Cattle in the sun, and full moon

The past so many days the weather warmed up back to normal.  Global warming must be back since we finally warmed up to normal temperatures.  The cattle and I need to enjoy it as the weather forecast by this upcoming weekend is for well below normal temperatures, and cold and snow.

The cattle were enjoying the sun this morning. 

Box elder trees.  The tree on the left is the female tree.  It holds on to its seeds (that you see) until Spring.  The tree on the right is the male box elder tree.

Toby the bull and Beulah the head cow.

Saturday I took photos of the full moon as it rose above the mountains.

Weed hay panel bend, and tree stump bonfires

The cattle were at it again.  Yesterday when they still had their bale of good hay the cattle visited the weed hay and tried to get in.  Today after they finished off their bale of hay they went for the weed hay before I could get a new bale of hay put out for them.  This time they bent a panel around a bale of weed hay.  One can't quite see it in the following photo but the panel against the weed hay bale - not just the corral - is bent at a 90 degree angle.  Yes, the PANEL itself is bent at a 90 degree angle around the bale of hay.  The cattle bent the panels so hard that on one panel the chain holding a pin used to pin the panels together broke.  The chain - which had been welded to the panel - was pulled off the panel!

As you can see I have less weed hay.   Yesterday and today I have switched tactics in getting rid of the weed hay.  The bales are no longer full size.  I have used the tractor to take a few bales and placed them on tree stumps and burnt them.  It worked well last night as the two bales were almost all burnt up by this morning.

I switched to this tactic when I discovered one of the rotting tree stumps I had burnt had plenty of stump left.  All the other rotting stumps I had burnt appeared to have burnt all of the stump.  Not stump 12.  A small part of the stump rose above the ashes, even after I had burnt the stump several times.  When I dug around small part of the stump I found the following.

As this was plenty of stump left to burn I placed a good sized pile of tree branches on the stump for the next burn.  That's when I got the idea to place and also burn a half bale of weed hay.

Most of the stump and the weed hay bale were gone by morning.  This evening I placed more branches on the remaining stump and then another weed hay bale and had another bonfire under a full moon.

Moon, clouds, tree

Before I went to bed at 1:30 am I went outside to check the weather. The moon was almost full.  There were clouds moving by.  I took a few photos.

Christmas full moon

Snow.  Snow. And more snow!!!  I thought it was supposed to quit by now, but Christmas morning I woke up to two more inches of snow.  That makes 22.2 inches for December.  We have 11 inches of snow on the ground.  I thought El Nino meant we would be warm and dry in the Pacific NW this Winter. We are well above average for precipitation in December.  Now the weather forecasters say El Nino's effect won't start until January.  They say that when the month is almost over and we are above average in precip.

I'm tired of shoveling snow.

Anyway.... for something different.  Here are photos of the Christmas full moon.  We won't have another full moon on Christmas Day until 2034.

I took one photo using the camera's flash so you can see that the moon is indeed full.

Return home

Wen I got home from my Washington trip Daisy was very happy to see me.  She met me at the door and wanted attention.  I had to sit on the front step and pet her for 15 to 20 minutes before I could go inside the house and go to bed.  Daisy, having been inside the house over five days wanted to go outside, but wanted attention from me more.  Her meow was hoarse.  She must have been lonely when I was gone and was calling for me.  Poor kitty.

My first day home Daisy spent a little time on her outside patrols, but mainly hung around me going almost everywhere I went.

Her nose is still healing.  I can see the puncture marks so the injury was not from bumping her nose.  It must itch as it is healing as she moved her head once so I could lightly scratch her nose when I was scratching around her neck and face.

The cattle were also happy to see me.  Seeing me meant more apples.  I gave them several plastic bags full of apples and naturally they wanted more. It appears they all behaved when I was gone. And no reports of that little calf getting out in the neighbor's field.

I found a laundry basket of apples on my front step.  All day I asked people if they left the apples for my cattle.  Nope.  The next morning I talked with Dan and learned he left them.  He said when he dropped the apples off he gave the cattle some apples, and while he remembered me telling him the cattle loved apples, he was amazed at how much they liked the apples.  The herd came thundering over when he came to the fence with apples.  So many stuck their head through the fence to get more apples he was afraid the fence would break.  So he tossed the apples over the fence behind the cattle so they would stop crowding the fence.


Once I got my sleep it was this and that to get back into the groove of things.  By evening I finally began the tear down for a rebuild of the north side barn feeder.  That is when I took these sunset photos, and then the rising  full (blood) moon photo.

September moon with clouds

Winter is coming!  Early Wednesday afternoon when the clouds lifted briefly snow covered the tops of the mountains.  Our high temperature was 48 degrees which is 24 degrees below normal.  I think the 48 degrees came after midnight as it seems like the temp was in the low 40s all day.  Toss in the strong wind and it was a cold day.  Even Daisy didn't spend much time outside.  She is currently curled up on my lap.

Moon, tree and Daisy

Saturday night's moon.

Two different camera settings of the same moon.

What a cutie-pie,watching the moon with me.

Wolf moon

A few mornings ago we had a full moon. January's full moon is called a wolf moon.  Here is the moon when I fed the cattle in the morning.

Wolf moon between the trees.

Halloween moon

The fog came in well before sunset.  Creeping across the pasture.  When I came out of the corral well the fog was thick.  Perfect for Halloween night.

June moon

Here are a few photos of the moon the other night.