Life among the Tall Pines: 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.