Another odd day

Another day making me believe I live in a different world/universe than where I was born.

I sprayed weeds this afternoon.  In the south pasture.  Because I have the irrigation going in the hayfield I walked through the north and middle pastures to get to the south pasture.  The cattle in the middle pasture saw me enter the middle pasture through the gate and came running as they thought I planned on letting them into the north pasture.  They have plenty to eat in the middle pasture and can stay there a few more days.

When I opened the gate to the south pasture the gate came off the top bolt holding it to the railroad tie.  Strange, as the bottom bolt goes up and the top bolt goes down.  That way the gate doesn't come off unless the top bolt's nut is unscrewed and the bolt taken out.  Somehow the bolt was loose and turned sideways.  That still shouldn't release the gate as the sideways turn can only happen so much when in the gate's slot.  But it did.

Of course the cattle all came running as they now thought I may let them into the south pasture. I was also wearing a backpack sprayer full of water and herbicide.  It was difficult to work on the gate so I had to take the backpack off and set it on the ground.  Difficult and heavy to do when full of water and herbicide.

I tried to get the gate back in place.  I tried to force the gate back onto the sideways turned top bolt.  Of course it didn't want to go back on.  The next I knew I had lifted the gate off the bottom bolt.  When I went to put the gate back onto the bottom bolt - an easy fix - the gate wouldn't go onto the bolt.  The bottom bolt was bent.  I didn't bend it.  The bend went towards the railroad tie and there was now no room to fit the gate back onto the bolt.  Again, I didn't bend the bolt as it was too firm to bend.  How I got the gate off the bolt, I don't know.

The cattle still wanted through the gate and were mooing.  I gave them a chewing out and told them to knock it off.  Most cattle then walked off to go get a drink of water.  Four cows remained.  Of course they were: Beulah, Panda, Red and Sugar.  The four instigators.  I had to use a dead branch to help the gate remain upright and I hoped the cows wouldn't push on the gate and knock it over as I had to go back home to get a wrench and a sledgehammer.

When I left the gate the cows did also.  When I returned I had to use the sledgehammer to pound repeatedly on the bottom bolt to straighten it.  It took some effort.  I could now get the gate back on the bottom bolt.  The top bolt... I took the nut off and removed the bolt.  I tried to put the bolt into the gate connection.   The connection had two holes and the bolt went in one hole but was off-kilter to go into the other hole.  What?

It took some effort to get the bolt into the gate's connector and also back into the railroad tie but eventually I did.  And I got the gate back in location and working again.


In the evening after I moved the irrigation sprinkler lines I checked my pocket gopher traps.  I caught two more pocket gophers.  However I found another trap in an odd situation.  The trap has an "eye" screw into the top of the plastic trap.  The "eye" opening holds the one end of a wire and the other end of the wire hooks into the top of the trip mechanism.   This trap was missing the "eye" screw and the wire.  Huh?  It was like someone had removed these two pieces.  But it is extremely unlikely that happened.  Those pieces don't pop out, that is why it is a screw.  I looked in the hole where the trap was located and could not find the "eye" screw or the wire.  Because lately when something drops on the ground it often disappears.  So I didn't bother getting a magnet to find these metal pieces. They're gone, perhaps to another world.  I had another broken trap that had these pieces so I took them and put them on my pocket gopher trap.


In the morning I took an axe to the apple tree trunk I had problems with my chainsaw some weeks ago.  One part of the tree trunk cut had sparks when using the chainsaw.  I figured there may be metal or rock or something in the tree trunk.  Using the axe I found a good sized nail buried in the trunk.  And I wasn't cutting the nail in half.  I would end up cutting the nail from top to bottom.  The apple wood is dense and hard.  I got probably half of the nail exposed.  Tomorrow I plan on taking a crowbar and pulling the nail out.  That should be easier that trying to cut the entire nail out of the hard trunk.


And don't get me started on sewing today.  As I pulled the thread through the patch and pants the thread would tie itself into a knot quite often.  What?  All I am doing is pulling thread through fabric.  Why would it knot itself now?

This is a strange world I live in now.