Salt feeder flipped

Today I saw the cattle had tried to flip the salt feeder in the north pasture.  Why they do this, who knows.  Even with the metal posts in place to hold the feeder, the feeder was kind-of flipped.  At least they didn't break the feeder this time.  My last repair job must have worked.

Cattle feeder rolled

I have a cattle feeder in both the middle and north pastures.  I flip back and forth between the two pastures.  That is because when I drop a new large hay bale into the feeder the cattle can't wait.  They surround the feeder.  If some hay falls off the bale before it drops, the cattle will put their head into the feeder to eat the fallen hay.  Because I don't want the cattle to accidentally get injured when the hay bale drops I run around chasing the cattle away from the feeder.  Often they return to the feeder before I get the bale dropped.  So now I switch pastures.  That way I can drop a bale into the feeder where the cattle are not located.

Initially I had the north pasture feeder on its side until I was able to use it.  We had some strong winds and it rolled the feeder into the middle/north pasture fence.  Who would have thought this would happen.  When I try to roll the feeder I have to put a lot of effort into doing so.

With our cold - mid-Winter - temperatures, ice is forming on the river.  Yesterday when I let the cattle back into the north pasture I had to break the ice and cause it to float away from where the cattle drink from the river.  Uncommon I have to do this.

I also saw the beaver was back at it again. I'll call it "she" as this beaver is smart and determined.  I have protected and re-protected and re-protected the willow trees growing on the river bank.  I recently put a small square of fence around a tree I had earlier wrapped and the beaver had climbed above to eat.   The beaver figured out to unhook one side of the square and pushed that side open so she could reach the tree.  And ate it.  On another tree the beaver climbed above both tree wire wrappings to eat the tree.  She is getting up there to reach the tree.    That beaver is determined even if it takes her a few months to figure out to get around things to get what she wants.   I'm going to have to spend some time next year to better protect those trees.   Unless my neighbor finally remembers to tell their beaver trapping friend about my beaver problem.

Winter has arrived

Back on November 2 Winter arrived.  We got snow and cold.  More than expected.  Initially they said it was 7 inches of snow.  Later they said we got 10 inches over the first three days.  And this snow was unusual.  Lots of power outages.  Half of the electric customers lost power the electric co-op said.  I lost power two different times, on separate days.  On Wednesday into Thursday, and again on Friday.  Wednesday before I left for the livestock auction on Thursday.  No electric alarm clock to wake me up early to load the cows.

The electric co-op compared the wet heavy snow to a Spring-like snow.   But some trees still had leaves on them making matter worse.  And the evergreen trees with needles... look out. The north side of trees were coated, and many branches then broke off.  And on a number of trees a broken branch fell on another branch, breaking that one also.  Some trees all the way down.

I have a lot of broken branches.  It will take a long time to clean up.  I have all the broken branches cleaned up in the yard and fruit tree area.  I have the three pastures to now clean up.

So much snow that it looked like it would last until Spring.  But, even though our high temperature since then didn't exceed 33 or 34 degrees, and then only above freezing a few times, most of the snow melted and is gone.  Kind of surprising.  I now only have some snow in shady areas.  And of course, plenty of snow are still in the piles of broken branches which makes moving then hard.

Western Larch / Tamarack trees hadn't lost their needles for the year yet. And while in the past it seems that these trees' branches break off more, this time not many Western Larch trees lost their branches.

In the second photo you can see the branches from near the top were broken all the way down.

The chain link fence was coated.

After it started to melt.

With the snow I had to start feeding hay to the cattle.

After the snow mostly melted.

Swan Mountain range.

Some branches to clean up.  Fortunately none of them broke the power lines to my house.  My first power outage affected all the houses in the neighborhood.  The second power outage was just me.  Again no broken lines to my house.   Maybe the second power outage was because the circuit breaker on the power pole across the road was tripped.  The second power outage lasted from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm until the power company fixed the problem.

A few years ago I had the power company trim branches on this tree near my power line.  I guess this branch was too high for them to reach.  Fortunately it didn't break off.

The size of some of the broken branches.  This is after I cut off the branch's side branches.

Two cows to the auction and trouble

Thursday, November 3, I took two cows to the livestock auction.  They will be replaced by my replacement heifers I am keeping.   The cows were Maria and Speckles.   Maria, because she was one of the older cows.  Also because she was the largest cow.  Speckles, because she had the vaginal prolapse this Spring, and is more likely to suffer that next year before giving birth to another calf.

Speckles.  She weighed 1200 pounds.

Maria and her calf.  Maria weighed 1975 pounds.

I am keeping Maria's calf as a replacement calf.  Her calf was born mid-June.  That is why I kept Maria and her calf until now instead of selling them early October when I sold the calves and Mama.  I wanted a little extra time for Maria's calf to drink her mother's milk.   If I had known we would get this snow the day before the auction I would have sold them a week earlier.

I have a Chevy pickup and a Ford pickup.  I usually use the Ford pickup to pull the stock trailer as it is a 3/4 ton and has a larger engine.  But it is a two-wheel drive pickup and the Chevy is a four-wheel drive pickup.  Due to the 7 inches of snow I needed the four-wheel drive pickup.  Even with that pickup I had trouble pulling the stock trailer when in the corral due to the snow.

I loaded the cows into the stock trailer earlier than usual Thursday morning.  After putting Maria's calf into the south corral to be with the other replacement heifers I was on my way at 6:30 am.

As I drove down the road my pickup was making louder noise than usual.  The noise, quiet back then, had started last year.  I had my neighbor Curtis ride last year with me to listen.  He thought it was fine.  This past August when I had the mechanic fix the pickup's starter module I also told him about the noise.  When I picked up my pickup he said he thought it may be due to rust on my pickup's front wheel hubs because I don't drive the pickup much.  Drive my pickup more and the rust and noise may go away.

I drove on because switching the trailer back to the Ford pickup with a loaded stock trailer would be risky.  Unloading the cows back into the corral and switching pickups would be a problem as I wouldn't be able to pull the trailer out of the corral due to the snow.  Maybe the rust and noise would go away down the road.  So I continued on.

The sound didn't get louder miles down the road so I continued on. 

The snow had stopped the night before.  The roads were clear.  South of Flathead Lake there was less snow on the ground. Around 2 miles south of the lake there was no snow on the ground.  They had never gotten any snow.  That made driving better.  Mainly I drove 40 to 50 mph.  I only drove up to 60 mph a handful of times when I was driving down a long steep section of the highway.

I made it to the auction at 9:10 am.  A longer than normal drive.  I unloaded the cows and was back on the road at 9:30 am.  With a lighter trailer I could now drive 60 to 65 mph.  The pickup still made noise.  Maybe a touch quieter than before.  And it was better to not have Maria move around the trailer which occasionally caused the trailer to sway slightly causing me to slow down.

Going up the second "hill" - north of Ravalli - was when things quickly went downhill for me.

At the top of the hill the noise was louder and the pickup could only go as fast as 40 mph.  St Ignatius is a very small town with a population less than a thousand people. And any repair shops?   Maybe I can make it to Ronan, Montana and a repair shop there.  Ronan has a population of less than two thousand people.

I didn't make it.  I made it as far as where the word "pickup" is on the map.   I was driving slower.  There was a house on the side of the highway.  Normally the few houses around were way off the highway.  And this place had a wide driveway where I could fit my pickup and stock trailer as the highway's shoulder was barely wide enough to fit my pickup and trailer.

I don't own a cell phone, and due to Donna's recent illness she - and her cell phone - wasn't traveling with me.  Fortunately a woman was home due to her baby and small child.  I was able to use her cell phone.   I have State Farm roadside assistance and I called them.   Because I don't drive much I only have active insurance on the pickup I am driving, and I suspend insurance on the other pickup.   The previous day I have reactivated my four-wheel drive pickup's insurance by talking with my local State Farm insurance agent.  Guess what?  The national State Farm insurance company didn't know the local agent reactivated my pickup's insurance.  They thought it was still suspended.  So I was on the phone with my local State Farm insurance agent, a national State Farm employee, and a State Farm roadside assistance employee.   In the end I had to pay for the tow of my pickup and stock trailer, and after the national State Farm got the paperwork from the local employee, State Farm said they would reimburse me.   The cost for 11 miles: $757 dollars. Crazy expensive for some reason.  We'll see if State Farm sticks up to their word.

I didn't know of any repair shops in Ronan.  The roadside assistant found a repair shop that would look at my vehicle today.  At 3 pm.   I had been on the phone for well over an hour to get help and it was now after 11 am.

After I paid, roadside sent out a text to me listing the tow truck company.  Then I had to call roadside assistance back with the company name.  The State Farm assistant said they then checked if the tow company could tow a stock trailer in addition to a pickup.  Then she told me yes.

While the roadside assistant said it would take an hour and a half for the tow truck to arrive, it arrived in a half hour.    The driver said he only got confirmation about the pickup.  The trailer was suppose to be a second confirmation.   He said he would call State Farm about the trailer confirmation later and would haul my pickup to the repair shop now and then later come back with the trailer.

As the pickup and trailer was across the driveway we had to move the trailer to the side.  The driver said for him to move the pickup it would cost me an extra $35.   What?!!   I then tried to use my pickup to move the trailer a few feet.  But when I put the pickup into drive, nothing happened.   So the tow truck driver had to move the trailer.   In the end the driver didn't charge me $35.  That I know about.

We arrived at the repair shop around 12:30 pm.   I waited in the office sitting on one of the few chairs.  After some conversation I stopped talking and let the employee get back to work.  I fell asleep sitting in the chair.   Just before 2:30 pm she woke me up and told me they already checked out my pickup.   She had good and bad news.  The good news it wasn't a transmission problem.  The bad news was that it was a rear differential problem.  Apparently all the fluid had leaked out of the rear differential.  With no fluid inside, part of the differential was ground to nothing.    Look at the round object in the center of the photo.  That has no ridges to interact with the ridges on the left of it.  The mechanics had seen differential problems in the past, but nothing like this.  The weight of the trailer and cows had a major impact on a differential with no fluid.

I ended up buying a used differential to replace this one.   It was the easiest and cheapest thing to do.  The differential repairment arrived this past Tuesday and the pickup was fixed by Wednesday.

Earlier, before they figured out what the problem was, I had figured the repair would most likely not be done the same day, and I called Donna to come get me.  I told her not to arrive before 3 pm, after I found out what the problem was.

It wasn't quite 3 pm yet and my stock trailer hadn't arrived yet.  I had to call State Farm roadside assistance again as I forgot the name of the towing company that towed my pickup.  Again roadside assistance told me the insurance on my pickup was suspended.  I had to again call my local State Farm agent, then the national State Farm office. I asked where my stock trailer was.  To make the explanation of my 45 minute phone call shorter... they now said that my insurance didn't cover stock trailers towed by my pickup.   Really?!   That's a change from what roadside assistance told me earlier in the morning.  I had used one of the repair shop's phone to make the call.  I think they were taking pity on me as they said I could use one of their older pickups to tow my trailer since the distance was short.  I did as I wanted to stop arguing with State Farm about them saying one then then another, and I wanted to just go home.  The repair shop let me park my stock trailer in the back of their lot as I didn't want to leave my stock trailer on the side of the highway where the pickup had broke down.  Who knows if the trailer would still be there the next day if left on the side of the highway.

My 'new' differential assembly arrived this past Tuesday.  I also had the repair shop do a courtesy check and change the pickup's oil.    The cost for the repair was about five dollars less than what I got for the two cows.

Donna drove me to Ronan on Friday and I got my pickup and stock trailer.   This day snow was south of Flathead Lake to Ronan.  And due to an inversion it was extremely foggy south of the lake to Ronan.  It was hard to see.

So, my pickup and trailer is back home.  Usually I clean manure out of the stock trailer when I bring the trailer home, but it has been a week since the temperature was above freezing, and the manure is frozen.  It looks like the trailer cleaning won't be done until Spring.

My pickup and trailer at the livestock auction.

A few views during my drive home before the pickup broke down.

Picking up tree branches and trunks

Before our recent snowfall I was working at picking up the tree trunks and branches I had cut this year in the pastures.   When snow came into the weather forecast near the end of October I started to work harder.  I almost made it.  One more day - or maybe two - and I would have had all the branches in the pastures picked up.  I did get all the trunks picked up and stacked in the NE corner of the middle pasture.

A number of tree branches were big enough that they would make good firewood for my woodstove.  I had a number of piles to pick up and stack.

Here is a stack of cut branches I had cut in the Spring.  Because the cattle like to rub in the dirt I fill back into a hole after I burn a tree stump, I placed this pile of cut branches over the dirt.  Now that the year is over I could take the cut branches and stack them in the patio to use as firewood.  I hope the grass will grow next Spring completely covering the dirt that is left.

Not all branches were thick enough to use as firewood.  I took these branches and placed them in a part of the pasture I don't harrow.  I can use them when I burn a tree stump next year.

Here is one of the stacks of trunks I had to stack and restack this year as the cattle insisted on knocking over the pile of trunks.  For the stack of the trunks in the corner of the pasture, the cattle only knock over a trunk or two on the one corner of the stack, not the entire stack of trunks.

Partially stacked.  I took the photo to show the trunks from the last tree to fall over this year.  Well, at this point.  Yesterday I discovered another dead tree had fallen over in the middle pasture.  Another tree trunk to chainsaw next Spring into smaller pieces.

Last year I had worked at downsizing this stack by splitting most of the trunks into firewood.  This is mostly what was left.  Before taking this photo I had hauled off six trunks for splitting this year as they were looking like they were starting to get softer and deteriorating.  I kept these trunks to restack last, and to be on top.  That way they will be the first to be split when I get to splitting trunks from this stack.

I finished stacking the trunks the evening before the snowfall.  Just before the snowfall.  I didn't get the photos taken until after our seven-inch snowfall.

Of course the cattle had to check out what I was doing when I took these photos. And you can see some small cut branches in the stack.  I need to dry these branches out, so they will remain here until next Fall.  And, by placing the branch stack at the corner of the stack of logs, and using metal posts to hold the stack of branches, maybe this will stop the cattle from knocking the corner section of the stack of trunks down.

Election work

Yesterday I worked as an election judge during the election.  A long day as the polls were open from 7 am to 8 pm.  Donna usually works along with me, but due to her recent health problem, her doctor told her not to work such a long day.  Her sister Jane filled in for Donna.  

It was a busy day as many people voted, certainly more than who voted during the Primary this Spring.  We had eight voting booths, but the election department had to bring us four extra voting booths to try to eliminate the line of people waiting to fill out their voting ballot.  And this is even with more people these days voting by absentee ballot.

Donna had made chill for us election workers to eat; and other people brought crockpots of food, or pots of soup, for all workers to share.  Lots of excellent food.

In the end, all went well, and we had a successful day.