Fall colors

 Fall is coming.   Here is how part of the lilac tree looked like today.

I picked another walnut.  This nut is drier than the other walnut I had picked earlier.  But it still should be drier.  I'll have to wait a little longer before I pick the walnuts.

One year anniversary

Today is the one year anniversary from when I had the accident where I fractured my skull.  I still don't remember how or when the accident occurred.  I think it happened between 6:30 pm and 7:30 pm.  I couldn't stay awake or conscious long enough to call Donna until the next afternoon.

Months later when I mostly recovered I complained to my neurologist that I wasn't completely recovered. The neurologist then told me my injuries and condition were among the worst she had seen, and my recovery was better and quicker than most of the injuries - even the less skull fracture injuries - she had seen.  So I guess, stop complaining.

Considering what happened to me I am mostly recovered.

Maybe this next year will be better.

Branch pile mess

I don't know why, but the cattle like to make a mess of some of the piles of branches.  I toss the branches in piles until I later decide what to do with them.  The cattle will spread some of the branches off the pile and around on the ground.  They did a worse job to other branch piles.

Patio fence

When rebuilding my backyard/hayfield fence I went through a number of my old rails looking for the right rails to use on that rebuild.  I also found three rails I didn't need for the rebuild but then found out they were the exact length needed if I wanted to put them on the patio.  I never had this part of the patio fenced as it isn't really needed.  But I found that when I let the cattle in the yard each Spring they would also go into the patio area.  So I had to put up temporary corral panels to keep the cattle out of the patio.  Since these rails were the exact length I decided to take an afternoon and put them up on this part of the patio.  Now I have one less corral panel to put up each Spring to keep the cattle out.

Stitching the photos together makes the fence look more bent than it actually is.

That afternoon I also put in a new 'post' in the ground on which to set the end of my metal corral gate.  The 16 ft gate is heavy and over time will droop on one end if it isn't supported.  While this gate has a bolt that goes into the post next to it to also support the gate, the heavy weight of the gate made it harder to get the bolt into the post when one also has to hold the gate up. The old 'post' I had used was no longer big enough to adequately support the end of the gate.

Straw and tarp

Now that the barley field across the road was cut earlier this week by Chris, the left over stuff was baled up as straw.  I thought Chris baled the straw but he subcontracted and sold that to someone else.  I was able to convince this guy to sell me one bale.  It is good to have straw for bedding for the cattle when it gets cold outside.  It cost me $40.

Since the straw bale was across the road he brought it over in his truck and I didn't have to use my tractor to get it.  His truck has metal arms that grab the bale and lift it onto the back of his truck, and then the arms lowers the bale to the ground.  Pretty neat.

His baler makes large bales.  As you can see the straw bale is about twice the size of my bales. It makes my bales look small.  This will be enough straw for my cattle this Winter.

Rain is still in the forecast for this weekend.  So I got my large tarp out and covered the bales outside the hayshed.

When I was putting the tarp over the bales the cattle out in the pasture saw me and came to a gate and started mooing at me.  Sorry girls. You'll get a bale another day.

Water and no water

It was a drier than normal August, and September has not seen any moisture yet.  Here are a couple of photos showing the difference between where I had irrigated in August and where the water did not go.

Rain is in the forecast for this weekend.  I hope we get lots of rain.

Box elder trees over patio

 Here are a couple of photos of the large box elder trees that tower over my patio.   I believe they are old trees.  And they are near the septic tank's drain field.  The trees are so tall I can't climb even half way up to trim the branches.

Backyard fence rebuild done

 I finished the rebuild of the back yard fence.  This is the fence that goes from the patio to the corral.  Earlier I had posted about the first part of the rebuild.  (https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2020/09/partial-backyard-fence-rebuild.html)

First I had to take down the old fence.  Here is the gate and some of the old fence boards.

It took some effort, and looking over and over through my stacks of wood, but I was able to find enough rails, and rails of the right length (about 9 ft for each section), so I only had to make three more sections from the gate to the patio.

Because time had passed since I rebuilt the first half of the fence, and the warmer temperatures dried the ground, it was harder now to dig the holes for the railroad tie posts.  It took me over three times as long to dig each hole, and a lot more effort as I had to chip and break the dirt apart before using the post hole digger to remove the dirt.

Ta da.  Because of the cattle I added some old wood fence posts in the middle of each section to strengthen each rail section.  I also added wire to each section so the cattle can't put their head through and push on the rails.  I think the rebuilt fence looks better than the old fence.

Some of my old fence posts have seen better days.  This post looked better when I started. I usually only dig the hole halfway down, then I use a sledgehammer to pound the post a little deeper.  Pounding this post flaked off some of the rotted part of the post from when that part used to be in the ground.  Well, it still works for now.  How long will it work?  I'll find out in the future.

English walnut trees

Earlier this week our overnight low temperature one night was 23 degrees.  In the past my English walnut trees were very susceptible to temperatures starting at 32 degrees and lower.  They would immediately have all their leaves turn brown.  As the trees have gotten older they are more resistant to cold temperatures.   Only a few of their leaves after the 23 degree temperature have started to die.

Last year I picked the walnuts late.  I am not sure if the walnuts are ready yet.  So I picked one and removed the walnut shell from the green husk.

I let the walnut shell dry over a few days.  Tonight I cracked open the shell.  The walnut inside is still soft.  So my walnuts are not ready to harvest yet, even if the shells are of a good size now.

Trying to trap pocket gophers again

 Earlier this week I noticed some pocket gophers have again moved back into the south pasture.

I trapped one, the 60th so far this year.  I noticed more dirt mounds and set two traps.  The cattle had eaten down the grass in the north pasture and were interested in getting back into the middle and south pastures.  So I let them yesterday.  Today when I went to check the pocket gopher traps the cattle had devastated them.  The milk jugs on the metal posts were now scattered.  One milk jug was broken into pieces.  The metal posts were bent over.  One trap was disturbed and triggered.  The other trap was still set but mostly covered with dirt.

So I removed the traps from the pasture.  I'll reset them someday to catch gophers when the cattle don't have access to the south pasture.

In past I talked about how I have to place metal posts around wooden salt feeders to keep the cattle from knocking everything over.  Don't remember if I posted a photo.  Anyway, here is a photo from today.

Partial backyard fence rebuild

My back yard fence along the hayfield has been partially rebuilt this Summer.  I had planned on rebuilding this fence last Fall but my head injury put that plan on hold.  The rebuild this year was delayed as I spent time spraying weeds, cutting and baling hay twice, and irrigating my fields.  So what I did was work on the rebuild this summer in short segments whenever I had an hour or two here and there.  If I had waited until I could spend only time on the fence rebuild, I would only be starting the rebuild now. 

The first thing done was to fix the section the cows had broken back in June.

Here you can see how I fixed this section.  I did one section at a time over a number of days.  And as you can see, I also added wire to the rails.  That is to prevent the cattle from putting their heads through the fence and pushing on the rails and breaking them again.  I also added a couple of small wood fence posts in the middle of each section to add more support to the rails.  The furthest right section was made taller to protect the walnut tree.  Looking at this photo now, and looking at the tree today, that tree has really grown this Summer.  Maybe I should have planted the tree further from the corner.

Later I decided to move the position of the gate over one section towards the west.  Then, after I did so, I decided to change which side the gate opened from.  Before the gate opened on the west side.  Now I decided to change it to open on the east side.  That way the open gate would be less in the way when I drove between the hayfield and backyard.  With my planned gate switch that made me replace the railroad tie once again.  The ties are older and some ties are more solid than others.  I wanted a more solid tie to hold the gate in place when it is opened.

Old and "newer" railroad ties

Then it was time to hang the metal gate.

First I had to get rid of the old wooden walk through gate that was next to the old wooden gate. (Seen on the left in the preceding photo.)  I had made this gate plus or minus 15 years ago.

It took quite a while to hang the metal gate. I had bought the gate used.  It is an old gate with old bolts.   First off, the bolt that supports the gate is much longer than usual.  As you can see they are 32 inches long, over twice as long as normal. 

I drilled a hole in the railroad tie the size of the bolt. Exactly the same size.  To get the bolt through the railroad tie I had turn the bolt around and around... and around, etc.  That action created a thread in the railroad tie as the bolt went through the tie.  Once the bolt was finally through it didn't want to move.  Which is good.  One doesn't the bolt to turn as when one opens the gate to the side it puts lots of pressure to turn sideways the part of the bolt that goes up and holds the gate.

Then the next problem I found is that the bolt's threads are rusty or worn away for a section of the bolt.  Unfortunately the loss of threads was just where I needed to put the nut to secure the bolt in the railroad tie.  I tried to tighten the nut on the bolt and hoped that would remake the threads.  Nope.  I didn't want to unthread the bolt back out of the railroad tie.

I didn't have enough washers to fill the non-threaded space.  I found an old item that holds a bicycle seat in a bicycle frame.  That just fit on the bolt and then blocked the non-threaded part of the bolt and I could fasten the nut tight and hold the bolt in place so it wouldn't turn when I opened the gate.

Then it was on to the next bolt to hold the gate.  This time I worked on improving the rusted and damaged thread before threading the bolt into the railroad tie.

The camera didn't focus on the bolt.  But you can see where I used a wire brush and file to "fix" the threads.  Even so I couldn't rethread the entire bolt.  And guess what, that part was just outside the railroad tie in a bad spot.

I didn't have another old bicycle seat post clamp to cover the non-threaded area.  But coincidentally the previous day when I was bicycling along the highway I found a strange piece of metal on the shoulder.  I picked it up and thought maybe it would come in handy some day.  It just barely fit on the bolt.  But it covered the non-threaded area.

Here you can see how long the bolts are as they extend way out of the railroad tie.  Fortunately this doesn't get in the way of anything.

Then I dug a hole and put a railroad tie in as a post the other side of the gate attaches itself to so as to not to swing open on its own. (I took this photo today which is why you can see a little of the rails on the rebuilt section I did since starting to write this post).

This was a difficult hole to dig as there were lots of rocks in this spot.  Here you can see how big some of the rocks were.  This was a difficult hole to dig.

These photos show how the fence looks now that I am done baling hay.  I now need to work on finishing the fence rebuild.  Also, you can see how the walnut tree has grown this Summer.

This view is the better half of the old fence   The old gate is the section on the very right of the old fence.  This is the section that needs to be rebuilt now.

Hay baling done

Saturday I finished my hay baling for the year. On Friday the John Deere dealership had finished the baler repairs.  They also adjusted the PTO's clutch on the tractor.  The part to fix the fuel gage won't arrive until next week.  Because the weather forecast has rain tomorrow I decided to get my tractor and baler on Friday.  I'll take the tractor back once the fuel gage part arrives.  That meant driving my tractor and baler from south of Kalispell to my place north of Kalispell.  Friday afternoon traffic was slowed down by me but I drove as fast as I could.

On the baler they fixed one of the belts.  Apparently the belt was starting to shred/get loose near the stitching.   The belt only needed about 3 inches of a newer belt.  But because the new belt section had to be stitched in, their minimum length is five feet so that stitching isn't that close to one another.

The other baler problem was the bearings in one of the rollers was shot and would cause the roller tension to freeze.  They believe that was what caused the fire as the bearings probably locked up and overheated.

To repair the baler they has to dump the partial bale still inside the baler.  They never bothered to try to net wrap the bale before dumping it.  So they threw that bale away.

The baler's repair price was $1100.  About $160 for parts, and about $940 for labor.  Not cheap.

I planned to bale Donna's hay first thing on Saturday.  So I drove to her place Friday after bringing my tractor and baler home.  I hadn't tested the baler at the dealership as I was in a hurry to get home before rush hour traffic really took off.  At Donna's place the baler monitor said the baler's gate was open.  It was not.  I opened and closed the gate but the monitor still said the gate was open.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong.   Donna's place was on the way home for the repair guy so he stopped by after work.   When working on my tractor they had disconnected the baler from the tractor.  It was reconnected when I got the tractor and baler.  But they hadn't reconnected the monitor's cable.  And I hadn't noticed that they hadn't reconnected the cable.  Once the monitor was reconnected everything worked fine.   Why the monitor thought the baler's gate was open when it wasn't connected is strange.

Saturday I baled Donna's oat crop.  Everything worked fine.  Not a single problem.  Which for me at this time is amazing.  I was able to bale her crop faster than normal.  All the bales were wrapped correctly with no tears of the net wrap.  All the bales looked uniform.  I made about eight and two-thirds of a bale.

Back home I finished baling my hayfield.  I completed the ninth bale and then made a quarter of a bale.  And then I was done baling.   I spent a long time - hours - using an air hose to blow out and clean all of the baler.  I still had bits and pieces of matted hay in the baler to clean from when I used a garden hose to put out the fire.

My neighbor Curtis wasn't around to haul the bales back to my place.  I didn't want to wait as the weather is predicted to change.  So I loaded a bale in my pickup and drove home.   I then was able to push the bale out of the pickup and then go get another bale.  The last bale I put on the tractor's bale spear to bring home.  So all the bales are now stacked.

I am extremely happy I am finally done baling my hay for the year.  What should have taken a day and a half had taken almost three weeks.  Now I can get on with my other projects.

Donna's oat crop

Donna's oat crop

The rest of my field

The small remaining hay bale

Donna had a little grass hay in addition to the oat crop.  The grass hay is the darker part of the hay bale.

When I pushed the bales out of the pickup's bed the bales would end up on their end.  While one can stack bales on top of standing bales, the rest of my stack isn't set up this way.  Besides with a bale spear it is harder to spear a standing bale.  So I tipped the bales on their sides.

I got lots of hay bales this year as they all won't fit inside the hayshed.