Strong wind on my bicycle ride

A cold front came through when I was on a bicycle ride.  I didn't know that a cold front was coming.  Last day of the month, and since I hadn't been riding much bicycle earlier this week and today's temperature was decent, I went for a bicycle ride.  The ride was going well.  So I decided to ride more miles and make my loop larger.  Then on the larger part of the loop I noticed dark blue ground-to-sky clouds to the west.  No matter which way I went, the distance home was about the same.  And I thought I would get home before the dark blue clouds reached me.  I was wrong.

I had south winds most of my ride.  But when I turned west the wind started to turn to the SW.  By the time I turned back south and had 5 miles left to ride the wind switched to the west.  The clouds had arrived and the wind picked up quickly and it started to rain.  Actually the rain went sideways and not down.  Within a half mile my left side was soaking wet.

In the 5 mile ride home I had a half mile turn to the west.  I struggled to ride 4 mph and stay upright riding west even though the wind was head-on.  Now the entire front of me got soaking wet.  Once I turned south the wind "lightened up" and changed to WSW.  I made it to Donna's place and took a break until the rain stopped and the wind lightened up some more.   I made it home and was very wet when I got there.

Another eventful 25 mile bicycle ride.

The time, temperature, wind, visibility distance, rain amount.

Little Red is dead. And another death.

This morning when I went out to give a small bale of hay to the cattle I found Little Red was dead.  Yesterday she was fine.  I have no idea why she died.  No signs of an injury. A very small amount of blood was in her nose.  The weather was decent, and the temperature overnight stayed above freezing.

Little Red was born in March 28, 2018.   She was almost 6 years old.  Too young to die.  I no longer have any red angus cattle as last Fall I had sold Little Red's mother at the livestock auction. I'll miss Little Red and am sad.

I used the tractor to half carry and half drag Little Red out to the SW corner of the south pasture.  I will let the circle of life take care of her body.  The past deer and calves I left there were soon gone.

This was the first time I have been to the south pasture this year.  As I took Little Red to the SW corner I noticed something on my south fence.  I found the remnants of a dead deer.  It must have gotten caught on the fence and died.  I don't think the south neighbors left it there.  As you can see there was not much left of the deer.  I took the rest of the deer off the fence.

So... lots of death at the ranch today.

Missoula tractor trip

Today Donna and I drove down to Missoula, MT.   Missoula is where I usually go to sell my cattle at the livestock auction.  Today, though, I went to Missoula for a different reason.  For the last few weeks I have been looking at tractors and mower conditioners.   My New Holland haybine has seen its better days and I want something new to cut my hay.  Over the years hay cutting equipment went from swathers to haybines, now to mower conditioners. 

Once I get a mower conditioner I will talk and show how they are different.   For now, the one difference I will mention is that mower conditioners require more tractor PTO horsepower to run the machine.  70 hp or more.  My tractor's PTO hp is 65.   Not enough to run a mower conditioner - though some people say I could use my current tractor to run a mower conditioner if I cut the hay slow.  No, I don't want to.  I don't want to cut my hay slower or risk a problem with the mower conditioner or tractor in doing so.  So that means a slightly larger tractor.  And that is expensive.

I am looking at two brands of tractors and mower conditioners.   John Deere or Case IH New Holland.  The two dealerships had the tractors I want/need at their Missoula branch, not the Kalispell branch.  I want to see the tractors in person before buying.  I've been trying to get to Missoula for a few weeks now, but between my schedule, Donna's schedule, or the weather I haven't been able to get to Missoula.  The John Deere dealer already had a mower conditioner in Kalispell.  I didn't ask, then told them they didn't have to, but they decided as I wasn't making it to Missoula last week they brought the tractor here to Kalispell.  I looked at it last Friday.  Today Donna's and my schedules and the weather worked and we were able to drive to Missoula.  Because Donna can get carsick riding long distances if she is a passenger, she drove.  So I saw the Case tractor and mower conditioner.  Now I have an idea how I want to proceed and what I prefer.  I just have to a little more work to do, so perhaps next week I will have things settled.  I'll let you know.

Of course, I took a few photos at my typical favorite viewpoint of the Mission Mountains along the way.

Horse trailer, moving snow, and Rusty

Yesterday Donna's daughter and husband brought three of their horses over to Donna's place.  Good thing Donna and I rebuilt her fence last year before Winter came.  The daughter and husband's new place isn't fenced yet for the horses.

They needed a place to leave their horse trailer overnight before they returned to their current home today.  I said they could leave the trailer in my NE pasture.  The snow is not high but is dense and hard.  I shoveled a spot inside the NE pasture gate where he could back up and store the trailer.  But he thought he could drive through the snow in the pasture and turn around.  When turning around the trailer's tires no longer followed the pickup's broken snow path and had to also break snow. Too much hard snow to break and everything came to a stop.  I did some shoveling around all the tires to get him going again.  Still turning wasn't going to work so he made it to the tracks where I had driven the tractor to get the large hay bale earlier.  So I changed plans and had him drive to the north pasture and then back into and through the corral, and then had him park the trailer in the backyard.  That all worked.

They plan on bringing the rest of their hay in a day or two and will store it at Donna's for now.  So they don't get stuck in snow in Donna's yard, today I went down and with the tractor made a path back to the shed.  Then I moved the snow away in front of the shed so they can turn around and park to unload the hay bales.  I also moved a snow drift away from where the horse's water trough is located.   Even with the tractor's help it was hard to move a lot of the hard dense heavy snow and I spent a few hours doing so.

The path back.
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Rusty wanted to ride in the tractor and spent much of the time helping move the snow away.  He was good and only a few times was in the way when I wanted to use the clutch pedal on the tractor.  Rusty likes to ride with 'grandpa'.

Corral double gate

Today, the second time in a week, I discovered the cattle had been trying to open the double gates between the corral and the NE pasture.  Why?  There is just snow on the other side of the gates.  The bar is on the other side of the gates, yet the cattle find a way to slide the bar.   If you look lower you see I also have a short chain wrapped around the gates.  A backup way to secure the gates.

Vitalix mineral lick for cattle

Once a year I like to supplement the cattle's hay with a mineral lick.  Gives them extra vitamins.  I give the cattle this near the end of their pregnancy.  Yesterday I put out a 250 lb tub.   The cattle love licking this.  The molasses in the mix is appealing to them.

Of course... Haynes.   On the first day he was pushing the tub around the corral.  I was going to get my camera to take a video of him pushing the tub but then he flipped the tub completely over.  I had to go in the corral and tip the tub back upright.  By the time I got the camera he had left the tub.  So, no video.

Today the cattle pushed the tub around only a little bit.  Here are some photos of them licking from the tub.

Wooden feeder board trimmed again

My boards never seem to stop growing.  I have trimmed the width of the boards in the large wooden hay feeder many, many times.  You'd think this would end.  But, no.    Today I noticed the boards width increased yet again, and doing so, popped up a board in the feeder floor as all the boards would no longer fit.   I had to trim the board narrower yet again.   In the photo, the board is before I trimmed it today.   So you can see how I had trimmed the board last year, and the year before. 

I don't over trim the boards as I want them to fit together without big gaps so the hay doesn't fall through the floor.  When the boards are dry they are loose with small gaps between some of them.   The board was so wet the sawdust was not light.

The board now fits.  I'll see how long this lasts.  The boards increase in size when wet, and this has been a wet Fall and a wet Winter so far.