More ditch burning, pocket gopher, fox

A nice day with light wind.  I put out a new large hay bale this morning.  No new calf.  Before starting to harrow the hayfield this afternoon I decided to burn some of the ditch across the road.   For much of the ditch the nearby field grass was high and thick as nothing is done with that field as a developer owns it.  I mowed a strip on part of the field.  I don't want to take a chance a fire could get away across the field.  I also went down the ditch along the pasture where the horses are.  I'm not worried about that field as the horses ate the grass and it is low and green.  I wanted to mow a buffer near the telephone pole and only burn that ditch to there.

Of course my lawn mower quit just before I reached the pole.  I couldn't restart the mower.  I pushed it home and then thought of checking the spark plug.  That was the problem.  I went back to finish mowing the buffer.

Then when I went to start burning it started to lightly rain.  So I walked back home.  Minutes later it quit raining.  *argh*   Ok, let me try this again.  I burnt the ditch along the horse pasture.

Looking to the south towards the telephone pole.  Then looking north from the pole.

This is what the ditch looks like south of the telephone pole.   No plans to burn this ditch.  We'll see if I change my mind another day.

Looking north at what I burned today and what I burned a week ago.

By the time I was done burning this section of the ditch, the wind picked up slightly.  And the wind blew from the worst direction.  The strip I had mowed for a ditch burn next to the grassy field would have been fine for a buffer.  And I could have done the burn, but I didn't want to risk the fire jumping the strip.  I'll do the burn another day.  We'll see when as the forecast has some rain and wind for the next few days.

Another reason to skip more ditch burning was I was a little tired.  I didn't think I was.  I went in the house to get a bite to eat and sit down.  A short time later I laid down as Rascal wanted to be with me.  And I was quickly out.  For an hour and a half.  I guess I was tired.

A week ago I noticed three fresh pocket gopher dirt mounds in the hayfield.  Already they are active?  Okay.   I set out a trap.  Of the three dirt mounds I only found a tunnel under one mound.  Perhaps the pocket gopher dug the first two spots then decided to go to the third spot and make a new tunnel.

Last week was rainy so I didn't check the trap for two or three days.  When I did, I found the trap on top of the ground and upside down.  When that happened in the past that meant another animal pulled the trap out of the hole so it could reach the pocket gopher in the trap.  That is why I tie the trap to a pole I put in the ground as I lost traps in the past.   I reset the trap in the hole.  After a few more days, no pocket gopher.  So I think some animal got the pocket gopher.

After my nap I decided to do a little more work.  I raked the manure away from the north hayfield fence.  For some reason last year when the cattle were in the hayfield they left lots of manure right at the fence.  I can only pull the harrow so close to the fence, so raking was necessary.   Then I pulled the harrow around the hayfield twice.   The first time around, as I was along the roadside, an animal came through the barb wire fence into the hayfield.  Close to the area where I had the pocket gopher trap last week.  It checked the ground in that area as it walked.  Yup.  I think this was the animal that pulled the trap out of the hole to get to the pocket gopher.    The animal looked like a fox.   There are coyotes around.  If this was a coyote, it was a smaller coyote.  When I saw the animal it was starting to get dark.  And of course it wasn't close to the tractor.  Perhaps a fox.  I had seen one at the ranch two decades ago.