Moldy walnuts

 My walnut harvest this year didn't go as planned.

This Fall I picked all the walnuts from the tree.  I removed all the green husks and placed the walnuts in several plastic bags.  I waited a bit as I had other projects.  I then saw some of the walnut shells had a little white mold growing on them.  So I removed all the walnuts from their shells.  I did not see any mold on the walnuts themselves.  So I placed the walnuts in two plastic containers.

Occasionally I would munch on a few walnuts.  After a little bit of time I noticed a little bit of mold on the walnuts themselves.  I looked deeper in the container and walnuts down below were even moldier.  I've never had mold grow on store bought walnuts I had shelled.

I threw all the walnuts away.

Last year to this year I learned how to better harvest the walnuts from the tree.  Next year I will have to do something different once the walnuts are picked from the tree so I don't let mold get a chance to grow.

Snow during bicycle ride

No snow on the ground before today.  Two to three inches of snow was forecast for today.  No snow when I fed hay to the cattle this morning.  I finished by 9 am and I could see potential snow clouds to the south and west.  Instead of waiting until later to ride my bicycle I decided to ride now before the snow fell.  The ride was going well and no snow fell yet so I decided to ride a little further and do a loop.

It started to snow lightly.  No problem.  I'll keep riding the loop and not backtrack.  Then it started to snow harder.  I had 4 miles left to ride.  Then the wind direction suddenly changed so I now had a headwind.  It started to snow harder and harder... and harder.  The air was so thick with snow falling I couldn't see far off.  The wind picked up and was blowing really strong.  I had to shift to a slower gear to keep moving along.  I had to put my head down to try to keep snow out of my eyes.  The snow was piling up quickly and deeply on the road. 

I turned and now had the wind at my side and half my face was getting cold.  After a mile and a half I turned again and then had the wind at my back the rest of the way home.  The snow was getting deep on the road and there was a track or two from the few vehicles on the road and I tried to ride in one of the wheel tracks to make it easier to ride.

Once I got home I was covered in snow from head to foot.  I had ridden 13 miles, four of them in heavy snow.

It had snowed like this from the snow squall for about an hour and a half before it quit snowing and the wind quit blowing.

We have quite a few inches of snow on the ground.  More than 3 inches.  It will be a white Christmas this year.

Bull's bad leg

This morning when I went out to feed the cattle I saw that Toby the bull had a problem walking.  He had a hard time using his back left leg and would slowly limp.  The last thing a person wants is a bull with a bad leg.  I then herded Toby into the south corral to eat hay there.  I will leave him in the south corral for the time being as then he doesn't have to walk much and doesn't have the other cows to bump him.

A nearby neighbor, Larry, come over to take a look at Toby in case I had missed seeing something about his leg. Larry has handled cattle in the past, and his brother and cousin each have cattle.  Nope.  I didn't miss anything.   Toby's leg is not swollen.  Since it wasn't me, Toby would walk away when Larry got close to him.  We don't see a break.  It looks like Toby may have pulled or injured a muscle in his thigh.  Toby can stand fine.  Walking is not fine for him.

In the past I have had a cow during the Winter injure one of their legs.  I would keep the cow in the south corral for a week or so and they recovered.  I hope that will also be the case with Toby.  It is one thing to have a cow with an injured leg as I have multiple cows, but I have only one bull.  And to breed the cows in June he needs to be able to stand on his back legs.

I'd say, "What a year", but my "year" started back in September of 2019 when I injured my head.  Life is different since then.

Of course, after I got my camera Toby would just stand and not walk so I could get a video of him walking.  And I didn't want to make him walk to get a video.

Flat tire

 Yesterday I noticed the front of my pickup was low on one side.  I looked.  I had a flat tire.

I had been feeding hay twice a day to my cattle recently.  Apparently I ran over a board out on the pasture even though I make sure I don't have boards like this laying around.

The repair shop said, and then I saw, the side of the tire was cracking in lots of places, in addition to having the hole from the nail.  One could see the cracks on the inside of the tire and not the outside. Rather than fixing the hole and trusting the cracks wouldn't go all the way through the tire soon, I bought a used tire instead.  As you can see, the flat tire's thread is getting low so it won't be super long before I replace all the tires.  Next year maybe.

Another cattle jailbreak into the yard

Sometimes I think the cattle can read my mind.  This morning I thought about putting into the north pasture a bale of hay for the cattle as the hayfield is fairly well eaten down.  The cattle were fine so I decided to go uptown to get groceries and then buy the cattle some salt blocks and a tub of SmartLic mineral lick supplement.  The tub is 250 pounds and the two store employees has trouble lifting the tub into my pickup's bed.  Then in the afternoon I planned to put the hay bale out for the cattle.

As I came home I noticed the fence was broken. It appears Toby most likely pushed the boards off the fence.

No cattle were in the hayfield.

Donna's car was in my yard. She had gotten a call from the sheriff's department as they thought her cell phone number was my phone number.  I then saw Donna by the north fence to the neighbor's yard.  Maria and her calf were in my NE pasture and the rest of the cattle were in the neighbor's yard.  The yard has a chain-link fence and gate.   Tye and Donna were talking.

I was going to cut my barb wire fence but Donna and Tye said they would help me herd the cattle to the road and then over to my gate to the NE pasture.  The cattle didn't want to leave his yard but I got Mama and Beulah to leave then over to my pasture.  Then I got over half of the cattle that were left out of the yard and to my pasture.  Then Toby and the rest left and went to my yard.

Then I herded all the cattle into my corral and then counted then to make sure I had all the cattle.  I did.

Once in the corral the cattle chilled out and relaxed.

Mama

Later in the afternoon I put a large hay bale out in the north pasture.  I closed the gates to the hayfield as the cattle are done with that field for the year.  Tomorrow I will fix the fence.

More snow and cattle jailbreak

I had seen on the newspaper's weather page that normally by now we could have 1.1 inches of snow.  We have had 11 inches of snow so far this year.  The snow we had earlier finally melted a few days ago. And this morning it started snowing again.  By this evening the wind picked up and is howling.  It is suppose to be like this till Monday.   Great.  Just great.  Another day of getting nothing done.  I am happy Donna's hay baler was fixed and I was able to tow it back to her house yesterday afternoon when it was still nice, and not this morning.

I had let Daisy outside early in the morning.  I woke up again a little after 7 am to a sound.  I thought it was Daisy wanting to get back inside the house.  I looked out the door and saw Speckles in the yard by the house.  I looked and several of the fence boards in the front yard were off the fence.  Only Speckles was in the yard.  The rest of the cattle were off in the hayfield.  Speckles wanted back to the hayfield.  I opened the back yard gate I installed this Summer and she ran back into the hayfield.

Then I went and nailed the boards back to the fence posts.  I also added a few more steel fence posts to lean and help support the fence from being pushed over in the future.  I also closed the driveway gate as I had forgot to do so last night.  At least it didn't start snowing until after I was done fixing the fence.

Cattle in the sun, and full moon

The past so many days the weather warmed up back to normal.  Global warming must be back since we finally warmed up to normal temperatures.  The cattle and I need to enjoy it as the weather forecast by this upcoming weekend is for well below normal temperatures, and cold and snow.

The cattle were enjoying the sun this morning. 

Box elder trees.  The tree on the left is the female tree.  It holds on to its seeds (that you see) until Spring.  The tree on the right is the male box elder tree.

Toby the bull and Beulah the head cow.

Saturday I took photos of the full moon as it rose above the mountains.

Cattle into the hayfield

This afternoon I let the cattle into the hayfield.  The past few days the temperature has been above freezing and much of the snow has melted.  And the cattle finished eating the latest large oat hay bale.  And I have had the cattle eating from a bloat block instead of a salt block the past 24 hours.

In the north pasture, Diamond in front and Speckles behind her.

Toby the bull eating next to Maria.

Somebody is a little fat.

The calves were last to come and enter the hayfield.   It wasn't long after they were born that I let them out into the pasture with their mothers.  As a result they have not been around me as much as the other cattle.  And they probably watched me load the other calves into the stock trailer and haul them away.   Therefore it seems the calves are more wary of me.

Diamond's calf. A steer.

Diamond's calf. A steer.

Maria's calf. A heifer.

Mama's calf. A steer.

A 32 second video of the cattle entering the hayfield: https://youtu.be/bQn1rWcWNsg

More calves taken to auction

I got my check from the last week's livestock auction.  The prices all calves are being sold for are down this year.  For me on average, it is about 11 cents a pound less. The prices were not as low as I feared since I didn't make the newsletter.  The heifer who didn't make the list was two cents a pound lower than the ones on the list.  The steers, four of my steers should have made the list as they were above the bottom four mentions on the list.  My brown steer - once I account for the small weight difference to another one of my black steers - sold for around $150 less.  I guess, because the steer was brown, not black.  So, no, that calf wasn't close to making the list.

My calves were again a good size.  I had three steers who weighed 710 pounds each.  One steer weighed 600 pounds.  The brown steer weighed 560 pounds.  One heifer weighed 645 and the other heifer weighed 450 pounds.

Anyway.   I have 7 calves left.  I decided to keep the smallest (because they were born months later) three calves till Spring.  I decided to sell the other four calves now.  I do have enough hay to keep them to Spring also.  But wait, due to global warming and our colder weather, I'm now feeding hay to the cattle a month earlier than normal.  So maybe I don't have enough hay for these four calves.

The three calves not taken to auction.

One of the long legged heifer calves taken to auction.

The weather was decent today.  Meaning it wasn't snowing or raining or windy.  So I took the calves down to Missoula today, the day before the auction.

The snow is still on the ground.  So pulling the stock trailer with the "newer" pickup had the pickup spinning its tires through the snow as I very slowly pulled the trailer.

The calves were easier to load into the trailer than the calves were last week.

The two calves with white on their faces are the twins born March 27.

The black area at the far end of the loading ramp is the stock trailer's open door.

Four calves and not seven calves.  These calves are smaller and lighter.  And the ground was frozen. This time I was able to drive and pull the stock trailer loaded with the calves out of the corral and did not need the tractor to pull the pickup out of the corral.

Because the road on the east side of Flathead Lake is shaded a lot by trees, Donna thought the road could be slippery than normal.  So I drove on the west side of the lake even though it is hillier.  Traffic was lighter today than last week so I didn't slow much traffic when I went up hills slower.

Even though I only go to the auction a couple times a year, the secretary inside the building remembered I had fractured my skull last year and asked how I was doing these days.  I was surprised she remembered.  I forgot I had told her about my injury in the past.  I guess my story made an impact.

Views on the drive home.

This time we could see the mountains near St Ignatius where the waterfall is located.  The waterfall is located in the 'gap' just left of center in the photo.  Though at this time of the year one can't see the waterfall under the snow. 

Sunset

Nice sunset tonight.

At least we are over setting new record low temperatures of 0 degrees each of the past couple of nights.  Our high temperature today got a little above freezing this afternoon and so the snow is finally starting to melt - although very slowly.

Snow total

I am not happy with our weather.  I still have a few projects left to do before Winter starts, and it appears Winter has started early this year.  Where is my global warming?

Snow began Friday afternoon and didn’t let up until early Saturday morning. Kalispell saw a daily record of 7.3 inches, which also ranks second highest all-time for October, trailing behind 11 inches set on Oct. 26, 1946, according to the National Weather Service in Missoula.

A push of arctic air was expected to bring record cold to Northwest Montana through the weekend, the National Weather Service reported.

Lows Saturday night in the Flathead Valley are forecast to dip below zero, with wind gusts at 20 mph. Sunday’s high temperature is expected to top out in the 20s before plummeting below zero again. Wind chill values of minus 15 were likely.

The unseasonably cold temperatures should stick around through the week, with a chance of a slight warm up by next weekend.

It looks like we will be setting new record low temperatures today and over the next few days.

I spent part of today shoveling paths through the snow.  Not what I usually do in October.  And with our cold temperatures predicted, who know when - or if - the snow will melt this month?

Daisy usually wants to go outside early in the morning.  At 6 am Daisy put her head out the door after I opened it and looked and sniffed into the wind and cold and came back in the house.  15 minutes later I had to get up again to open the door again for Daisy.  Again the same thing.  Five minutes later, after her third attempt, she gave up and jumped up on the bed to sleep next to me.  Over two hours later I got up and found the wind had blown the door open a bit.  Sometimes the door doesn't catch strong and, even though I also have a screen door, the wind can blow the inside door open.  The temperature in the house was 51 degrees. 

In the morning for the cows I put out a few small alfalfa/grass hay bales into the wooden feeders.  In the afternoon I discovered the floor at one end of the large wooden feeder was down. Apparently a cow, or the bull, stepped into the wooden feeder to eat hay.  So, another work project for me to fix the feeder's floor.  Also in the afternoon I put out another large oat hay bale.   Afterwards, at one point, the cattle thought I may have put out more alfalfa/grass bales and they ran from the oat hay feeder in to the corral and the wooden feeders.  They were not happy to not find alfalfa/grass bales in the corral.

More snow, and oat hay

The weather forecast had snow starting at noon, and sure enough it did.  I thought the forecast was for 1 to 2 inches of snow during the day, then at night when the wind picked up we would get another 2 to 4 inches.  We got more than 2 inches by sundown.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was 4 inches of snow already.  It sounds like the wind is picking up speed now.

In the morning I tried to get things out away before the snow fell.  I parked the stock trailer.  No chance to clean it out until next week, whenever the temperature get back above freezing.

Since the snow started falling slowly I rode a few miles on my bicycle.  In the beginning of the 13 mile ride the snow melted when it reached the roadway.  By the end of the ride the snow was starting to stick on the road.  I had ice on my bicycle that I chipped off when I got home.

Late afternoon I saw that vehicles on the road were slowing down near my driveway.  I looked out the window and saw a car in the ditch near my NE pasture fence.  By the time I reached the car the neighbor and his son driving his pickup were pulling the car out of the ditch.  A short straight section of road, but if you aren't driving smartly, one can slip off a slippery road.  The ditch is deep so the car came to a stop against the other side of the ditch, and did not reach my fence.

With all this snow this week I have had to put out a bale of hay for the cattle for the times when the snow covered the grass. Because the cattle like to over eat, the first evening I filled the pickup box with hay to last the night.  The hay was the oat hay from Donna's field.  The oat hay was very dry and getting to the edge of being more straw than hay.  The cattle weren't too pleased with the oat hay.  They complained and would work extra hard to eat some grass on the ground.  The oat hay lasted a day, not a half day like normally.

From when I put some oat hay into the pickup.

When I got back from the livestock auction Wednesday night I put the rest of the bale out into a metal feeder in the north pasture. No worries about the cattle over eating the oat hay.

Today I got the wooden feeder ready in the corral.  I had plans to work the area where the feeder sits so that come Spring when the ground gets muddy and soft the feeder won't sink a bit.  Well, with our early Winter and snow, that didn't happen.  So I moved the feeder back to its location and put the floor back in it.  Before dark I put a couple small hay bales in this feeder and the barn wooden feeder, and let the cattle into the corral.  When the wind picks up tonight the cattle can stay in the loafing shed out of the wind and snow.

Earlier I had cleaned the loafing shed, and the shed where the calves sleep, of manure.  I thought there would be more oat hay left and planned on putting some of it in the calves area for dry bedding.  But I found most of the oat hay had been eaten.  The cattle had picked up on eating that hay today.  I could only put a couple of pitchforks of the oat hay in the calves' area.  Tomorrow I'll have to put out another bale of hay for the cows.

Today I got the newsletter from the livestock auction.  They usually list the cattle sold, leaving out the ones that sold at lower prices.  Usually all, or all but a few, of my cattle make the list.  This year I had only one small heifer make the list.  And the prices on the list were less than last week, which are already less than the prices from last year.  It doesn't look good for what prices my cattle sold for this Fall.  I'll find out when I receive my check.

Day after calf trip to auction

Today was a decent day.  I guess I could have hauled my calves to auction today instead of yesterday.  Nah.  I'm sure the roads were slick this morning.

I spent some hours this morning and onto over the noon hour adding some boards to the loading corral fence.  I have a small gate in the middle of the loading ramp area to try to hold the cattle towards the beginning of the ramp area while they decide whether they want to enter the stock trailer.  Sometimes it helps to put boards in the fence to stop the cows from backing up to the gate.  It is especially useful when it is calves, who are smaller.  It would be helpful to have more up-and-down boards in the fence that would hold the boards in place from fence to fence.  Today I added a few more up-and-down boards in three sections of the fence.

It may not look like much in the photo, but as a cow is shorter than a fence section, these boards may hold the cows in place and not give them much forward and backward movement when they want to back up.

Here are the four heifers I have weaned that are left to go to auction.  In a few days I'll start weaning the last three calves so they will be ready for auction next week.

While the temperature did get above freezing today, it wasn't much or for long enough.  So I didn't get the stock trailer cleaned.  A strong Winter storm is predicted to start tomorrow afternoon and last for a day. Then a number of days where the high temperature stays below freezing. So it doesn't look like the stock trailer will be cleaned anytime soon.

Half the calves to auction

It's that time of year to take calves to the livestock auction.  I had to wait until the pickup I bought from my brother was fixed.  The auction is on Thursdays and I had planned on taking the calves early Thursday morning.  But our weather - Winter weather now - keeps changing day by day.

Today was suppose to have bad weather and snow and on into late at night.  Thursday morning would be iffy.  To make an early Thursday start earlier I had planned on putting the calves into the loading corral overnight Wednesday and also parking the stock trailer at the loading corral's gate.  Then it would be a quick load of cattle Thursday morning.

Last night, due to the latest weather forecast change, I thought of canceling the trip on Thursday and delaying it until next week.  Since I need to make two trips to haul the calves that meant two trips next week.

This morning it starting snowing around 9 am.  Not looking good as the weather prediction already started.  But the snow quit after an hour and the clouds lifted and were not so dark.  Donna stopped by after her appointment to see the doctor.  She said the Thursday morning weather forecast had improved for Flathead Valley.  Missoula - where I would be going - still had some freezing weather, rain and snow. I decided not to wait a week to make one trip. I can take cattle down a day or more before the auction.  One then just has to pay a daily cost of hay per head of cattle.  It was already 11 am.  I went and filled the pickup with gas and got the trip permit to move livestock out of the county.  It was after noon when we started the livestock loading.  First I had to get the calves into the loading corral.  Then I had to back up the livestock trailer to the gate.  Backing the livestock trailer in the corral was difficult.  This pickup, while it has a more powerful engine and is a 3/4 ton and not a half ton, is not a four wheel drive.  With all our recent rain and snow the corral's ground is a little soft.  But mainly the problem I had was the odd grass (weeds?) growing in the corral is very slippery, especially when wet and/or snow covered.  It took some effort but I finally got the trailer backed up fairly well.  I would have preferred the stock trailer gate to match 100% with the livestock gate, but it was close enough as moving the trailer was difficult.

I have more calves than will fit in the trailer.  I wanted the larger calves loaded and the smaller calves left for the trip next week.  That meant all but one of the steers would be loaded and then a few of the larger heifers.  Getting the calves loaded was a hassle as first they didn't want to go into the trailer.  Second, the smaller heifers would then be the first to go down the ramp's path and I would have restart the process.  Once I got the first steer finally into the trailer, the other calves were a little more willing to enter the trailer.  While Donna watched and discouraged the calves in the trailer from coming back out I got more calves in the trailer fairly much one by one.

Years ago I could haul 10 calves.  Then only 9 calves.  Last year I was down to 8 calves.  This year I only got 7 calves into the trailer.  If I hadn't closed the inner trailer gate to stop the first 3 calves from exiting the trailer, perhaps I could have squeezed one more small heifer into the trailer.  I have seven calves left to take to the auction next week, and they are smaller, so they should fit into the trailer easily.

Now that the calves were loaded I found that I couldn't move the stock trailer.  The pickup would just spin its tires. *sigh*

I got my tractor and hooked a chain from the tractor to the pickup and easily pulled the pickup and trailer out of the corral.  Once out of the corral, and on the yard's grass, the pickup easily moved the trailer.

Donna and I were on the road by 1:33 pm.  As we drove south the clouds got dark to the south and west.  Doesn't look good, but I was on my way.  No turning back.  As we started driving east around Flathead Lake the snow and rain fell.  Not good, but fortunately this lasted less than half the drive around the lake.  Then it was back to dry roads.  A few times closer to Missoula it rained a few times briefly as we went over a few minor mountain passes.  Rain stopped by the time we reached Missoula and it was dry when I unloaded the calves at the auction.  There were a lot of cattle already in the pens and a number were bellowing.  While waiting to be unloaded some of my calves mooed back at the sound of the cows mooing in the pens.

While the pickup can handle the trailer weight better, and the pickup has a more powerful engine, I still found climbing long and steep hills slowed the pickup down.  A little more than I expected.  But still, the pickup hauls the stock trailer better than my other pickup.

Leaving Missoula to return home it began to rain.  Long and hard.  It was nice to not encounter all that rain when I hauled the calves in the trailer. It stopped raining by the time I got closer to Flathead Lake.  By the time I got home the sky was partly cloudy and somewhat clear.  With all that rain down that way, the forecast predicted slick roads tomorrow morning.  Another good reason it was better to haul the calves today and not tomorrow morning.

I didn't get home until 6:30 pm.  The sun would soon set.  I had to use the tractor to put out the rest of a bale of the oat hay for the cattle to eat as the ground and grass is still somewhat snow covered. Then it was dark.  So I was unable to wash all the manure out of the trailer.  The temperature right now is below freezing so the manure will freeze in the trailer tonight.  The weather forecast predicts high temperature for quite a number days to be around freezing and maybe a degree or two warmer than 32 degrees.  So who knows when I can clean the stock trailer of manure.  Our normal high temperature right now is supposed be 54 degrees.

With all the rain I was unable to take a photo of the waterfall near St, Ignatius on the drive home as I couldn't see the mountains at that point.  Here are some other photos on the drive home.

Mission Mountains

The following photos were taken near the south end of Flathead Lake while driving east towards the Mission Mountains so I could drive on the east side of Flathead Lake.  The rain clouds are mostly hiding the mountains.

The clouds are hiding the tall mountains.