Cattle breakout and hay baling

Saturday was an eventful day.   First off my sleep was interrupted by my cat Rascal.   He doesn't like loud noises and doesn't like the fireworks.  So he did not go outside until around 2 am.  He would wake me up to go outside.  He would wake me up to come back inside.   Then wake me up to go back outside after eating.   15 minutes.  A half hour. An hour later.  After two hours of this I left the door open so he could go in and out whenever he wanted.

Rascal was with me at 6 am when I woke when I heard mooing.   It sounded close.  I looked out my window and saw a cow and calf in the hayfield by a hay bale.  What?!   I went outside to find the cattle all over.  In the hayfield.  In the corral.  In the front yard. In the NE pasture.  Because the cattle formerly were in the neighbor's field I left many gates open so I could travel while cutting the hayfield.

First I closed the yard gate to the road.  Then I went around to close most of the rest of the gates.  Then it was time to herd the cattle.  First it was from the hayfield to the yard.  Then it was from the NE pasture to the corral or yard.  I hadn't planned on the having the cattle in the yard anymore this year.  But because the manure from before hadn't completely dried out yet due to our rain I hadn't mowed the grass yet and it grew.  So I let the cattle stay in the yard.  I had to do a quick protection of some small trees and bushes.  I figure the cattle wouldn't be in the yard long so I didn't do the remaining usual protection.  I did have to pick up some stuff as the calves went crazy biting stuff then running around with it.

Earlier on the cattle didn't bother the walnut trees.   At the end of the day I seen them starting to eat the leaves.  Okay, much of the yard grass was now eaten down.  Time for the cattle to go into the NE pasture.  I'm not doing any more work to protect the yard stuff.  

Here the calves went into the tool shed and grabbed plastic garbage bags and spread them around the yard.

I had to close the garage door.  The door went off the rail on one side.  I got it fixed temporarily and closed the door most way.  A short time later I found the door partly open again.  A calf opened the door and was inside the garage checking everything out.  I had to herd the calf outside and work on getting the door to close more.

How did the cattle get out of the neighbor's field?  I walked down to find out how.  Well... the cattle figured out how to unhook the chain holding the gate closed.   When I have a real long chain I double run the chain through the hooks.  Donna doesn't complain anymore at how hard it can be to unhook the gate to open it.  She now knows how smart my cattle are.  I am going to have to modify the chain on the gate to the neighbor's field now that the cattle know how to unhook the chain.

When I was herding the cattle from the hayfield to the yard, slowing me down was some of the cattle wanting to rub again one of the hay bales.   Later when I walked over to check the gate to the neighbor's field I noticed one of the hay bales was tipped on its end.  The cattle tipped it over.

Here are the cattle today in the corral.  Most of the calves took a rest break there this afternoon.

Hay baling.   I got it done.  Which is good as today it rained.   I didn't get started baling until 1:45 pm.   I finished at 5 pm.   3 hours fifteen minutes.  It went well.  I only had one bale where a small part of the netwrap stayed attached to the baler.   My last bale was a half a bale.  That bale was starting to over-wrap and I had to stop and cut the netwrap off.

I ended up with 91 and 1/2 bales.   In 2020 I had 74 bales.  Last year, a slightly dry year I only had 56 bales.  So the fertilization helped this year.

All my bales at the end.  Does it look like 91 and 1/2 bales?

With the baling done yesterday I cleaned the hay baler.  I use an air hose to blow the dirt and debris out of and off the baler.  Usually probably an hour worth of work.  This time it took me 3 and 1/2 hours to clean the baler.  It was crazy.  As wet as this year was it is not dusty.  But I had lots of 'dust' on and in everything.  And the dust did not want to blow off.  I had to use a brush on the dust as I blew air on it.  And the dust would float around and around and re-coat the baler.  There would be less dust on the baler but I would have to brush and blow areas over and over repeatedly.

When cleaning the inner part of the baler I opened the back end up and locked it in place.  I would attempt to blow the dust out the other side.  But some of the dust would come back towards me re-coat my side.  So though it was hard to reach inside from the other direction, I tried to clean and blow the dust from the other direction in case the small breeze was from that side.  Again the dust came back towards me.  Crazy!  Crazy!   Not normal.  It was like my body was attracting the dust or affecting the gravity to pull the dust towards me.

I finally got the baler clean and I parked it.   3 and 1/2 hours of dust cleaning.  Why the 'dust' is so different this year is strange.  Is it because I fertilized the grass this Spring?

The dust had me coughing and coughing and I had to take a break and move away from the dust many times when I was cleaning.  The dust would float in the air.  Going this way and that way and up or down.  I had to wash off when done and try to clean my throat as it was getting harder to breathe. And my bare skin was getting a rash and welts.   It was clearing up by the time I went to sleep.

Even though baling is not hard work, the cat's and cattle's actions at disrupting my sleep, and then the dust reactions, made me tired.  I almost never go to sleep before midnight.  I went to sleep at 10:30 pm last night.  I left the door open for my cat to go in and out of the house.   He woke me up at 12:30 am, and again at 2:30 am.  Don't know why.  To let me know he was here?    I slept until noon today.   13 and 1/2 hours non-stop.

I woke up tired.   After breakfast - I hadn't eaten since breakfast the previous day - I went for a short bicycle ride to wake me up more.   After walking out to the pasture to check the pocket gophers traps I was tired.  Back to the house I laid down and was out cold for a half hour.  Then I spent 1 hour 45 minutes spraying weeds with my backpack sprayer and have been awake ever since.

What a day yesterday and today.