Tulips blooming

Spring is here.  My tulips started blooming today.

Aloe vera plant flowering

It is that time of year for my aloe vera plant.  It is now flowering.   Donna also has an aloe vera plant. Her plant started flowering weeks ago.

My aloe vera plant.

Cactus flowers

It's that time of year again.  Time for my cactus plant to flower.

Calf 14 and petunias

Today calf 14 stayed in the fruit tree area.   Much of the time he laid next to calf 13 when calf 13 laid.  Calf 13, being older, is more active and doesn't sleep as much as calf 14.

Here are some more photos of my petunias.  Donna and her sister Jane told me to make sure I water the flowers.  One should listen to women, so I water the flowers every day.   The flowers are doing well, even though several nights it got cold overnight.  31 degrees briefly one night, then 30 degrees for a half hour the next night.

Petunias

This morning Donna got me out of bed to receive some flowers.  Her sister Jane had extra petunias and Donna doesn't have any more place to put the flowers.  Then she remembered my tulip beds around my house.  Most of the tulips are gone so I have room for the flowers.

By the time I got out of bed Donna already had found a hoe to work the dirt.  My shovel is still out where I am getting rid of some hawthorn trees.   Her sister Jane showed up shortly with the petunias and they planted them for me.  It makes my place look prettier.  Now my job is to keep the petunias watered and alive.

We'll see how the petunias will do.  I don't know where they were last night/this morning.   I see our temperature had dropped briefly this morning before 4:30 am down to 31 degrees.   June has been a cold month for us.   We struggle to have a high temperature of 60 degrees.  Colder than normal.  Our overnight low tonight was predicted to be 40 degrees.  It is 39 degrees right now.  I hope we warm up soon.

Trees and flowers

Spring has sprung.  The trees are leafing out.   The tulips are blooming.

Pear trees.  The big tree looks good.  The small tree has not leafed out.  It should have by now.

Apple trees are blooming.  Looks like I will get some apples this year if the bees do their stuff.

The apricot tree already bloomed a week or two ago.  The apricot trees are the first to bloom.  Often it seems that they bloom before the bees are out doing their stuff.

This apricot tree is trying to grow.  Doesn't seem to get taller each year.  The tree is almost as old as the other apricot tree.

Buffaloberry trees.

Cherry trees are trying to hang in there.

I believe these are currant bushes.

These are hazelnut shrubs.  I wish they would grow more.  They should.

Rhubarb

Black walnut trees.   They are slow growing.

My English walnut trees.  They, and the black walnut trees, usually are the last trees to leaf out.   The smaller English walnut tree has leafed out.  But the larger English walnut tree hadn't.  We had a colder than normal Winter this year.  I hope that didn't affect this tree. 

Trees, flowers, etc.

101 degrees here today.  Hot.   This afternoon I rode my bicycle to the John Deere dealership south of town.  12 miles away.   For over two weeks I have my tractor there to be fixed.  No news from them about it.  No answered or returned phone calls.  In person they talked to me.  They are still waiting on a new console and have no idea when it will be shipped or arrive. They haven't gotten an answer from the John Deere headquarters/warehouse.   Apparently these days parts with electrical components are not being made/shipped/whatever.  I want to cut my hayfield and I have no tractor right now.

Even though it was hot outside I wasn't hot when riding my bicycle.  So I rode extra places to ride more miles.  38 miles in total.  I've discovered that in addition to losing my sense of appetite after my head injury, and having to eat even if I am not hungry, I now learned I had also lost my sense of thirst.  I was south of town and my mouth and lips started to feel really dry.  Between the heat and time I hadn't drank water in a while.  I wasn't thirsty but it turns out I needed to drink water.  Fortunately Donna's sister Jane and her husband live south of town so I stopped at their place to ask for a glass of water.   I hadn't talked to them in a long time, so many hours later I rode my bicycle home in the evening.  Well... it was too hot to do any work outside.  Why not talk?

So what to post about tonight?   How about a few odd-and-end photos.

Time passes. Some trees were shorter back then.  Around 15 years ago I pastured a few horses.  One of the horses would walk over an evergreen tree, and going forward and backwards over and over, bend the tree and use it to rub the horse's belly.  Can you guess which tree that was?

I would like to prune the dead branches.  But next to the house you can see how tall that tree is.  No way I can climb up that high in the tree.  Going a quarter to a third up the tree seems very high off the ground.

Last year's backyard fence rebuild. Even a few weeks ago the hay was tall enough to be cut, and the lilac bush still had blossoms on it.

My annual photo of my poppy flowers.  The cattle were able to reach the other poppy flower and eat it.

Tulips and rain

A cold (low 40s for a high temperature) and rainy day today.  We need the rain.  So I slept most of the day.

Here are a couple of photos of my tulips from earlier this week when they started blooming.  I don't have as many tulips anymore. The tulips grew in the area between the bricks and the house.   These tulips are some extra that grew outside that area.  I think it was because my former cat Daisy like to use the flower area as a litter box.  Oh well, I still loved my cat.

Flowers

The poppy flowers in front of the house have opened their buds these past few days.

Chicory, and Toby was in a mood

Patti knows flowers and she sent me an email that the flower I had posted about several days ago is Chicory.  https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/chicory

Chicory is a good example of an invasive species that remains sparsely scattered during early population establishment and then within a few short years shows up in masses everywhere.

Darn. It is such a pretty flower.  … I mean: weed.  Today I pulled up the two plants I found the other day, and the plant I found today when moving pipes.  I may have to spray in the future.  The plants already have a large root and I couldn't pull all of the root out with the plants.


This morning when I went out to move irrigation pipes Toby was restless.  He was walking the corral fence. The cattle were at the far end of the north pasture closer to the river. A short time later the electric lines going from the power pole by the garage over to the road went whipping.  The power pole is in the NE pasture by my garage.  The pole is anchored in the ground by a support cable.  Toby had walked by the cable, and being in a 'mood' didn't care that he hit the cable.  That must have moved the pole which then whipped the two power line wires.

Okay!  That's enough!  Time out!

When Toby walked back into the corral I carefully opened the gate to the corral south of the barn.  He walked through and I shut the gate before Mama and Diamond could come through the gate.  Toby spent the day in that corral.  I let him out in the evening when I moved irrigation pipes as one line would go right through that corral.

Toby went to join Mama and Diamond eating grass in the NE pasture.  The one irrigation line went through the corral to the west side of the NE pasture.  It was then I discovered the gate between the north and the NE pastures was bent.  The bottom of the gate on one side was bent up and the one end of the gate was cockeyed.  Toby, when he was in a mood in the morning, must have put his head under the gate and tried to bend it up and out.   I also found a large walk-through corral panel in the north pasture that I had leaned against the 'buffalo' fence next to the gate laying on the ground.  The gate - the strong HW brown metal - held.  The gate still works.  But now on my to-do list is to somehow bend the gate back in shape.  *sigh*

When I finished moving the irrigation pipes, and as I walked back to the corral, I wanted to check to see if the irrigation water made it all the way to the gate.  That would help keep Toby away if he got in a mood again the next morning.  I heard a loud noise at the buffalo fence and saw several calves run away from the fence.  Speckles and her calf was at  the north pasture side of the buffalo fence.  On the other side was Toby.  He had banged on the buffalo fence.  The fence held.  The cattle in the north pasture should have been all bred and no one in heat.  But Toby, having been away from them for a few days now, wanted to check them out.  And, no, the irrigation water didn't quite make it to the fence and gate.

Toby was standing among my stacks of boards and had to back up to get out.  Of course he knocked some of the boards over.  I opened the cockeyed gate to let Toby into the north pasture.  Mama, her calf, and Diamond were also here and wanted to get into the north pasture.  I was able to keep them in the NE pasture and let Toby out.  I did have to move quick with the gate as Mama's calf wanted to follow Toby.  I had to cut him off before he darted through the gate without getting Mama mad.

Of course in 24 hours or so Toby will be bellowing to get back with Mama and Diamond.  Diamond still hasn't had her calf.   Diamond is pregnant as all get-out and could calve any day now.   Maybe Diamond is having a bull calf as bull calves have a slightly longer gestation than heifer calves.  I can't wait for her to have her calf as then everyone can be altogether.

Pennycress, weed hay, the gift that keeps on giving.

Flowers in the hayfield

This morning when moving irrigation pipes I saw two bright blue flowers growing in the hayfield.

I don't know what kind of flowers they are but they are pretty.  The photos don't do the flowers justice.

I have covered the hayfield once and now am on the way back moving pipes.  The grass and alfalfa are sure liking the water.  The weather here now is hot (about 90 degrees), sunny and dry.

Tulips

After a handful of nice, dry and warm days, rain and colder temperatures returned today.  While it lasted the warm weather has kickstarted the grass growing and the tulips blooming.

Fussy eaters and work they make

Today is the day the cattle finish a large hay bale.  Often it is the stemy hay left.  Often the cattle drag their feet in eating all the hay.  Today they took it to a new level.

Mid afternoon I returned from my doctor's appointment.  I had an electrician coming out to see what I wanted so he could give me an estimate for some electrical work.  When outside I noticed Mama's and one other cow's calf (calf 1 - the curious calf) in the north pasture on the other side of the corral panels.

Huh?

Sure enough they were on the other side of the corral panels and eating grass.  The cows weren't happy about it and a number were bellowing loudly.  The cattle still had a little hay left in their feeder but none were interested in it.  I put two small bales out in the corral's feeder and the cattle went into the corral.

In their desire to eat green grass the cattle pushed against the corral panels and moved them a ways into the north pasture.  The south panels were attached to the top of a wood fence post but the bottom was not.  The bottom wire I used to attach the panel to the post was off the post and panel.  Fortunately the top wire held (though the post was leaning pretty good).   The panels leaned out on the bottom and the two calves got through.

When I walked out to the panels Mama's calf (Clyde) slipped back around the lower part of the end corral panel and back into the 'correct' part of the pasture.  Clyde and two other calves didn't want to go into the corral but eventually I got them herded inside.  The other calf was still outside the panels.  I had to unhook one panel and then herd him past the panel and then into the corral.

Once the electrician left I went to work on the panels.  I straightened the post.  I decided to have the south panels connect to the next eastern wood fence post.  I thought I had enough play when moving the fence back from where the cattle moved them.  I was 4 to 6 inches short.  I had to unhook each panel and then move it over.  All the way across the line of panels.

I noticed (before I put them into the corral today) the cattle (especially #7) were still leaning over the fence to eat the northern neighbor's grass along the fence.  My newer fence posts held but the wire fence was getting bent down.  I had to bend the top of the wire fence back up.

I decided to rearrange some of the corral panels to go across the north side and make a barrier.  That way the panels will block the cattle from the fence and the messy areas where I had fed hay bales earlier.  I'll finish this line of panels tomorrow after I put a new large bale out and move the hay feeder.

The cattle were also leaning through the southern fence's barb wire to eat the grass along the fence in the hayfield.  I had to patch a few wires they had broken.

Before doing the panel and fence work I had taken the remaining hay from the pasture feeder and placed it in one wooden feeder in the corral.  There is some unknown reason the cattle don't like this last bit of hay.  All while I was working on the panels and fences a number of cattle stood in the corral and bellowed at me.  Only a few cows picked at the hay.

I found #7 was sticking her head through the gate to the loading corral so she could eat what grass she could reach in there.  The gate held.

By the time I was done with the panel and fence work I gave in and gave the cattle two more small hay bales so they would shut up. 

I also saw that the gate dividing the corral was bent out and leaning down a bit on one end.  It appears Buddy had leaned on and against it.  When working on the panels I noticed a cow (#7 of course!) backed up to this gate.  She was pushing and rubbing her rear end on it.  She was straightening the gate back up a little bit.  But not by much as Buddy was right there with his nose and mouth....  well... let your imagination go.

After I went into the house to get my camera #7 and Buddy left the gate.

No wonder the gate is bent, these cows come over to tease Buddy.   I hand strung a few strands of barb wire just above the top of the gate.  I'll see if that helps.


Now that the JB Weld patch on my cattle water trough was completely dried I put the water trough back.  I re-leveled the blocks the trough rests on.  I want a small tilt to the SW so if the water trough is overfilled the water runs away from the well.

Then the sun set and I wasn't able to finish digging around tree stump #3.

I mentioned I saw a doctor this afternoon.  It was to my orthopedic surgeon.  He was pleased with my recovery and released me to resume my normal activities (which I had already been doing these past few weeks).  I got copies of today's x-rays.  To me they look the same as my previous x-rays taken after my  surgury.


Lastly, the tulips are blooming.