Splitting logs for the year

Well, since I couldn't really do much fence rebuilding this Fall I needed some activity to do.  While I already had enough logs split for burning in my wood stove for a year or two, I decided to split more logs.  I have lots of logs that still need to be split for firewood, probably enough logs for three or four more years of burning.  While the pole shed storage for split logs is full and stacked to the roof rafters, I had room in my patio for this Fall's split logs.  Since I wasn't planning on splitting all the logs I just split some logs each day so as not to over tax my condition.

The paper bags in the background hold the bark and very small split wood pieces.  They burn easier and help start the fire in the wood stove.

Well, time passed and I split lots of logs. (Though I still have lots and lots of logs left to split.)  A few weeks ago I decided to quit splitting logs for the year.  Just in the patio I have more logs split and ready to burn than probably what I'll burn this Winter (unless Winter turns brutally cold before it is over).

While I have "quit" splitting logs that doesn't mean I won't still split a few logs on occasion.  I have a large stack of logs out in the pasture and sometimes when closing or opening a gate to feed cattle some hay I pick up a log that looks like it should be split and bring it back to split later.  So the pile of split logs in the following photo now actually continues on to the end of the ladder and the stack is almost as high as the wood pallets leaning against the picnic table.   I guess it doesn't hurt to have more split logs than I need this Winter.

Icy weather when bicycling

Not much ranch work I can do now with frozen ground so every day I ride my bicycle.  This December I set a record for the most miles ridden in the month of December: 681 miles.  And I may have one day left to add miles depending on the weather tomorrow.  The forecast for today was a chance of maybe a little blue sky in the afternoon.  Nowhere close.   And the forecast for tomorrow was a chance of icy rain in the afternoon.  The weather forecast got mixed up.   A light icy drizzle started this afternoon.  It started during my bicycle ride.  Yeah... not ideal.   I had nine miles left to ride home when it started.   It was so light one couldn't really feel it.  But after a while when I would reach up to my face with my hand I could hear my bicycling jacket's arm crinkle due to the light ice on it.  The road looked okay but I rode slower and at times in the small amount of snow on the road pavement's side.  Ice on snow is better than ice on pavement at this time.

I made it home without any problems.

I do wear a bicycle helmet now-a-days since I'm not sure my skull is completely healed.

It is kind of hard to see but there is ice on my helmet and gloves.

Sawmill cut boards

I had mentioned in my previous post about nailing up a few fence boards that due to my accident I hadn't worked with Curtis to cut some of my odd logs into fence boards using Curtis's sawmill.   Well, when I was nailing the boards on the fence Curtis came by, and since the weather then has been decent and around 40 degrees, he suggested we should cut my logs into boards sometime over the next few days.  So we did.  Before my accident I had brought three short odd logs over to Curtis's place (they can be seen laying on the concrete just behind the first roof post in the next photo).  Since then I found more logs that could be cut so I brought them over the day we cut the logs.

A few years ago Curtis had bought a portable sawmill and learned to cut wood.  You can see the sawmill in the back of this photo closer to the white truck.   It took us a little under two hours to cut my wood.   A number of the cut boards looks great.  It is almost a shame to use them as fence boards but I don't have skill to make furniture or something that rich people would pay to have in their home.

A couple of my longer logs we later cut.

My cut wood

Cut wood stacked for use next year

Adding a few fence boards

My last fence work this year.  A week or so ago I added fence boards to two railroad ties I had in the ground already.  Formerly I had three 2 by 4 boards between the ties where the fence restarted west of the hayshed. This Spring the cattle knocked off the three boards.  There is no real grass on the other side of the fence but the few blades of grass must have been enticing to the cattle when they were in this area during the calving season as I had put up some temporary panels to make the corral a little larger.  I didn't put the panels or the electric wire along this fence.  As you can see the metal fence wire is bent down at the top due to the cattle reaching over the metal fence.

This was one of my Fall fence projects before my September accident.  I figured I would add four to six more railroad ties as posts for this fence area.  I had planned on adding boards to the railroad ties.  That way during next Spring's calving season the cattle won't be able to reach over this fence.  But my accident recovery took the time away from doing this work this year.   But recently the weather was good, and while the ground is frozen and I can't put in additional fence posts, I found some boards to nail to the existing railroad ties.  I had planned on using other boards, but also derailed by my accident was having Curtis cut some of my logs into fence boards using his sawmill.

Anyway, here are photos of the fence work I did recently.  The property line and fence is just north of the hayshed, that is why the fence posts are not right at the hayshed corner.

An old swather I never fixed up and used.

Split railroad tie fence post repair

Over the Summer I had a railroad tie that had the potential to split, got split because of the bull.  Back when I still had two cows in the NE pasture the bull wanted to visit them.  Since he had serviced the rest of the cows I let him into the NE pasture.  Well, after a couple days the bull wanted to go back to the rest of the cows to recheck them.  He pushed on the gate and bent it up and twisted it at the end.  But he didn't get through the gate until I later let him out to rejoin the rest of the cows.  The gate was chained to a railroad tie.  The bull's pushing against the gate caused the railroad tie to split in two quite a way down.

Late this Fall I used the tractor and also a sledgehammer to try to straighten the hard metal gate.  I was able to hammer the bent rail pretty straight as you can't tell the bottom rail is crooked anymore near the end of the gate.  Using the tractor I drove on, and later used the tractor's loader when the gate was rehung, to try to bend the cockeyed twist out of the gate.  The gate is less twisted, but still has a bit of twist.  At the end near the railroad tie the bottom of the gate is at one side of the tie and the top of the gate is at the other side of the tie.  Lots better than before.  You can't see the cockeyed twist from the angle I took the following photos.

Once the gate was 'straightened' I worked on the railroad tie.  Not a pretty fix, but the tie is back together and not apart more inches like it was.  The fix is much easier to do than digging the tie out of the ground and replacing it with another railroad tie, especially since when I made the fix the ground was already frozen for the year.

Partial corral fence rebuild

Before my September accident I had plenty of fence rebuilds planned for the Fall.  I only got one fence rebuild done before the ground froze for the year. (I'm not counting the two minor fence fixes due to the bull breaking through the yard fence.) So lots of fence work was not done this Fall. Importantly the fence rebuild with a new gate between the toolshed and garage was not done even though the morning of the accident I had gotten the necessary gate and posts out for the planned rebuild start later that day.   With the ground frozen now this fence rebuild won't happen until next Spring.

But I was able over time this October and November rebuild part of the east corral fence.  This is a corral fence I first rebuilt way back in 2006 I believe.  It was before I got enough railroad ties to use as fence posts.  I rebuilt this corral fence over the previous mentioned fence (in the previous photo) because I wanted to rebuild this corral fence before weaning the calves in the corral.

After the rebuild in 2006.

After the rebuild was done this November.

As you can see I replaced four of the posts with railroad ties for posts.  I got rid of the small walk through gate I had built back then. Time was not too good for that gate.  I also replaced about a quarter of the split rails as time wasn't good for them either.  Because the cattle try to eat the walnut tree I made the fence section by the tree one rail taller.  I added wire fencing to the corral fence so the cattle wouldn't try to put their heads through the fence and also to protect the tree in that section of fence.

This fence rebuild was not a big effort,  Except I was still recovering from my September accident.  So the rebuild took more than two days to do.  While I normally can put three or four railroad ties in the ground as post fences in one day, surprisingly in my condition I was able to put two railroad ties in the ground in one day.  Maybe it was a bit too much for me to do as I had to wait a few days before I could work on the fence again.  This time I only put one railroad tie into the ground.  That is all I was able to do in October as a day or so later I had to put the calves in the corral to wean them.

A side effect of digging was that with each post I encountered more and more gravel as I dug.  No gravel for the first post closer to the loafing shed.  Mostly gravel by the third post.

Third fence post hole

As you can see in the previous photos, another thing I did was move the railroad tie posts into the corral a few feet.  That is because the gate was in a certain location.  I don't why the original fence builders had done it, but when starting at the well and water trough they moved the fence location out a few feet.  The fence went that way until the loafing shed where the last section angled a few feet back in to the loafing shed.   Now I wasn't rebuilding the fence all the way to the well, I wasn't even rebuilding the fence to the gate, and I certainly wasn't going to move the gate two feet.  But for the part of the fence I rebuilt I moved it over a few feet so the fence started at the loafing shed in a straight line.  I left the last two posts next to the gate.  So I angled the fence from the last railroad tie to the first original post near the gate.  In the meantime, since I wasn't done with the fence rebuild and I had calves in the corral now, I had to use an old metal gate to block the two foot gap between the old and new fence.  It worked as no calves got out of the corral.

After the calves were hauled to the livestock auction on October 30, I was able in November to finish my planned rebuild of this fence.  A challenge now was that it was freezing hard at night.  To dig the hole for the fourth railroad tie I had to break through three or four inches of frozen ground to get to unfrozen ground and dig the hole I needed for the post.

My finished fence rebuild

Higher rebuilt fence next to the walnut tree.

You can see how I got the rebuilt fence angled back to the gate.

Cutting a fallen tree

Once I got the tree stump dug and removed I looked for something else to do.  Even though the chainsaw's chain was worn I tried to use the chainsaw to cut up this fallen tree.  I got about three-fourths of the tree cut before the chain became useless.  The chain was old and worn and I already had planned on replacing the chain next year.  I wanted this tree cut up so I used a handsaw and cut the remaining tree.  The chainsaw had cut over half the tree from the narrow end to past the middle.  I also had cut a few pieces from the larger end. So... I had to use the handsaw on mostly the larger end of the tree.  Needless to say it took me a handful of days (in October and November) to finish cutting the tree, partly because I was still recovering from my September accident and partly because the tree was so thick.

A month ago another strong wind storm tipped over another dead tree.  Fortunately this time the tree was thinner, less than half as thick as this tree in the photo and not as tall.   Again I wanted to cut up the tree to remove it from the pasture and use it as firewood.  I had to use a handsaw again.  But it only took me about four or five days of taking a little time each day to cut up that tree.

Digging a tree stump

When recovering in early to mid October from my September accident I couldn't just lay around and do nothing.  But even now I am surprised at what I did back then.  I don't think I was home a week before I started to walk in my pastures to check things out.  I thought before the accident I had eliminated all the pocket gophers from my fields, but I was wrong.  I discovered fresh dirt mounds in the middle pasture.  Well, it isn't too hard to check a pocket gopher trap once a day.

Before the accident there started to be at times a pattern where the pocket gophers would try to avoid the traps or fill them with dirt.  It could take quite a number of days to finally trap the pocket gopher.  So I expected that to happen again.  There was a small tree stump out near the pocket gopher trap.  The stump was very short so one could drive over it.  But one wouldn't want to drive a vehicle tire over the stump itself.  I figured that I could dig a little each day around the stump after I checked the pocket gopher trap.  I caught the pocket gopher in one day.

The stump?  It turns out this "small looking" stump was one of the biggest stumps I dug around.  It turns out the stump was from a western larch / tamarack tree. Even though the tree was a stump for at least several decades - or more - it hadn't decayed and was hard and solid.  Also with no tap root the stump's roots were six major roots.

I didn't plan on digging too deep around the roots - just deep enough that after burning the stump it would be low enough that it wouldn't squeeze out of the ground until I later passed away.  But some of the roots went sideways and intertwined with out of the stump's roots.  As I dug around the stump I dug deeper and deeper. Then I got the idea to cut and remove a few of the roots using my chainsaw so I more easily dig around the rest of the stump's roots.  My chainsaw's chain already had been worn down, and with the hard roots the chain eventually mostly wore out.  But I did remove three of the six roots using the chainsaw, and one more using an axe.

By now yet another day passed and by now I felt I may as well keep digging deep around the remaining roots.  The roots get narrow when they go lower in the ground.  I decided to use an axe and I chopped and cut and removed the remaining roots.  So much for burning the stump to get rid of it.

I hauled off the stump I had cut and removed.  It completely filled my pickup's bed!

Normally it would have taken me two, maybe three days, to dig and remove the stump. It took me a week as I didn't have strength to dig much or for a long time each day.  Often I would kneel and dig as standing much was still an issue for me.  Often I would only dig for a few hours each day.  Near the end I worked a long day.  The weather forecast was for a pattern change and it was suppose to start raining the next day.  I felt if I put in a long day I would be in a position where I wouldn't have to dig in muddy dirt.  One of my accident's side effects for a while was that my appetite wasn't working.  I wouldn't get a feeling where I felt I had to eat.  So I forgot about the time and eating as I worked on the stump.  When recovering I often had to take a break and rest numerous times.  It was late afternoon when the latest rest turned into a collapse.  I suddenly lost all my strength due to the lack of eating.  I had to lay on the ground a long time in order to get enough strength to stand and walk back home.  Fortunately the cattle were not in this pasture so I didn't have to worry about them walking on me as I lay there.

Therefore, I didn't get all of the stump dug that day.  But the weather forecast was wrong.  It didn't rain the next day and I was able to complete digging, and even removing, the stump.

That is the only stump I removed this Fall this year.  I wasn't going to chance any future problems by working on another stump this year.


I forgot to take a photo before I started digging.  But what had been above ground only was the two black top sections of the roots in the back.  That is why I didn't think the stump was as big as it turned out to be.

Not quite all of the dirt I had dug.

The roots I had cut mainly with a chainsaw.

The remaining roots to remove the day after I had collapsed.

Remaining root removed using an axe.

Some of the roots I had dug and removed.  I had more roots elsewhere around the hole.

I used my tractor to push the dirt back into the stump's hole.

Calf weaning and sale

Fall is the time to wean my calves and then sell them at the livestock auction.  Usually I do this the first half of October.   Due to my September accident and hospital stay and then recovery this changed.  This year I weaned the calves the second half of October and then sold them at auction on October 31.

Even without my accident the weaning and selling would be a little different.  That is because one calf was born July 1 and the last calf was born on September 8.  They were too young to sell.  Or sell and get a decent price for them.  So I didn't wean or sell these two calves.

The accident affected my hearing.  I lost some hearing in my right ear, but then I am also more sensitive to certain sounds.  One sound I found out about was bawling calves when they are being weaned.  Weaned calves always seem to bawl for a few days and can be loud.  This year they sounded louder and more annoying to me than usual.  But Donna told me the calves were sounding the same as usual and they were not louder. But it was very annoying me.

44 second video of the calves crying over to their mothers across the fence when being weaned.  This was taken a day or two after they started being weaned so some were starting to temporarily lose their voice as they hadn't quit bawling.   https://youtu.be/DToyQ4X9XJg


I hauled the calves down to the auction on October 30, the day before.  I wasn't sure how well I would do driving down to Missoula but I did fine. Donna rode with me in case something happened and I would need help.

I was delayed a long time due to a road accident by someone else. Hours earlier a semi-truck's trailer had detached and hit another pickup and crushed it.  The accident happened on a narrow section where the mountain started a steep rise in the ditch on one side and the other side of the road only had room for a railroad track.  So there was no way to detour around the accident.  I ended up sitting there waiting for one hour and 45 minutes.  Not fun, especially when one has a trailer full of calves also waiting.  Usually the trip takes me two hours to reach the livestock auction, not the 3 hours and 45 minutes it did this time.

I couldn't take all my calves.  I figured they wouldn't all fit but I found out I could only fit eight calves in the trailer.  Including the two calves I had planned on keeping, I now have five calves still.  Over much of November I went back and forth in deciding whether to haul the other three calves to the auction.  In the end, partly because I was still recovering and partly because I will have a couple calves anyway to sell in the Spring, I decided to keep the five calves until Spring.  We'll see how that goes.

A good side effect of selling late this year is that the last few weeks of October the calf prices stabilized and even went up a few cents.  Earlier this Fall, September and the first half of October, the calf prices had really dropped a lot. Even with a slightly high calf price the end of October, I and everyone else selling calves got less money per pound for their calves this year.  *sigh*

In the photos, I kept the white faced calf as he was one of the smaller calves as he was born in May.  The calf with white on his rear end was sold.  He had gained almost as much weight as the other calves even though he had come from a smaller mother.  Still, he was not all black.  I got twenty-four cents a pound less for him than I did for a larger black steer calf, and usually larger calves sell for a bit less than lighter calves.

Another difference between this year and last year was that my calves weighed more.  My calves averaged one hundred pounds more than my calves usually do.  I had one calf that weighed 730 pounds, and several weighed 700 pounds each.  I never had a calf that weighed more than 600 pounds.  These are the first calves from Toby the bull and he produced calves that really gain weight as they were just a normal size when they were born.

Mission Mountain view on the drive back home.

Cattle into the hayfield back in October

Now that the yard fence against the hayfield was fixed in early October I could let the cattle into the hayfield.  I was trying to wait until after the grass froze so I could avoid buying and placing the cattle on bloat blocks.  The blocks cost more than $26 a piece and with molasses in them the cattle lick the blocks much faster than salt blocks.  But I checked on the internet and learned that the alfalfa protein level actually rises higher when it freezes and the chance of bloating is higher.   Then after it freezes, as the grass dries and turns brown over time the alfalfa level drops.  I couldn't wait that long so I bought the cattle some bloat blocks and put them on them.  After a few days of licking the blocks I let the cattle into the hayfield on October 13.  They were really happy to be let there. And no cattle bloated.

There was lots of grass and alfalfa growing so the cattle spent a long time this Fall eating them.

When I was in the hospital, and then back home before I let the cattle to the hayfield, the cattle were fed some hay bales to ensure they wouldn't roam as I couldn't really keep a close eye on them as I recovered.  Those fat pigs would go through a bale in a day and a half.  They pretty much stood non-stop and ate constantly.   Nothing else to do I guess.  Once the hayfield was eaten down and I started feeding the cattle hay back in November I feed the cattle hay twice a day so they don't overeat.   It is more work on my part but this way all my hay will last all Winter as each bale lasts me about three days.


Back the end of October Toby the bull broke the fence and was in the front yard.  He broke the top board and a couple of fence posts that were old and fragile.  He pushed the bottom two boards over with the broken posts.  The following photo was taken recently and not back in October when there was still plenty of hayfield grass.

I was fortunate in that I was working in the back yard and when I walked to the tool shed it was then I noticed Toby in the front yard checking on and eating the yard grass.  I was able to close the driveway gate to the road.  I also was able to prop up the fence temporarily to stop the rest of the cattle from coming into the yard.  Toby wanted to check the yard out.  I opened the corral gate and sooner than later he was in the back yard then in the corral.  I locked him in there until I could fix the broken fence after a few days of working on it.

In the next photo Toby came through the fence again a few weeks later.  He pushed off the fence boards in the corner.  While the boards he pushed aren't white he didn't break them.  Toby merely pushed the boards and nails out of the fence post.  He did break one fragile fence post also.

The difference this time was I was splitting logs in the back yard and I didn't see Toby.  It was at sundown when this happened and one of my neighbors was driving by when he and his wife saw Toby on the road.  I had left the gate closed for a week or so after Toby's first break through but as he left the fence alone I then left the driveway gate open.  Toby noticed the gate was open and came through the fence and then out to the road.  I was able to herd Toby back into the yard.  It took two attempts as the neighbor had parked their car at my driveway entrance as he was going to come out to help me.  With the car in the driveway Toby didn't want to enter the driveway.  With the second attempt and the car gone Toby entered the yard.  Once again I got him into the corral where he stayed for a number of days until I could fix the fence again.   This time I added a few other steel fence posts to temporarily support other weak fence posts as I am not up to completely rebuilding the fence at this time.  I now leave the driveway gate shut all the time when Toby has access to the hayfield.  Since then he has not broken through the fence again.

This afternoon, with an inch of snow on the ground, I noticed Toby walk along the fence.  He stopped at the spot with the newer boards and stood and looked over the fence into the yard.  After spending a few minutes or more of looking he then continued walking along the fence to go back and join the rest of the cows back by the patio and corral fence.  *whew*  No more broken fence boards today.

Fixing fences to the hayfield

After I returned home from the hospital I had some fence work to accomplish as soon as I could so it wouldn't stop me from letting the cattle into the hayfield.

First to fix was the back yard / hayfield fence that Maria had broken back in early September.

I had planned on rebuilding this fence by replacing the split rails and fence posts.  I also had planned to replace the wooden gate with a metal gate I had bought last year.   That is why the rebuild hadn't started before the accident.  The effects of the accident changed my plans.  The pasture grass was pretty much eaten down after I returned home from the hospital, but I was still waiting to let the cattle into the hayfield.  Before I wanted to let the cattle into the hayfield I wanted to at least fix this fence.

Fortunately before the accident I had gotten out my extra split rails from where they were stored.  They were the right length.  To help me Donna held up one side of the split rail while I held up the other side and then nailed it to the fence post.  I had three split rails to replace.  That was about all I accomplished that day.


Later on another day I fixed the split rail Maria had broken when she tried to get into the corral to eat the apples the bull hadn't finished eating yet.  The rail I had replaced was the second rail from the bottom between the railroad tie and the thin fence post.  It doesn't look the straightest as to the right of the thin post I wanted the opening to be large enough that I could squeeze through the fence when I wanted to.  I did add a board for extra protection between the bottom and second rails and the ground.

Another walnut photo

Tonight I came across another one of my walnut photos that I forgot that I had taken and therefore forgot to include in my previous walnut posting.