An unusual and annoying day

This day did not go as planned.  I can't wait until tomorrow even though tomorrow I have a dental visit to replace a crown.

Lately I've been leaving the back door open a little bit when I go to bed.  Rascal sleeps all day.  At sundown he likes to be outside much of the night.  But he also wants to come in the house to get a bite to eat every so often.   He wakes me up to let him inside.  5 minutes or so later he wakes me up to go back outside.  Several times a night.  So I leave the door partially open.   Late night / early morning he is done being outside and will come and lay on my bed next to me.

This morning when I got up to use the bathroom I found a dead headless mouse in the hall outside my bedroom.  Okay... maybe leaving the door open is not a good idea.   I tossed the mouse out the back door.   Later when I woke up to start the day I saw the mouse was gone.  Earlier I had heard a bird out my window.

Then I go and check on the water trough for the cattle.  They are still at my neighbor's place.  I then do a short bicycle ride of 5 to 7 miles.  Today I got a flat tire and had to ride home a half mile on a flat front tire.  What caused the flat?  Those darn steel belted tires.  They fleck little bits of metal wires.  And they will go through my bicycle tire.  I seem to get a flat from these wires a time or two a year.

I fixed the flat.  Later in the afternoon I went and checked on the water trough again.  Then when I went on another short bicycle ride I got another flat!   No wire this time.  Not sure what caused the flat.  Maybe when I hit a small rock when riding?  This hole was harder to find, and I had to put my inner tube in the water trough to see where the air was leaking,  I fixed this flat.   But then when I put a little air in the tire the inner tube popped and went flat.  The tube had a cut in it now.  Why?  No idea.

So I needed a new inner tube.  And I didn't have one.  A trip to Walmart.  They had a 700 mm tube but the width was a little larger than my tire.  No other options.  I bought it.   Later, at the end of the day, when I installed the tube it did fit.  I went and rode to fill the water trough again.  A very short ride and this time no flats.  Finally.

From my hay cutting yesterday I used some diesel.  I had enough diesel for today, but the DEF one must add to the diesel was low.  The fuel gage for the DEF was in the red area.  Off to buy some DEF.  Walmart - who carried DEF as I seen it some weeks ago - was out.  I went to my Town Pump gas station.  I had seen in the past they carried DEF.  They were out.  What is going on?  All diesel engines are required to use DEF since 2010.  So it should be sold and available at places where diesel is sold.

I had to drive to another gas station.  Another Town Pump.  And I encountered all stoplights as being red.  And when I could drive everyone was driving 5 mph under the speed limit.  What is going on today?

This Town Pump had some DEF.  $14.99 for a 2.5 gallon jug.  More expensive than diesel itself.  I picked up a box.  Then I had to stand in line.  It seems as if everyone was also buying a 6-pack or two or of beer in addition to gas.

I also decided to buy some diesel.  The total came to $3.15 for the diesel.  What?  I had given him more money for the diesel.  He then told me that even though the sign said $14.99 for a 2.5 gallon jug, there were two jugs in the box.  There were no option to buy only 1 jug.  

I have a Town Pump reward card.  But it is a Town Pump Exxon reward card.  This place was a Town Pump Conoco place.  Oh for heaven's sake.

I put the $3.15 diesel into my container.  On the way home I stopped at my normal Town Pump and bought more diesel to fill the container.  This was the Town Pump Exxon place.

This is the first time I added diesel to my tractor.  John Deere put a tool box above the fuel tank.  There is room for a nozzle to add fuel.  But to put diesel into the tank using a container, it is hard to position.  I think I will remove the tool box to give me more room in the future.

The DEF fuel cap is near the diesel fuel cap.  The DEF jug has a plastic hose to help one pour the DEF out of the jug.  Oh wait.  The plastic hose has a screw on - connect ability.  The jug does not.  So I had to get a funnel.   Then I discovered the DEF fuel cap has a small entry.  Maybe so one doesn't mix up the diesel and DEF spots.  The small funnel I got was a touch too large to fit in the DEF opening.  I had to find an even smaller funnel.

Since one can't see inside the DEF tank, when is the tank getting full?  I didn't want overfill the tank and spill DEF all over.  (I already spilled a little diesel when trying to position my container.)   I had to go get the tractor key and turn it so I could see on the fuel gage how full the tank was.

This DEF is a pain.  It is suppose to protect the environment.  I heard they don't have it or require it in Canada.  So if you drive your diesel powered vehicle in Canada you could have a problem.

I didn't have breakfast until 4 pm.  I didn't start cutting hay until after 6 pm.   My tractor's clock was off.  I went in my house to check the clock that will synchronize with the U.S. clock in Colorado to make sure it has the correct time,  I couldn't quite see the time so I moved the clock and dropped it.  The batteries fell out and there went the time.

I was concerned about my hay cutting considering how this day had gone so far.   What is going to happen now?   But, things changed.  I got my hay cut with no problems.   Finally something is going right.  Earlier I just wanted this day to be over.

The few hay cut hiccups were:  one can set the back of the MoCo to determine how wide the windrow would be.  I was almost done and I saw the windrows were a little larger.  So I adjusted the lever in back.  Here the photo shows how wide I want the windrow to be.   The other issue is the tilt of the cutting blades.  I wanted them to be mid-range.  At one point I saw the tilt to be all the way.  I reset that.

I don't like leaving grass around the power line towers.  Before I started cutting hay today I used my hand scythe and cut the grass from around the tower's legs,  With this new tractor I didn't drive through the powers.  I would back the MoCo into the towers from each of the four sides and cut the middle of the towers.  This takes longer to do, but it protects my tractor from a mishap.

Once the field was all cut, this was what I had left under the towers.  I backed the MoCo under the tower and cut most of this grass.  Then I used the hand scythe to get the little left.

What a day.

End of haying for now

I am done with haying for now.   This morning after moving my irrigation pipes, now that I can get in-and-out of the ranch via a vehicle, I drove to Donna's to get my portion of the hay bales.  The first trip had a bale in my baler, a bale of the tractor's bale spear, and a bale in the back of my pickup.  After leaving my baler in the corral, the second trip was a bale on the bale spear and a bale in the pickup.

The buyer of Donna's bales said he would be there at noon. I had then planned on moving all the bales in Donna's field to one location to make loading quicker.  When I got back to Donna's place after 10:30 am the guy was already there.  His plans had changed.  No problem.  Let's me get done quicker.

He had bought Donna's small bales in the past.  This was his first time buying large round bales.  He wasn't sure how many bales would fit on his trailer and how to put them on the trailer.  I suggested we could place them two across even though a foot or so of bale would hang over each side.  That is, if he had a strap to hold the bales onto the trailer.  He did.  So I loaded two bales side by side so he could see how they would fit.  He guided the placement of the bales as I would load the bales from one side of the trailer.  After the first two bales were loaded I suggested a little movement of the two bales so the bales were equally loaded and equally went beyond the trailer edge.  That done, and he was satisfied on how the bales would sit, I loaded 14 bales onto his trailer.  Five rows of two across.  Then I placed four bales on the five rows, placing the top bales in the middle of the two bales.  That way the top bale would help protect the bottom two bales from moving/leaning off the trailer.   That was all his trailer could handle.  And he had a diesel pickup that was able to tow the bale loaded trailer.

When I was loading the bales he offered to pull the trailer closer to the remaining bales.  I told him no.  Donna's field is uneven due to pocket gopher dirt mounds and I didn't want the bales falling off his trailer as they were not strapped onto the trailer yet.  It was easier for me to slowly drive across the field as the bouncing didn't cause the bale to come off the bale spear.  He had six straps to hold the bales in place.  I'm sure he made it home without any bales falling off the trailer as long as he drove responsibly.

I didn't have my camera with me otherwise I would have taken a photo of how his loaded trailer looked.  He took a photo of his loaded trailer just before he left.

Then I took the last bale home with me.  Then I spent a few hours cleaning the hay pieces and chaff out of the baler.  Once that was done I had one more fix to the baler.  Monday when I was re-lacing my formerly twisted baler belt and re-threading it around the rollers, Donna noticed the formerly twisted belt, at the opposite end of the baler, that Curtis and I fixed last year, didn't go correctly around one of the baler's rollers.  Whoa.  I had no problems baling my field's hay this year with that belt.  So instead of fixing that other belt on Monday due to how long it took me to fix the latest belt, I left it be.  After cleaning the baler I decided to fix the other belt.

How long did it take me to fix last year's belt?  A couple minutes.  It took me less than a minute to remove the pin, less than a minute to move the belt correctly around the roller, and less than a minute to reinstall the pin.  Not seven hours like it did for my belt this year.

How last year's belt looked: before and after my fix.

Then it was on to mowing the rest of the yard with my lawnmower.   I wanted to mow the yard after the cows had eaten the grass to even it out and break up the manure, but other events took my time.  I had half the yard already mowed as I took a little time before dark each day to mow an area before I would move an irrigation pipe to that location the next day.  Then haying Donna's field wrecked my schedule.  Now that I am starting to move the irrigation lines back across the field and yard, I had a window now where I could mow the rest of the yard.

The mowing now done I then moved the north line.  That done I picked up the small apples the irrigation had knocked off the apple trees yesterday.  I'll give them to the cattle tomorrow.

Also while in the fruit tree area I saw that the two small black current bushes had berries on them.  I rarely get berries as the birds get them before I do. But last year I re-wired the bushes to protect them from the cattle.  I guess it also stopped the birds from getting to them.  I had to temporarily take some of the wire off them.  Even so I had to lay in the ditch and go under and through the barb wire to get all the berries.  None of the vehicles driving by stopped to ask if I was ok laying in the ditch like that.

Here is a handful of the berries.

Then it was off to moving the south irrigation line.  After that I checked the pocket gopher traps.  I caught two more.

Now it was 8 pm.  I had been up since 6:30 am.  Before that I had 5 hours of sleep.  I hadn't eaten since breakfast (other than the berries).  I was tired.  I went to sleep.  I slept for two and a half hours.  I slept so hard I didn't hear Rascal asking to come back in the house.

Lawn mowed, weed whacking, tree trimming, rain

I finished mowing the yard a few days ago.  My first and only lawn mowing of the year.  Otherwise the cattle had eaten the grass down.

Before and after.

I also mowed the ditch on each side of the driveway and around my mailbox on the other side of the road.  I would like to mow the grass in the fruit tree area.  I only had time to make one pass around that area.

Yesterday, to "pay" back my neighbor Curtis for fixing a few of my irrigation sprinklers, I used his weed whacker to trim the grass and weeds in parts of his yard.  He has stuff sitting around some edges of his property and a lawn mower can't be used.  I got two thirds of the area whacked.  I ran out of the weed whacker twine.  Curtis put more twine in the whacker.  We had to figure it out as he never had to replace the twine in this whacker before.  Then the new twine was positioned wrong and we had to make an adjustment.   Then when one wants more twine come out of the whacker one bumps the button/knob of the whacker on the ground as the whacker is turning.  Other times it worked.  This time the bottom of the whacker fell off.  The problem is there is a spring inside and that also came out.  And of the two small metal holes the twine comes out of, one is missing.  I used Curtis's metal magnet to look for the spring.  However, this being me lately, things go missing and can't be found.  I searched and searched the area.  I guess that since this came apart as the whacker was turning, who knows how far the spring was tossed.  That ended my whacking until Curtis can fix his whacker.

Also yesterday I trimmed a few more branches off the box elder tree I had recently trimmed.  I keep looking up at the trees.  I noticed a branch that dying at the end. I could fully extend a ladder against a lower branch and then climb up to saw off the dying branch.  Then I saw another branch that did not look like it was dying, but did not look robust.  I decided to cut the branch now instead of next year.  To reach this branch I had to put the ladder in the pickup bed and bungie cord it to hold it secure.  Then I could climb up with my chainsaw to cut this branch.

Before and after.

The chain sawed branch.

A neighbor/business down the road has a telescopic forklift.  He was outside a few days ago and I stopped and asked him about using his lift for me to reach the upper parts of my tree. 

A photo of a similar looking machine.

He wasn't interested in doing so.  Partly due to insurance reasons and partly because he only has the forks to stand on, and no box or bucket that would be safer to stand on when up so high off the ground.  I understand.  But, dang, I would like to trim my tree's upper branches.

Today was a day to sleep longer.  It started to rain overnight and rained all day today.  We needed the rain.  We got over seven tenths of an inch of rain and that is more than we got the past few months in total.  Rain should be gone tomorrow.  Rascal was happy today as I slept in bed longer and then he had my lap to lay on most of the day, and is laying there now as I write this.

Pickup problem

Let me try this again.  Rascal my cat stepped on my computer's keyboard and deleted all that I had written. 

Last Saturday I planned on doing lots of work to remove the net-wrap from the baler's roller.  First I had to do my grocery shopping.  When I tried to start my pickup after the third and final store the pickup ran like it wasn't getting enough gas.  The fuel tank was almost half full.  The engine ran up and down for four or five times before the engine quit.  After that the engine would not start.

I don't have a cell phone so I used the store's phone to call my neighbor Curtis.  I left a voicemail message.  Later I learned his Sabbath had just started, and also he doesn't tow vehicles as he once got a ticket for towing another vehicle.

I called my insurance company's roadside assistance.  That was a mess.  The automated virtual assistant had trouble understanding me.  It put me on hold so I could talk to a person.  After a wait, they hung up on me.  I had to re-call.  This time after the automated assistant had trouble understanding me and put me on hold to talk to a real person, someone answered.  I explained my problem and they said they would send a towing service to tow my pickup.

I sat in my pickup.  It was now after noon and the temperature was near 90 degrees.  I got hot and began to sweat so I then moved to the store's sidewalk and sat in the shade there.  After a while I fell asleep.  When I woke up I went inside the store to see what time it was.  An hour and a half had passed since I first started with roadside assistance.  The store employee said customers told her that it looked like a homeless man was sleeping on the store's sidewalk.

I called roadside assistance again and was told the towing service would arrive within 38 minutes.  What?  38 more minutes?   They also gave me the towing service's phone number.  I waited a half an hour and then tried to call the towing service.  Their phone number asked me for an access code.  What?!

I called roadside assistance again and they told me it would be another 90 minutes before the towing service would arrive as they were busy.  What?  It was a quarter to 3 pm.  That busy at that time?  I was getting annoyed and the roadside assistance transferred my call to the towing service after I told roadside assistance the phone number they gave me earlier didn't work.

The towing company told me they were busy as this was Kalispell after all.  And they thought they had to deliver parts to fix the pickup and not tow my pickup.  I corrected him and asked me a tow.  He said he would contact one of his drivers and they would call me back.  After 10 to 15 minutes they never called me.  I called my neighbor Jan to ask her to give me a ride home and I would then find someone to tow me.

I got home at 3:40 pm. My frozen groceries were no longer frozen.  My ice cream was all liquid.

Donna's brother was participating in a drag race event in SW Montana.  I was going to attend with Donna but then my baler problem happened and I canceled out.   Donna showed up after 6 pm to see how my baler repair work was going.  I had her tow my pickup home using my other pickup.  Donna never drives over the speed limit, but apparently because she had been driving for hours on highways with a higher speed limit, and also driving my stick shift pickup which is not usual for her, the next I knew we were driving a few miles over our lower speed limit.  She didn't realize that.  I got her to slow down and drive slower when towing me.

My mechanic is busy and I haven't towed my pickup to his shop yet.  Next week.

So... my baler repair work.  I didn't get much done.  I almost got all the net-wrap removed from where another belt is located.  Using Curtis's heating tool mades the work go a little faster, but the removal still takes time.

Donna's hay - disasterous day

Another rough day trying to bale Donna's hay.   It started out 'good'.  In the morning Wyatt checked Donna's baler out and everything worked fine.   What?!  Why?

Donna and I went over.  Wyatt thought maybe Donna's ran the tractor's PTO too fast.  Okay...   Wyatt had some hay he hadn't re-baled yet.   Donna ran the baler.  The left knotter re-set perfectly.   Okay, let's go bale Donna's hay.

When we started the baling the left knotter did not reset correctly.   What?!  Why?!!    I cut the twine in the baler and the tied up twine on the left side of the the bale.  Donna re-set / tied the twine on the baler.  We triggered the knotter re-set lever and the left knotter re-set correctly.  We continued on, going slower on the tractor.  Once a bale was made the left knotter re-set correctly.   Then once the next bale was made the left knotter did not re-set correctly.

We tied up the twine on the bale and baler and tried again.  The left knotter re-set.  A bale was made.  Left knotter re-set correctly.  Next bale, the knotter did not re-set.  We continued on.  Donna's daughter and son-in-law were on their way for the four hour journey here with their rented flatbed trailer.  Maybe we can make enough bales by the time they get here.

On and on we slowly went.  As time passed the left knotter would re-set correctly for more bales before failing.  Progress.  Slow progress.   The baler was improving before another disaster hit.   After the left knotter failed I happened to walk around the baler and discovered one baler tire was completely flat.   You've got to be kidding us!

I got a jack and took the baler's tire off and we in to have it repaired.  The tube was shot.  They had a new tube and fixed the tire.  $31.39

By now it was after 1:30 pm.  We were hungry.  I only had a slice of banana bred and a donut for breakfast.  We stopped at a Wendy's restaurant along the way.  The drive through line was long.  We went inside.  The walk-up line was long and service was slow due to a lack of employees.  We left.   We stopped by my house and I picked up a box of my cereal and we went to Donna's house where I ate cereal and Donna's made herself sandwiches.

I put the baler's tire back on and we continued baling.  The instances of the left knotter not re-setting were getting fewer and fewer.  Eventually we were able to go around and around several rows with no problems and made a number of bales.  We had finished the former horse pasture section of hay and moved on to the next field section.   By now Donna's daughter and son-in-law arrived.  We stopped and talked.  Then they went to loading bales onto the flatbed trailer.  By now it was mid-afternoon and Donna's was getting woozy from feeling hot.  So we stopped  and went into Donna's house so she could rest and cool off.

After around an hour we went back out to make more bales.   After making three bales the left knotter failures started up again.  Again every other bale, then every bale.  What?!  Why?!   Donna was getting overheated again and woozy so she went back inside the house.  I fixed the twine on the bale and baler.  The daughter and son-in-law were getting close to picking up all the bales.  Much of the trailer was full of bales, but they could still put more bales on the trailer.

They were disappointed in the baler's failing again.  They were thinking of accepting the amount of bales they had and calling it quits.  I had to convince them of giving the baler a go.  No one knew why the baler's left knotter would not work, then would work, then would not work again.   I thought another set of eyes would see why there was a problem.  Or at least maybe the baler's knotter would start working again after a few more tries.

After seeing the first failure the son-in-law saw difference between the left and right knotter and maybe that was the problem.  So we got some tools and started taking some of the left knotter apart.   While we were doing so Wyatt called Donna to see how things were going.  He had finally got his baler to work consistently and finished making all his bales.  He didn't think what we were doing would fix the left knotter.  He had other ideas.   He said that when he could take a break he would come over to witness the failure.

We put the left knotter back together and made the adjustment Wyatt recommended on the phone.   Now when we tried to re-set the left knotter before making a bale, it would not re-set.  So we backed off on Wyatt's recommended adjustment.  Now we could re-set the knotter.  Then we went on to making a bale.  After the bale was made the left knotter would not re-set automatically.  We were back to re-set, make a bale, then re-set.  Then the knotter re-set correctly after a bale was made.  We are going in the right direction.

Then I noticed the right side of the bale's twine was not tied.  Huh?   We made another bale, left knotter failure and right twine not tied.  As I was tieing both twines to save the bale Wyatt arrived.  I reset the left knotter and we made a bale.  I don't remember if the left knotter worked once the bale was made as I noticed the right twine was not tied.  Wyatt looked and noticed the bil hook on the right side was broken.  How did that happen?  Who knows.   We couldn't make any more bales until the bil hook was replaced.

Wyatt was done baling his hay.  He was busy picking up and stacking his hay but he said we could use his baler to make more bales.   While he drove home to get his baler we parked Donna's baler and started to try to take the broken bil hook out.  Should be easy, right?  No. 

We were still trying to figure out how to get the bil hook out of the bil hook pinion when Wyatt arrived with his baler.  We hooked the baler up to Donna's tractor and went out to making bales.   Wyatt's baler worked.  The daughter drove the tractor and made bales.  The son-in-law went to work finishing loading the trailer.  They planned on driving the four hours home tonight.  They would unload the bales tomorrow morning and would come back to get another load tomorrow.

It was after 8 pm and I had been helping Donna since 9:30 am.  Donna was resting and recuperating.  The son-in-law said he had it under control and said I should go and take care of my things at home.  Rascal had wanted to be outside when I left in the morning, and had been outside all day with no food or water.  I went home and let Rascal into the house to eat and drink.  He was happy I was back home.

I'll see tomorrow how things went after I left.  Hopefully better after a disastrous day.  Maybe they got closer to getting half the field baled.  And maybe we can get the bil hook out and Donna can buy a new one.  Tomorrow's got to be a better day than today.

Cattle breakout and hay baling

Saturday was an eventful day.   First off my sleep was interrupted by my cat Rascal.   He doesn't like loud noises and doesn't like the fireworks.  So he did not go outside until around 2 am.  He would wake me up to go outside.  He would wake me up to come back inside.   Then wake me up to go back outside after eating.   15 minutes.  A half hour. An hour later.  After two hours of this I left the door open so he could go in and out whenever he wanted.

Rascal was with me at 6 am when I woke when I heard mooing.   It sounded close.  I looked out my window and saw a cow and calf in the hayfield by a hay bale.  What?!   I went outside to find the cattle all over.  In the hayfield.  In the corral.  In the front yard. In the NE pasture.  Because the cattle formerly were in the neighbor's field I left many gates open so I could travel while cutting the hayfield.

First I closed the yard gate to the road.  Then I went around to close most of the rest of the gates.  Then it was time to herd the cattle.  First it was from the hayfield to the yard.  Then it was from the NE pasture to the corral or yard.  I hadn't planned on the having the cattle in the yard anymore this year.  But because the manure from before hadn't completely dried out yet due to our rain I hadn't mowed the grass yet and it grew.  So I let the cattle stay in the yard.  I had to do a quick protection of some small trees and bushes.  I figure the cattle wouldn't be in the yard long so I didn't do the remaining usual protection.  I did have to pick up some stuff as the calves went crazy biting stuff then running around with it.

Earlier on the cattle didn't bother the walnut trees.   At the end of the day I seen them starting to eat the leaves.  Okay, much of the yard grass was now eaten down.  Time for the cattle to go into the NE pasture.  I'm not doing any more work to protect the yard stuff.  

Here the calves went into the tool shed and grabbed plastic garbage bags and spread them around the yard.

I had to close the garage door.  The door went off the rail on one side.  I got it fixed temporarily and closed the door most way.  A short time later I found the door partly open again.  A calf opened the door and was inside the garage checking everything out.  I had to herd the calf outside and work on getting the door to close more.

How did the cattle get out of the neighbor's field?  I walked down to find out how.  Well... the cattle figured out how to unhook the chain holding the gate closed.   When I have a real long chain I double run the chain through the hooks.  Donna doesn't complain anymore at how hard it can be to unhook the gate to open it.  She now knows how smart my cattle are.  I am going to have to modify the chain on the gate to the neighbor's field now that the cattle know how to unhook the chain.

When I was herding the cattle from the hayfield to the yard, slowing me down was some of the cattle wanting to rub again one of the hay bales.   Later when I walked over to check the gate to the neighbor's field I noticed one of the hay bales was tipped on its end.  The cattle tipped it over.

Here are the cattle today in the corral.  Most of the calves took a rest break there this afternoon.

Hay baling.   I got it done.  Which is good as today it rained.   I didn't get started baling until 1:45 pm.   I finished at 5 pm.   3 hours fifteen minutes.  It went well.  I only had one bale where a small part of the netwrap stayed attached to the baler.   My last bale was a half a bale.  That bale was starting to over-wrap and I had to stop and cut the netwrap off.

I ended up with 91 and 1/2 bales.   In 2020 I had 74 bales.  Last year, a slightly dry year I only had 56 bales.  So the fertilization helped this year.

All my bales at the end.  Does it look like 91 and 1/2 bales?

With the baling done yesterday I cleaned the hay baler.  I use an air hose to blow the dirt and debris out of and off the baler.  Usually probably an hour worth of work.  This time it took me 3 and 1/2 hours to clean the baler.  It was crazy.  As wet as this year was it is not dusty.  But I had lots of 'dust' on and in everything.  And the dust did not want to blow off.  I had to use a brush on the dust as I blew air on it.  And the dust would float around and around and re-coat the baler.  There would be less dust on the baler but I would have to brush and blow areas over and over repeatedly.

When cleaning the inner part of the baler I opened the back end up and locked it in place.  I would attempt to blow the dust out the other side.  But some of the dust would come back towards me re-coat my side.  So though it was hard to reach inside from the other direction, I tried to clean and blow the dust from the other direction in case the small breeze was from that side.  Again the dust came back towards me.  Crazy!  Crazy!   Not normal.  It was like my body was attracting the dust or affecting the gravity to pull the dust towards me.

I finally got the baler clean and I parked it.   3 and 1/2 hours of dust cleaning.  Why the 'dust' is so different this year is strange.  Is it because I fertilized the grass this Spring?

The dust had me coughing and coughing and I had to take a break and move away from the dust many times when I was cleaning.  The dust would float in the air.  Going this way and that way and up or down.  I had to wash off when done and try to clean my throat as it was getting harder to breathe. And my bare skin was getting a rash and welts.   It was clearing up by the time I went to sleep.

Even though baling is not hard work, the cat's and cattle's actions at disrupting my sleep, and then the dust reactions, made me tired.  I almost never go to sleep before midnight.  I went to sleep at 10:30 pm last night.  I left the door open for my cat to go in and out of the house.   He woke me up at 12:30 am, and again at 2:30 am.  Don't know why.  To let me know he was here?    I slept until noon today.   13 and 1/2 hours non-stop.

I woke up tired.   After breakfast - I hadn't eaten since breakfast the previous day - I went for a short bicycle ride to wake me up more.   After walking out to the pasture to check the pocket gophers traps I was tired.  Back to the house I laid down and was out cold for a half hour.  Then I spent 1 hour 45 minutes spraying weeds with my backpack sprayer and have been awake ever since.

What a day yesterday and today.

Neighbors fence work, and moving the cattle

I about finished upgrading my southern neighbor's fence.  This afternoon I mainly fixed her corner section of her fence.  Last year a driver took out the corner section.  To fix it quickly last year I put in the railroad tie to replace the broken post, and put the corner post back in the ground.  It worked, but wasn't ideal.  Over time the corner post stared to lean slightly, and the fence started to sag in the corner sections. Who knows if this corner section was where Toby got out of the field last month.

I dug around the corner post so I could move it in order to put the boards back on between the posts.  That should hold the corner post in place, and stop or slow down the leaning and the fence sag.

I didn't start until late afternoon. After moving irrigation pipes after 7 am I went back to sleep and slept late.  I would have gotten up 45 minutes earlier but Rascal laid his head on my upper arm and was sleeping and dreaming.  First he had his head and neck across my arm, then he changed positions without waking up and laid his head sideways and on my shoulder along with his paw. When he stopped dreaming I encouraged him to wake up.  When I worked on the fence the temperature was in the mid-90s and the neighbor came out as she wanted to help me.  After a bit she went back in the house as the heat was getting to her. 

Working on fixing the corner section.

Done.

What I still have left to do is to add a few wire pieces to tie the field fence to the barb wire in sections like this one.

But the fence is good enough that I decided to let the cattle into her field.  And most of the cattle were in the south pasture near the gate.  The cattle saw me near the gate and quickly figured something was up.   After I opened the gates and let the cattle walk through to the neighbor's field Maria and #60, who were in the western half of the south pasture, saw what was happening and they came running.  Well, "running" as fast as they could as they both are fat, especially Maria.  Maria may only be able to trot, but she still moves faster than you'd think she could considering how huge she is.

As she gets older, the heat looks like it affects Beulah.  She shows her age and slows down.

Maria

Mama and her calf

Toby

Off kilter day

Since I am now moving irrigation pipes I get up early to move them in the morning.  Rascal woke me up before 6 am and I could hear a cow mooing.  The last few days some of the cattle find a way to go to the south pasture.  If not with their calf later they will moo for the calf.  Often I have to go out and open the gate to get the cow back into the middle pasture so the calf can drink.   I figured this cow could wait an hour for me to do so.  I went out at 7 am.  The cow must have made an effort to go back to the middle pasture as there was no mooing or cows in the south pasture.

After I move the irrigation pipes I usually go back to sleep.  Today I went uptown to do errands.  First I wanted to buy several 25 lb bags of beets.  Donna cans the beets for me and others.  I called Donna to let her know I would be by soon, and to lock up her killer turkey so I can drop the beets off.  Donna forgot to tell me the market didn't open until 10 am.  I was there after 9 am and found out.  So I went to buy groceries for me.  Then I had to buy several salt blocks for the cattle.  When I went back to buy the beets I found out their new card system wouldn't accept my card as their new card system wasn't yet approved to work with that card.  So I will have to go back another day to get the beets.

Then breakfast at noon.  I quickly fell asleep after breakfast.  I woke up long enough later to make my way to the bed.  I slept all afternoon.  Hard.  Rascal was happy to sleep next to me.

It was after 5 pm when I finally woke up long enough to get up and out of bed.   When I planned to move the irrigation pipes in the evening, one sprinkler line would also go through the corral.  Diamond (who still hasn't had her calf!), Haynes, and Muscles have eaten much of the grass in the NE pasture, and much of it now in the corral.  I planned to put them in the north pasture but I didn't want the rest of the cows in the middle pasture in case they then would try to somehow mingle together.  I want Diamond separate until she finally has her calf.

So I planned on moving the rest of the cattle to my south neighbor's field for a few days to eat the grass there.  The last time they were there Toby the bull figured out a way to get through the fence so he could eat grass in the ditch.  My plan is to string a strand of barb wire on the fence and attach the fence's field fence to the wire.  I think bending down the field fence is how Toby gets out.   I have plenty of extra old barb wire.  I spent longer than I figured attaching the barb wire to the fence posts.  I didn't get all the way done when it became time to move the irrigation pipes for the evening.  So tomorrow I plan to finish adding wire to the neighbor's fence along the road.

I moved the cattle to the south pasture for now.  Then when moving the irrigation line into the corral I let Diamond, Haynes, and Muscles out to the north pasture.

The other evening I had to fix this fence.  Diamond had pulled off the middle fence board from the fence when she was trying to eat the grass outside the fence up to the concrete.

When hay feeding was done last month I used the tractor to flip the metal feeder up on its side and against the fence.  I imagine it was Diamond, and not Haynes or Muscles, who flipped the feeder to land on its top a couple of days ago when they were eating grass in the south corral.

Since I was taking photos in the corral, here is a photo of the larger walnut tree.  As you can see the branches on the corral side are higher as the cattle had eaten the leaves in the past.