remove it.  So I went back to my wiring job.  My repair job stopped the leak and now all the sprinklers tossed their water a few feet more.

Why does everything have to have a "hiccup" and take longer?


Other news:  the cattle haven't broken through the corral panels and back into the weed hay.  My latest fix from a few days ago seems to be holding.  (I do see the cattle head that way each day to check it out.)

The cow with the bad leg is still limping a lot.  But the bandage is still on and her leg looks less swollen.

The cow with the bad jaw wants to be with the main herd and moos to call them.  Occasionally the bull stands along a nearby pasture fence and moos back at her.

At times the cattle stand along the hayfield fence and stare at the hayfield.  The grass really is greener in the hayfield.  The hayfield/middle pasture fence was rebuilt a few years ago so I have no worries about that.  The hayfield/south pasture fence has not been rebuilt and that worries me.  Since the hayfield is mostly alfalfa, if the cattle get in there and pig out, they could bloat and die.  No time to rebuild that fence right now so all I can do is watch and get more grey hairs.

Cow with jaw wound

I spoke with Dr. Hutter, the vet, a few times Friday about my cow with the bad jaw.  The jaw wound mostly likely was from an abscess last March/April.  She asked if the wound was still seeping.  No.  She expected the abscess to have some scar tissue.

I put the cow into the head gate and looked closer and took photos of the wound.  No seeping, but the scab is not completely healed.  Perhaps because the cow itches at it with her back leg?

I showed the photos to Dr. Hutter in the afternoon. She was surprised by the wound as it was not what she expected after an abscess drained.  I now have an 11 am appointment on Monday to bring the cow in for tests.

*sigh*

The wound doesn't seem to bother the cow (other than itching as it is trying to heal) and she eats fine.

Here are the photos I took:

This morning I started moving the irrigation pipes twice a day.  A first for me as this means getting up early (for me).  I am doing this for two reasons.  The first is that the new alfalfa and grass roots aren't deep so no need to water deep.  And the field and pastures are starting to dry up so getting water across them sooner than later is good.

I ended up replacing the sprinkler head I had problems with last night.  The spring is weak and unless one starts the "clapper" to spin the sprinkler head around it won't self start.  I also had to break off a tall piece of grass next to another sprinkler as the grass interfered and stopped that clapper from moving.  At some point I will have to turn off the pump and take apart some of the mainline pipe to adjust one pipe connection as it is starting to leak more and more.

Always something.   This afternoon a neighbor stopped on the road and told me I am working too hard.

Cow injury

The cow with the bad limp (cow #60) has been taken care of.   This morning she was in the middle pasture with the rest of the cattle and Donna and I got a good look at her.  The cow had a bad cut on the back and side of her right leg just above her hoof.  Her leg was swollen and she may have gotten an infection.  The cattle were all laying down and chewing their cuds so I let her be.  I opened the gates to the north pasture and corral and mid afternoon the cattle found them open.  She came limping as fast as she could behind the herd.

I separated her from the herd to be by herself in the corral. Then I loaded her into my stock trailer and took her to the cattle vet.  She checked the wound, cut the dead tissue away and cleaned the wound.  A bad looking cut but not one that cut or damaged tendons.   It could have been worse.

The vet wrapped the leg and gave her four shots of an anti-biotic.  Four shots as the medicine can burn so it is split into four doses.  The cow was well behaved during the cleaning and the shots.  Loading her back into my trailer was a challenge as she didn't want to step up into the trailer.  After we went around and around she finally went inside.

$99 vet bill.

Once we got her home I am keeping her in the south corral while she recovers.  It is drier and cleaner than walking into the river to drink water.  I got her calf in the corral with her.

The herd stood outside the corral and watched while I unloaded and moved the cow.  Cow #120 who had a swollen jaw back in March when she was pregnant needs some attention.  Back in April her swelling went down when it appeared (?) her abscess drained.   But looking at her now it doesn't seem like her wound has healed well.  So I got this cow and her calf into the corral along with cow #60.  I'll call the vet tomorrow and have this cow looked after.  If it's not one things... it's another.


How did cow #60 get her wound?  I suspect that is was when the cattle broke into the weed hay enclosure earlier this week.  They had trashed the fence posts and also ripped the three strands of barb wire off the posts.  I think cow #60 got entangled in the barb wire and cut her leg.    Weed hay... the gift that keep on giving.


Other than attending to the cows, I laid out several more lines of irrigation pipe.  Lots of work.  For one line I added one of the newer 30' pipes.  When I opened water to the line I found the sprinkler on the 30' pipe to be stuck.   Looking closer I found clips around the sprinkler restricting its movement.  Why?  It makes no sense.  So I had to go home and get pliers to remove the two clips.   As the pipe is 30' long and the sprinklers throw water 40' I got wet as I worked.  Making matters worse is the next sprinkler had two openings to throw water.  And the wind came up strong blowing water my way.  I was soaked and getting cold as the sun was setting by the time I got the clips removed.   When I got home I found one of my pliers is missing.  My favorite plier of the two pliers.

I have the sprinkler lines set so they just reach the fence line by the road,  The wind blew so strong (21 mph with gust to 33 mph) the water wasn't reaching even close to the fence line.

Everything is a struggle.

Another disaster

Some day I won't have a disaster and crisis....

I almost made it through the day without another crisis.   The irrigation was going fine.  In the evening I shut the pump off and moved the pipes, then restarted the pump.  While I did have to tighten the packing again to get the pump to pump water, the pump did start to pump water.

When I went to turn off the irrigation pump the bull was coming from the weed hay area.  Then I heard a calf crying.  I found a calf inside the corral panels and in the weed hay.  While the bull was in the south pasture near the irrigation shed, the cattle were in the middle pasture north of the shed.

I opened the corral panel and the calf ran out and was quickly gone crying for her mother.  No ear tag which I believe is Maria's calf -- unless another calf lost his or her ear tag.  By the time I left the corral panels a few minutes later the calf was gone.  Instead of going to the far end of the pasture and the gate I think the calf went through the old three strand barb wire fence as that was the shortest distance to her mother.  I don't know how long the calf was in the corral panels but I do think I may have briefly and faintly heard a cow or calf mooing earlier in the day.

The corral panels were still in place.  None of the fence posts were pulled out of the ground.  All panels were still wired to the posts.  One panel was bent way up from the bottom.  Not just the bottom rung was bent up, but the bottom two rungs were bent up to the third rung.  It wasn't high enough for the cattle to get underneath but I think the calf crawled under the bent panel to get inside.  I jumped on the bent rungs and bent them back down.  Much more of this and the bottom rungs will break and this corral panel will be completely ruined.

My disaster came when I went back to restart the irrigation pump.  The cattle were in the middle pasture eating but one calf walked into the south pasture looking and mooing for its mother.  I then saw a cow laying under a tree near the south pasture south fence.  The calf went to the cow.  After I started the pump I seen the calf leave and go back to the middle pasture.  A cow alone is strange.  Something may be wrong.  I walked over and the cow stood up.  When she tried to walk I seen she had trouble walking.  Something is wrong with her back left leg.  Since she was away from the herd she didn't want me to be near her.  I didn't want to "push" her as she was injured.  It was after 9 pm and it would be getting dark soon.  Tomorrow I will check her out.  Other than trouble walking she didn't seem to be in distress.  I think I will have to get her in the corral to limit her walking.  And to see what her injury is.

As soon as I fix one problem another one happens.  I can't catch a break.

Now on to the irrigation

After more than three weeks of my hay hassle, it was past time to get the irrigation going.  I believe the last time it rained was when I cut my hayfield back the end of June.  The alfalfa in the hayfield seems to be growing nicely but the ground is dry and I hear crunching when I walk in parts of the hayfield.  But first I had to get my hay in which included driving across the hayfield when moving Wyatt's hay bales.

While waiting for John's and Calvin's hay to dry I laid out my mainline irrigation pipe.  If you remember most sections are steel pipe so this is a one day effort after which I rest.  Two of the aluminum sections had holes and leaked.  I usually put up with it but last year at the end of the irrigation season I has a small lake around one pipe.  So I decided to take off my dad's fix/patch and fix the holes.

One pipe (the 'lake' pipe) had a large hole but not a long one.  I have no idea how the pipe got the hole.  The other pipe looked like my dad had hit it with teeth from a swather.  The pipe didn't have a hole but a longish crack with additional indentations in the pipe.  Last year I used JB Weld to patch small holes in sprinkler line pipes and that worked well.   I patched the two pipes with JB Weld.  After one day I even added a little more JB Weld.  All looked good.

Yesterday I put the patched pipes into the mainline and laid out a long sprinkler line.  Last Fall at auction I had bought a few more sprinkler pipes.  These pipes were 30' long instead of the usual 40'.  But I included some in the sprinkler line I laid out.  I found I had to adjust the hooks and collars.  Each collar had two bolts.  In each case one of the two bolts wouldn't unscrew.  I ended up twisting the bolt in two.  So I had to go get newer bolts.

When I reattached the input pipe into the river I found weeds had grown underwater right where my pipe went.  I had to spend time to remove the weeds so they didn't clog my intake pipe.

It was getting evening so I was getting tired.  I forgot to bring a wrench in case I had to tighten the pump's packing.  I tried starting the pump several times but it wouldn't pump water.  A long walk home to get a wrench.

After I tightened the pump's packing bolts the pump pumped water.

After I flushed out the lines and put the pipe's end caps in I noticed I didn't quite have the water pressure I expected.  The reason: the pipe with the long crack split and water sprayed out.  In this short time the water was already making a hole in the ground. I turned off the pump.

The other pipe repair seemed to be holding.  I called Myron, from who I bought a 20' section of pipe last year.  He had a few 40' sections of pipe.  It was 9 pm but he said I could come over and get them so I can get to irrigating.  I hooked up my irrigation pipe trailer and discovered the wheels won't turn.

Really??!!!  Can nothing go right?!

I canceled getting the pipe and today worked on the trailer.  My neighbor Curtis recommended opening the plug in the differential and draining the water and junk oil out.   In the photos below you can see one of the two plugs.  There is a plug at the bottom.  The plug you can see at the back is where you add oil and fill to that level.

I expected the plugs to be rusted solid but I was able to easily remove them.  Out drained about two tablespoons of water.  No oil.   No wonder the differential froze up.  I used a blowtorch to heat and dry the differential before adding oil.  Lots of steam came out of the holes.   The wheels still wouldn't turn so I had to drive back and reverse to rock the trailer and wheels back and forth repeatedly to free them.  Finally they turned.  I then added lots of oil and was able to go get an irrigation pipe from Myron after he got off work.

I took my leaky pipe along.  Myron had a machine that can fuse two pieces of pipe together.  He cut out the bad section and fused the pipe together.  The pipe is three feet shorter but that is ok.  My mainline was a little too long and I had to angle the last line of sprinkler pipe so as not to water part of the road.  Reducing the pipe three feet was perfect.

I also bought another piece of pipe.  I didn't trust my other JB Weld repair job.  Next year I will add-in and test the repaired pipe as I plan to used the newly bought pipe to replace two 20' steel pipes. Much easier to carry one 40' aluminum pipe than one 20' steel pipe.  It was worth the $$ to buy the aluminum pipe.

So after 9 pm tonight (July 24) I turned on the irrigation pump.  Again I had to tighten the packing to start pumping even though I had shut off the pump with water primed in it.   Now everything is working and I am finally irrigating my fields. And all the sprinkler heads worked without me having to adjust or unplug any after sitting over the Winter.  Finally something goes right.


The other major annoyance yesterday was that four of the cattle got inside the corral panels around the weed hay.  The Bull, Beulah, a heifer and a calf.  They had pigged out but now couldn't get out.  Several corral panels had their bottom rail bent upwards.  So I think the cattle lifted the corral panels up and slid underneath.

The 12 corral panels had the metal t-posts inside against them and some were wired to the panels.  None were wired now.  Over half of the posts were bent or laying on the ground.  None of the barb wire was on the posts.  The 12 panels were still attached to one another even though some were bent.  The square of the corral panels was pushed north.  The southern panels were against the hay bales and this is where the cattle must have gotten in as these were bent panels.  No posts on the south side were standing.  The north side of the panel square were away from their posts.   12 panels as a unit moved.  Amazing.

I could only unhook panels on the north side.  I made an opening for the cattle to get out. But it was behind bales and the cattle's view.  They wanted out the same way they got in: the south side.  I tried to herd them around the bales to the opening but they refused to go.  (I tried to herd the cow, heifer and calf.  The bull had just laid down as I found them and in an enclosed area didn't want to try to herd him.)

Around and around I went.  The cattle realized I wasn't trying to herd the bull so they all crowded around him.  *augh!!*   I got a stick to reach around the bull to herd the cattle. Finally Beulah saw the opening and exited the corral.  Once that happened the others went too, one-by-one, finally the bull.

I pushed the south panels out away from the hay and chased away the cattle lingering outside the panels.  The heifer immediately went to the river to drink.  Once Beulah's calf drank from Beulah, and the other calf drank from its mother, then went to the river to drink.  It was a hot sunny afternoon without a little shade and who knows how long they were in there.

A few hours later when I went to turn on the irrigation pump I heard "rattle, rattle, rattle" from the weed hay.  Two-thirds of the herd had pushed the southern panels back against the bales and were reaching to eat what they could.

Seriously cattle!   That is weed hay and will make you sick.   Stop it!!!

This morning I went and fixed the corral panels.  I removed all the barb wire as that was useless.  South of the panels the ground was soft and the cattle had stomped the wire deep not the ground.  For a while I thought I would have to go get a shovel to dig a section of the wire out, but after a lot of effort I was able to pull the wire out of the ground.

Trying to pull barb wire out of the ground.

Once I squared out the corral panels and moved the southern panels away from the bales I pretty much re-did all of the posts. I straightened the bent posts and this time I pounded all of the posts deeper into the ground than normal.  I moved the northern post out to be against the corral panels.  I wired all of the posts to panels.

We'll see how long this will last.   I am liken my cattle to criminals.  Sometimes I marvel at all the work some criminal went through to break the law and get something.  The same for these cattle.  They really worked to get and eat the weed hay.  You know, if it was safe to feed it to the cattle I would feel bad at feeding them this junk weed hay.

I started with 12 bales and now am down to 9 and 1/2 bales.  So far they don't seem ill - just fat as houses.  I hope they don't abort their new year calves.  I'll have to keep an eye out as to whether the bull will breed any in the next month as they all should be already bred.

What I had hoped would be the final solution.

The hay as of July 24.

Last of the hay

With Donna's and Wyatt's hay in the hayshed I turned my attention to cutting John's and Calvin's fields.  This year I cut both Calvin's upper and lower parts of the field.  Some years the upper field doesn't have enough grass to make it worthwhile to cut; other years I have to wait a few more weeks for the lower part to dry.

It took me 11 hours to cut everything.  While the acreage is not large, it is all grass.  The upper parts are fine grass and the lower parts are thick tall grass.  For each I have to cut a little slower than usual.  Some haybines (mine included) struggle with fine grass and can "miss" some of it, especially when going too fast.

Otherwise no problems cutting the grass.

The weather has been in the 80s and dry with a breeze.  The grass dried quickly.  Two days after cutting the fields I raked the upper parts to make fewer and larger rows to bale.  Then immediately I began to bale the grass.   Once I finished John's field I began to bale Calvin's.  I got one bale made before dark.  Which was fine as I found part of the lower corner still had some green grass at the bottom of the thick windrow.

The next day I waited till the afternoon to begin baling again.  By then all the grass was dry.

The only hiccup in baling was that one bale ended up only being wrapped with twine for half the width.  Don't know why as everything seemed to work when I wrapped the bale.  I took care in hauling the bale to my hayshed.  That went better than I expected as barely any hay flaked off the bale as I moved it.

Before I moved the rest of the bales into the hayshed I first had to haul off to the barn all the loose hay that came off the bales when I had problems stacking Donna's and Wyatt's hay.  I ended up with four pickup loads of loose hay.

The final result.  (I kept the sad, misshapen and twineless hay in front to be used first.)

I am finally done with the hay this year. I even slept in (until Daisy woke me up.)    Things appeared to finally be going well.  Well.... that was before today.  Today (July 23) was a challenging day with many things not going well.  A story for another day.

Stacking Donna's and Wyatt's hay

Now that I baled Donna's and Wyatt's hay it was time to put the bales in the hayshed.

I put all the bales on two layer of pallets.  To keep them off the ground because even with dry ground moisture can work its way up from the ground into the bale.  And also, in the Spring as snow melts outside the shed the water can seep up the ground inside the hayshed in low spots.

The first row appeared to go well.

What a nice looking stacked row.

Looks are deceiving. I had stacked those bales the evening before.  As I started the second row the next day I double checked the first row.  The top bales were leaning against the back of the hayshed and the middle posts started to lean outward slightly.

Not good.

I took the top layer down and tried to restack it so not to lean against the wall.  The bales wanted to fall towards me as I tried to remove the bale spear.  So I had to re-stack the second layer.  Same thing.  The bales wanted to fall towards me as I removed the bale spear.  So I had to re-position the first layer further from the wall.

Now the second and third layers wouldn't balance.  I re-stacked and re-stacked and re-stacked.  Nothing worked.  I have stacked three layers before and got it to balance.  Not with these bales. Finally I got the idea of using boards to hold the bales while I created the second row.  The plan was for the first and second rows to lean against one another.

That was the plan.  One time I got as far as having only one board left holding the bales.  But when I removed the board the third layer came falling down.  I ran like mad and escaped the falling bale.  The board was broken into three pieces.   My final try had the third layer balancing when I removed all the boards.  When I started to build the second layer of the second row suddenly down everything came.

As you can see the bales were getting compressed and misshapen.  I swapped these bales out for fresh round bales.  Still I couldn't get it to work.

One time when the bales fell, one bale ripped all the twine off another bale.

Also when the bales fell they would flex and the twine would loosen.  Not good either.

So after hours of trying to make this work I gave up.  The first row has only two layers.  The rest of the rows have three layers.  The third layer of the second and third rows lean back towards the first row.  That is ok as the pressure appears to be on the first row's second layer and not on the back wall.

Moving Donna's and Wyatt's hay.

Now that I baled the hay it was time to get the hay into my hayshed.

For Donna's 12 bales (11 as I moved one in my baler when finished), my neighbor Curtis had his truck.   We hauled three bales at a time.  Curtis thought we could stack the bales two high and we could carry 5 at a time.  I did a test and put 4 on his truck.  Even though we put a strap over the fourth bale, he only drove a short distance across the uneven field and the bale fell off.  The bale stayed together but the bounce loosened the twine a little bit.  So we stuck with three bales at a time.  With only 11 bales to move it added only one more trip.

Unloading the bales was easy.  I could leave my tractor in Donna's field.

The bale still on the truck is the one that had fallen and bounced earlier.

Wyatt's 42 bales meant 42 trips from his field to my hayshed.  I moved the cattle into the middle pasture so I could leave the south gate open to Wyatt's field, and also the gate between the south pasture and the hayfield.  I still had the bad leg cow and the other cow and calf in the north pasture so I had to drive through the hayfield to the NE pasture to reach the hayshed.  Below you can see the "road" that was created across the hayfield.  The new hayfield's alfalfa and grass roots are not deep yet and the plants got worn out.  The pasture grass was flattened but the grass will come back there.

Wyatt's field is rough from all the pocket gopher mounds.  I could only move three bales an hour.  So 14 hours to move all the bales.  Midway through the last day I discovered the bull standing in the hayfield by the gate furiously eating the new alfalfa and grass.  Six cows were in the south pasture.  Other cows and calves were across the gate in the middle pasture not happy they were not in the south pasture.  The river level is low and the 7 must have walked in the river around the fence.

Using the tractor I finally herded the bull back into the south pasture.  I ran and closed both gates.  Then I tried to get the bull and cows to go back to the middle pasture.  Nope.  The middle pasture cattle tried to get to the south pasture when I opened the gate.  I called Donna and she came and handled the gate as I herded the south pasture cattle back to the middle pasture.   We were about to leave when here came another cow from the back of the south pasture.  Great. I forgot to count that all the cattle were in the middle pasture.  I got cow #60 back into the middle pasture. I counted.  One cow short.  And on cue, here came Maria (cow #7) waddling from back of the south pasture.  (I think she had come from checking on the weed hay).

Once I got Maria into the middle pasture I continued to move bales from Wyatt's field.  I finished moving the last bale just before dark.   The cattle had stayed in the middle pasture until the next day.  With the outside gates closed it didn't matter which pasture they were in.  They can now move freely between the south and middle pastures and save me from having to go out and open a gate when half the herd crosses via the river and the half herd that remains complains.


The sad story continues with another episode tomorrow.

Hay from Donna and Wyatt

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Donna offered her hay as I now needed hay.

No problems cutting her field.

The problems were when I baled her hay.  First off, I used the wrong lever after I made my first hay bale.  For all my bales of weed hay I did not wrap twine around the bale and went for the lever to dump the bale.  For the first bale at Donna's place that's what I did.  I needed to twine the bale first as her grass was shorter than an alfalfa/grass mix.   The shorter grass would not hold together without twine.  Too late.  I pushed the wrong lever.

I had to re-bale the whole bale.  First I had to unroll the bale.  I had to use the tractor's loader arms to initially move the bale.  After a few revolutions I was able to manually push the bale to unroll the hay.  Manually unrolling the bale allowed the row to be "smooth" instead of having clumps when pushing it with the tractor.  Still the act of feeding the hay back into baler was a pain as several times the hay would clog in the baler's pickup and I would have to stop and yank and pull the hay from the pickup and try to smooth the intake row.  I had to make many passes to get all the hay back into the baler.

Normally it would take me 40 to 45 minutes to make a bale from Donna's windrows.  I didn't have my first bale until after two and a half hours.  Needless to say I didn't make the 'wrong lever' mistake again this year.  (I better not jinx myself as I have one more bale to make tomorrow.)

Because I needed Curtis to help me haul the hay from Donna's place to my place, I would line up each bale I made in Donna's field near the road.  I was starting to make the ninth bale when the baler's pickup was kicking up dirt.  When I got out to see why I found the baler's tire was flat.  Again?!  The same tire?!

This happened right at 6 pm.  When do the tire repair shops close for the day?  6 pm.  I had to wait until the next morning to fix the flat.  The repair shop said there was a hole in the tube and a hole in the tire and they patched both.  No idea what caused the hole.  Donna keeps a clean field so I have no idea.

Donna's jack is nicer than my old bottle jack. I now have a new jack like this one thanks to Donna.

Back to baling once I got the tire back on the baler.  I had four bales left to make.  Three bales I placed together in the middle of the field closer to where I was baling.  The fourth bale I carried in the baler as I drove home.  I drove slowly as the paved road had cracks and was bumpy.

I made it to my driveway with no problems.  *Whew*   I had to stop and open the gate by the garage.  As I drove through the gate and into the north pasture the baler was bouncing up and down like the tire was flat.  It was!!!!  I couldn't believe it.  Not again?!!!

The tire repair shop was surprised to see me after only a few hours.  I told them they needed to find the problem.   They did.   The tire had a cut in the sidewall.  With the weight of a full bale in the baler the tube would get in the cut and pinch the tube and cause a flat.  This explains why the flat tires happened this year.  Other years I dumped the bale once it was fully formed and move on to making the next bale.  The shop could patch the tire but since the patch is on the tire's sidewall no guarantee how long the patch would hold.   I spent $118 and bought a new tire.

New $118 tire.

Then it was on to finally baling Wyatt's field.  I was a day late and his hay was getting dry.

I had half of the fourth bale made when the baler started to make a loud squealing sound.  The right outer large belt had twisted and twisted and jammed.  I had to dump the bale.  No matter how opened or closed the baler was, the belt had no slack for me to try to untwist it.  I was closer to Wyatt's house than my house so I went there first.   With his tractor he pulled up on the baler's tensioning arm and this gave us a little slack.  Between the two of us we eventually got the belt untwisted.  I did not have to unlace the belt which was a good thing as the extra tension from the twisting did a number on the belt's laces.  I still could use the belt but a new 'to-do" project is to enhance the belt's laces in the future.

I think I figured out why the belt can get twisted.  When the hay windrow is not wide, and I drive for an extended time on one side and not wobble back and forth, the hay doesn't make it all the way across the baler and one side of the bale is smaller than the rest of the bale.  This causes the belt to tilt sideways and eventually twist as it rotates.  Once I figured this out and would see the few times when a bale was "off" I would move the hay pickup over and the incoming hay would fill and make the bale level all the across.

I started baling Wyatt's hay on a Thursday afternoon and finished on Saturday afternoon.  I made 42 and 1/2 bales.


My sad saga is not over yet... It continues.

Cattle and the weed hay

It was late last night when the last of the videos uploaded and I published my blog post.  So I forgot to say that my sad saga would continue.   Here is tonight's episode.

I thought the cattle would be curious about the weed hay, but with green grass they would move on.  I wouldn't have worry about the weed hay until Fall when the grass dried up.  I didn't really have time right now to build a fence around the weed hay.

Sunday, July 8, I checked and the cattle were pigging out on the weed hay. They thought it was fantastic and wouldn't listen when I told them it could make them sick.  Seriously cattle!!!

I planned on buying hay from my neighbor, Wyatt.  After supplying his regular customer's (who he calls the pretty horse ladies) he wasn't sure he would have enough hay left for all that I needed.  Donna still had plenty of hay leftover from last year for her horses so she let me have her field.  Between her field and Wyatt's I should have more than enough hay.  I wanted to get Donna's field cut and baled before Wyatt's field so I would know how much I needed from Wyatt.   Wyatt, even with swather problems, finished cutting his field on Saturday.  I needed to cut Donna's field Sunday if I had hopes of baling her hay before Wyatt's.

So I let the cattle be in the weed hay for now and cut Donna's field in the afternoon.  For once something went well and I finished cutting her field early evening.   Before dark I got barb wire and fence posts and started building a fence around the weed hay.  First Donna helped me herd the cattle to the middle pasture where they wouldn't have access to the weed hay.  I got the steel fence posts in the ground by dark.  Because I was worried about not having enough room I had pushed some of the hay bales back farther.  Three hay bales more than the others.  Now I wanted to push the three bales back to be next to the rest.  After sitting a few days the bales started to get flat on the bottom.  Also pushing the bales back over hay that earlier unraveled as the bales rolled, was another hindrance.  So I was 4 fence posts short.

Monday afternoon I went to finish the fence.  First I pitchforked some of the "3 bales" hay back to the group and eventually was able to roll the three bales back to the group.  I didn't need the 4 posts after all.

I built a three strand barb wire fence around the bales.  While the high temperature that day was 91 degrees, where the bales were was a low spot among trees and mostly sunny with no air flow.  So add another 5 to 10 degrees to the 91. The previous evening mosquitoes were a problem.  To my great surprise they were much worse Monday afternoon in the heat and sun.  Fortunately I had brought bug spray.  Still, the mosquitos were very distracting as hundreds flew around me looking for an unprotected spot as I worked.  So I left the fence at three wires.  That should be good enough.

I remembered the bug spray - I forgot water or food.  By the time I opened the gate to let the cattle back into the south pasture I was weak and seeing spots and on the road to heat exhaustion.  I had trouble counting the cattle as they passed through the gate.  Still I noticed the bull was missing.  I looked and found him with the two cows in the north pasture.  Half the middle/north pasture fence is still only three strands with the top strand just a wire and not barb wire.  The bull broke the wire and hopped over the fence to be with one cow who was coming into heat.  When the bull saw the rest of the cows go to the south pasture he stood by the gate and waited for me to open it.  As he walked to join the cows the cow coming in heat also wanted to join the bull (the heck with her calf!).  I closed the gate and kept her in the north pasture.  Later, and for 24 hours she and the bull would call to each other across the pastures.   In the morning the bull stood by the south/middle pasture gate in hopes I would open it for him.   Nope.

Tuesday I sprayed weeds all day.  I am way behind schedule for spraying.

Wednesday morning I planned on baling Donna's hay.  First I had to talk with a neighbor about buying some hamburger from my upcoming cow.  That talk took longer than planned.   Then I notice Wyatt was raking his hay.  So I had to go talk with him as I hadn't talked with him since before he cut his hay.  He was raking the hay so I could bale later that afternoon.  "Well... first I have to bale Donna's field."

After talking with Wyatt I walked over to check the weed hay and fence.  I found a half dozen cattle standing there eating the weed hay.  The cattle had pushed the top two barb wires down to the level of the lowest wire and stepped over it into the hay.  Oh, for Heaven's sakes!

I was late to baling Donna's hay and had to go.  I would think of what to do about the weed hay as I baled.

I had major problems baling her hay (a future blog post) so I had the evening free.  I took twelve of the temporary green corral panels and made a fence around the weed hay (after chasing the cows away from the weed hay).  That seems to have solved this problem - though I haven't checked for a few days.  When these cows want something they work and work at it.

The hay before the cattle found it.

Tobey the bull.

The two youngest calves got in the action.

Chowing down.  Who needs mother's milk?

Mama is behaving and not in the weed hay.  Instead she messed with my wheelbarrow.

From where I had rolled the three bales back.  One bale can be seen lower right.

My simple fence - which didn't stop determined cattle.

Fence?  What fence?  That didn't stop us.

Hopefully the final solution.

And yes, the sad saga continues…