Replaced a railroad tie

I replaced a railroad tie to fix a gate between me and the neighbor to my south.  When the cattle returned from that field earlier this year they bumped against the railroad tie as they crowded through the gate.  The railroad tie was old and decaying.  It now had a 'wobble'.  I plan on letting the cattle into that pasture soon.  So time to fix the railroad tie and gate.

Since the railroad ties are 8 1/2 ft or longer I initially thought I may just be able to reuse the railroad tie as a shorter fence post.  But I found that was not possible as the tie was now too short. Why the tie had a 'wobble' was that the tie broke off at ground level.  I got another one of my railroad ties from my pile.

Slowing me down was removing the railroad in the ground.  The deeper I went the more solid the tie was.  The tie was 30 inches in the ground.  From 20 to 30 inches deep the tie was solid.  I had to get a crowbar to help me work the tie out of the ground as I didn't want to dig a large hole around the tie.

The bottom of the bad railroad tie

We had a little rain yesterday I had to work around.  And since this project was more work than expected, meant it took me some time yesterday and some time today.   But the tie and gate are now fixed and most likely tomorrow I will let the cattle into the neighbor's field.  Each day I worked on the tie the cattle came and then stood nearby mooing at me to hurry up and let them into the neighbor's field.

Looking into the neighbor's field.

Looking into my field.   The 'new' tie was not as wide.  So I had to do a little work to be able to attach the boards across to the railroad tie.  In the right photo you can see how I added small boards to the railroad tie so the side boards could reach.

Overall look to the neighbor's field from my hayfield.

A side view of the cattle in the south pasture wanting me to let them in the neighbor's field.

Last night this was the sunset as I worked on this project.

Sunset

Today I started to cut the final branch that I plan to cut from the box elder tree.  It is a big branch up high.  I hope to get it completely cut tomorrow.  We'll see.

While cutting this evening here is a view of the sunset I saw.   Our weather is forecast to finally get warmer and drier starting tomorrow.

Sunset

Nice sunset tonight.

At least we are over setting new record low temperatures of 0 degrees each of the past couple of nights.  Our high temperature today got a little above freezing this afternoon and so the snow is finally starting to melt - although very slowly.

Pocket gophers, rain, tree, and sunset

A busy day with not much getting done.

Lately I've been spraying weeds in my north pasture.  I use a backpack sprayer each day so this is taking longer than if I had a sprayer in the back of my pickup.  I don't remember spraying much last year as I had other issues to attend to and then it was too late to spray.  While my weeds are less, they need spraying every year for a while to eliminate new weeds that come up from the old seeds in the ground.  The north pasture is where this is taking off this year.

While spraying yesterday I noticed fresh dirt mounds.  Pocket gophers.  And in the north pasture!  Usually the pocket gopher problems comes from the south or east from the neighbor's fields.  Not from the north.  I guess some pocket gophers decided to travel a ways before settling down.  I set out two traps in the north pasture in the morning.  This evening I found I had caught both pocket gophers.  The gophers were on the smaller side so I am sure they were young'uns who recently left the home they were born in.   I also set a trap in the middle pasture today as I had recently come across dirt mounds when I was working on tree stumps.  I didn't catch that pocket gopher.  So far.

The hayfield is tall.  Ready to cut.  But now is not the time.  That is because last week was wet.  After a couple of warm and dry days today we had numerous rain storms.  Two thirds of an inch of rain fell today.  Surprisingly I didn't get wet when riding my bicycle.  Last week I got wet each day.  Today on my ride I had a rain storm to my north and another rain storm to my south.  My ranch, and probably a mile wide, got no rain.   Then.    After I was home and in the house, some hours later, it rained hard.  It even hailed.

Yesterday I got my fixed chainsaw.  This evening after it stopped raining for a while I finally was able to cut into sections the tree trunk of the tree that had partially fell in my yard near the beginning of June.

This evening we had an orange sunset.

Cow, calves, sunset

Now that the calves have calmed down, and eaten most of the partial hay bale I had set out, it was time to let them into the NE pasture and grass. As one of the calves has as her mother cow #60 - the cow with the injured leg - what to do?  Well, cow 60 is mostly healed.  She is walking very well.

Look at how nice her leg has healed!

So I let cow 60 out of the corral to be with the other cows.  Then I could let all the calves out of the corral and into the NE pasture.

Before I let cow 60 out of the corral I gave her and some calves apples to eat.  Later I gave some calves more apples.  Cow 60 is looking on from outside the corral in back of the photo.   Daisy - who I earlier saw at a neighbor's house - is helping with the apples.

Daisy had a busy day with me.  After feeding the calves, Daisy came with me to the south pasture to check on the pocket gopher traps.  When I left to work on a gate Daisy disappeared.  When it was time to go back to the house Daisy was still nowhere to be found.  After I ate a full breakfast and returned to work on the gate Daisy came from the pasture.  He came with me while I worked on the gate.  Once we were done late afternoon Daisy was ready for food and then to sleep.


This evening's sunset.

Thursday sunset

Here are a few photos of Thursday's sunset as I worked on another fence rebuild.  As you can see in the photos the weather was a hindrance at times.  Today I had sun, calm, wind, clouds, rain. Over and over.  I had to take break from fence work whenever it rained.

Baling and cloud

I finished baling the hay today.  I waited until after 4 pm to bale the neighbor's quack grass.  Earlier I had found a few areas were still green (wet).  This was under large (heavy) windrows.  I flipped them over and in the hot sun they mostly dried.  Still, I baled this area last so it could be on the outer part of one bale in case it molded before drying.

I got five and a half bales from this small area.  My large hay field had produced six and a half bales.   I now have more hay than I predict I need, which is good.  Hopefully my spoiled cattle will eat this quack grass without complaining too much.

Baling went smooth.  The only 'hitch' was the rope I use to cut the baling twine while sitting in the tractor somehow got sucked into the baler.   I have one end tied to the cutter and the other end tied to my tractor seat,  The middle part of the rope somehow got into the baler's pickup and the rope broke.  I barely had enough rope left to tie together and still reach to the tractor cab.  When I was done baling I spent some time cutting and pulling the rope section out of the baler's pickup as when cleaning the baler I found the rope hadn't gotten tossed/sucked up into the bale.

It was dark by the time I moved the bales from the hayfield to my row of bales.  I'll get the quack grass bales tomorrow.


A chance of rain was forecast for this evening.   It appears this cloud was the closest we got to rain.  As it got dark lightning bolts flashed from the cloud as it moved east and over Glacier Park.

Cattle in yard, day 3

A mostly uneventful day with the cattle in the yard - which is good.  A few hiccups... one is a shrub I apparently forgot to cover.  Some of the shrub is still there when I discovered my mistake.  Another is Rose sticking her head through some field fence to reach a dozen or so tall blades of grass near the ornamental trees by the patio.  When I came out to chase her off I didn't realize she had her head through the fence.  When she quickly backed up her head was caught in the fence and she started pulling the fence away with her.  I had to jump on the fence until she turned her head and got free of the fence.

I also hung some old baling net wrap on the lower lilac bush.  The cattle love the leaves and the field fence wasn't protecting the leaves much once the cattle found the leaves.

Once the cattle finish eating down the yard, and their large bale of hay, I will let them into the NE pasture.  Today I build fences around four of the trees to protect them from the cattle.  I had fences around these trees in the past but they outgrew those fences.

Sunset this evening.

Late January sunset

Late afternoon I was shoveling the snowfall from a few days ago from the yard when the sun came out.  Its been a long time since I seen the sun.  Here are a couple photos.

Swan Mountain Range

Cattle work, fence work

Monday was a decent day weather wise.  I got more fence work done but did not complete the fence.  The weather forecast insists we will have a Winter storm on Tuesday so this may be the last I do on fences for the year.  We'll see.

First, time was taken up by cattle work.  In the early afternoon I saw that Mama was in the south pasture by herself. Earlier half of the cattle herd were at the river to drink and Mama must have then crossed into the south pasture. She headed to the fence with the south neighbor and I was concerned she would do something bad.  She wanted to join the rest of the herd who were in the other south neighbor's field south of the hay field.  I tried to herd mama but she didn't want to leave the fence and was getting annoyed with me.  She was near the part of the fence I had rebuilt to have more strands of wire and was higher but I was concerned she would go west to the four strand part of the fence which was lower, and then jump the fence.

Then I got the idea of also opening the gate to the hay field in addition to the gate I had opened to the middle pasture.  Mama watched me, and once I opened the gate and called for her, she came over and trotted through the gate into the hay field where she could go and join the herd (who by now saw me with Mama and were coming back into the hay field from the neighbor's pasture).

Since snow is in the forecast, and the cattle have pretty much eaten most of the grass, using the tractor I carried a large hay bale out to the metal feeder in the north pasture.  I'll open the gate tomorrow morning and let the cattle in eat the bale.  Even though the cattle were at the southern neighbor's pasture, they saw me working around the hay feeder and came over to watch me.

The rest of the afternoon I worked on my corral fence.  The railroad post I put in the previous evening was good so I nailed boards to it.  I got two more railroad ties and put them into the ground at the other end of the opening and then nailed boards to them.

Of the 60 foot opening I now have fenced about half of it and have 30 feet left.  Too bad Tuesday won't be like Monday; I would have gotten the rest of the railroad ties into the ground for posts.

'New' 14 ft gate and the back side of the new fence.

'New' 14 ft gate and the front side of the new fence.

Here are the other two sections I built on Monday.  The left darker section was built last year.   This is, as Tammy had called it before she left, my 'redneck ghetto fence'.  The boards were salvaged from a building business's burn pile.

Monday night's sunset as I worked on the fence.

Gate change, etc.

Tuesday morning a Winter storm is coming.  I have my corral fence to complete.  What do I do?  Instead of digging more holes for railroad ties I decided this morning to switch gates in the corral fence I am building.  While the current 12 ft gate is wide enough to drive my tractor through when carrying a large hay bale into that part of the corral, I find I really have to watch out I don't hit my fence.  I have a 14 ft gate and decided now - before I build the fence - is the time to switch gates.

12 ft gate  (bent where Buddy pushed against it in an effort to sniff a couple of cows in pre-heat on the other side).

The problem with the 14 ft gate was that most of the rails on one end of the gate were not attached to the frame.  It is an old gate I bought as part of a group.  My neighbor Curtis has a welder and he welded the rails back to the frame.  He even welded a chain to the frame that I can use to run through an eye bolt to hold the gate shut.

Naturally the gate's hinges would be in a different place so swapping the gates wasn't as simple as 'swapping the gates'.  But eventually I got it done.

Because the 14 ft gate is longer that meant I had to move by two feet the existing railroad tie on the other end.  I got that done before dark.

The previous day I had dug a hole for the railroad tie for the next section.  I had to fill in that hole and dig a new hole two feet over.  I got that done before dark.

I put a railroad tie in the hole and filled the dirt back in.  It was dark when I finished.  Tomorrow I will check to see if I did it right.


I also did a side job earlier.  I noticed I hadn't placed a 'resting post' for a previous gate I worked on this Fall.  So I found a short broken railroad tie piece and dug it into the ground.  This is for a 16 ft gate.  The gate is long and heavy, and over time gravity would otherwise pull one end down closer to the ground.

This evening's sunset.  (I couldn't decide which photo I liked better so I included both).

October 9 sunset

Pretty sunset this evening.

September sunset

Early evening on Monday the rain and clouds slipped east over the mountains.

The sunset to the west.

Daisy watched the sunset with me.

Smokey red

The smoke from the forest fires got worse all day, especially toward evening.  My camera didn't capture the color but the sun at set was bright blood red. The crescent moon after sunset was also blood red until it got darker and smokier and the moon no longer could be seen.

The electric to the pump was hooked up this afternoon after I bought a $198 switch.  The pump doesn't draw water.  Tried a few things without success.  Will try a few other things on Thursday.

Three heifers and sunset

The three heifers are still separated from the herd (and the bull!).  The past day or so Buddy has been calling out to the heifers.  Today has been three weeks since Buddy got with the cows.  It would seem he has bred all of them in their initial heat cycle since he has been with them.

Here are a few photos of the heifers from Sunday.  When they are in the pasture by the corral they don't look a big as when I seen them Sunday near the river.

Sunday night's sunset.