Rest day, and cattle into the fruit tree area

Tuesday was Montana's primary election.  Once again I served as a chief election judge for one of the precincts.  The first time since 2018 as the 2020 election was a mail-in election due to COVID.

A difference this time is that the county consolidated some of the precinct locations. We were one of them. Our precinct was moved from a church where we were the only precinct, to a fire hall miles down the road, where we shared the building with two other precincts that were formerly in the building. How was this going to go as we were moving in?  Thankfully, quite well as the chief judge for the other two precincts was wonderful and accommodating for us to work with.  Which is good as the three precincts barely fit in the room we had to use.

More election judges in the same place so more people to talk to when things got slow. We all got along, which is good as my election judges on my team are funny and outgoing.  More people vote by absentee ballot so less people show up in person at the polls these days.  Still enough people showed up to make it worthwhile to have a physical location to go to. A number of people still like to vote in person and also socialize with their neighbors.

A long day.  We start the set up by 6 am.  The polls open at 7 am and close at 8 pm.  Then we take down and clean up the polling location after the polls close as our location is normally a fire hall. (Fortunately no fire calls at our location on election day.)  Then I and another election judge deliver our ballots and important election material to the election headquarters.  As I said, a long day.

Before 10 pm I got home. I planned to now rest. The cattle in NE pasture had eaten much of the grass there down.  They came to the fence and mooed at me.  They could see the fruit tree area had tall grass and they wanted to eat it.  Monday off-and-on as I dodged the rain events I was fixing and adding cattle protection to the trees and bushes in this area. 

Dandelion seeds from the fruit tree area.

Due to the rain I still had to protect one pear tree and also the rhubarb.  I was tired Tuesday evening, but the cattle insisted.  So I spent an hour and cattle proofed the rest of the fruit tree area and then let the cattle in to eat the grass.  The cattle stopped complaining to me.

Here you can see what the cattle did to this corral panel before I let the cattle into the fruit tree area.

Cow #110 is in heat today.  Most of the day Haynes the bull kept the cow in close company.  But she was not quite yet into standing heat. So when Haynes tried to mount her she walked off.  A frustrating day for Haynes.

In the afternoon I found one calf in my yard.  I got her back into the NE pasture.  I think the calf got out of the fruit tree area at the corner at the road.  That is where I had started the fence rebuilt last year.  I found, then remembered, that when I started the rebuild, I kind of attached the wires from the fence along the road to the rebuilt fence rails.  "Kind of" is not good enough for cattle.  I had to re-attach the wires.  A little stronger attachment this time.  Hopefully strong enough until the cattle are moved out and over to the north pasture tomorrow morning.