Getting ready to sell Haynes the bull

I'm going to sell Haynes at the livestock auction on Tuesday.  Haynes has gotten big.  Time for him to go.  I had the other bulls for four years each.  Haynes only three years.  But he is big now.  No sense keeping him another year to get even bigger.

It is a little more complicated this year.   The livestock auction in Missoula closed this Spring.   The next two closest livestock auctions are in Great Falls or Ramsay, MT.   They are close to the same distance away from me.  Great Falls though means driving over the Continental Divide to east of the mountains.  So Ramsay it is.

Still, it is a long drive.

I spoke to the livestock auction and they told me there is a person in Ronan, MT who will haul cattle for $2.20 per hundred weight.  So if Haynes weighs 2400 pounds, the cost would be $52.80.  This is cheaper than driving 446 miles roundtrip.  And would take less time.

I have to get to Ronan by noon on Monday.  That should be possible.

Now, loading the bulls in the past has been a problem.  The bulls have been too large to fit through the loading corral runway and the headgate at the end of it.  

Since the former bulls wouldn't fit, I had to load them by encouraging them to step into the trailer from the open part of the corral.  Here is the post about how hard it was to load the previous bull, Toby.

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2021/09/toby-is-gone.html

And the story of loading the previous bull, Buddy.

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2017/08/buddy-has-left-ranch.html

So the loading of Haynes on Monday may be another adventure.  I hope not.

This time I put the bull in the loading corral, not the south part of the corral.  The loading corral is smaller than the south part of the corral.  With Donna's help I got him in the loading corral by noon today.  I left the headgate open as a test today and on Sunday to see if Haynes walks out of the loading corral on his own.  Then I will know he will fit through the headgate and I will put him back into the loading corral to load him on Monday.  If not, then I will back up to the loading corral large gate and then have to get Haynes to step inside the trailer.  I will have Donna and my neighbor Curtis to help me encourage Haynes to get into the stock trailer.  I hope it goes well.

Photos from when Donna and I got Haynes into the corral.

Outside the corral the cattle and calves watched Donna, Haynes and I inside the corral.

Haynes in the loading corral.

As you can see Haynes has his head of hair again this Summer.

Toby is gone

Today I took Toby to the livestock auction.  Tomorrow, Thursday, is their sale.  I had planned on taking Toby to the auction on Thursday.  The auction starts at 10:30 am.  I figured I could get up very early, load Toby starting at 6 am, then get to the auction after 9 am.  But Rascal has gotten me to let him outside at 6:30 am and I found it was still somewhat dark outside. And due to Toby's very large size, I can't use the loading corral as he wouldn't fit through the head gate at the end of the loading corral.  Instead of risking a delay, I decided to take Toby to the auction today.  I would have all day to do it, and I wouldn't have to start early.

It was very good I decided to switch to today.  It was a long day.  And we made it, but - what a day!

I started at 9 am.  Donna and Curtis helped me.  Because the loading run wouldn't work. I put Toby in the south part of the corral on Monday afternoon.  Then Tuesday I backed the stock trailer up to the smaller gate by the water trough, opened the stock trailer door, and secured the area around the gate and stock trailer so Toby could only go into the trailer and not out past the gate.  I put some hay and apples in the front of the trailer to allow Toby get acquainted with the trailer as he would have to step up to get into the trailer. (In the loading corral the cattle have to only walk across and into the trailer as I ramped up the ground to the trailer level height.)

This morning I looked and all the hay and apples were still in the trailer.  Toby hadn't gone in to eat them.  So I would have to encourage him to step into the trailer.  Uhhh... no go.

I got some temporary corral panels to make the area smaller.  Toby didn't want to go in the trailer.  He didn't even want to get close to the trailer.  He knew what was up.  Around and around I herded him.  Then he turned and put his head under a corral panel and lifted it up and tossed it on his back and then ran out and to the west end of the corral.  The corral panel was bent badly, and that is not easy to do, but Toby did it easily.

Herding Toby back to the east gate was not working.  He wanted to be at the west end of the corral and wanted to look at "his girls" out in the pastures.  So I decided to move the stock trailer to the west gate, which was not easy.  This gate so wider so I had to put a two corral panels between the stock trailer ad the west fence.  And tie them down.  Toby looked the corral panels area as an area to go as he didn't want to go in the trailer.  I carried another corral panel in an attempt to herd Toby as he has more room to run and I didn't want to get run over.  But Toby didn't want to go anywhere near the stock trailer.  Around and around and around.

West gate.

Then Toby ran to the east gate.  Should I go back there?  Less room to roam and run.  The first attempt to set corral panels back there to reduce his area to run failed as he ran past.  After a few more attempts to use the west gate failed, Toby ran to the east gate.  This time I got the corral panels in place and he stood there.  This time I got my second pickup and drove it to block the area outside of the panels.   I also put a couple of steel fence posts in the ground and tied them to to corral panels. Then I moved the stock trailer and the rest of the corral panels back to the east gate.

Around and around.  He was starting to want to try to get through the fence.  At one point he broke a fence board and was trying to get through the fence but we all yelled and I hit him with the sorting stick and he backed off.  Man, trying to catch him after he got out of the corral would have been a nightmare!

I got more corral panels to line the fence area.   Around and around and around and around Toby and I went.  Fortunately he never charged at me.  I got tired of going around. I decided to pull in some of the corral panels and make the area smaller.  I moved the pickup against a different corral panel.

Around and around.  I wanted to make the area smaller one again.  I untied the corral panels from the steel fence posts.  Around and around and then quickly Toby went and put head under a corral panel I had just untied and lifted it and tossed it on his back and ran out into the west end of the corral.  Another corral panel bent.

I didn't want to move the stock trailer back to the west gate.  Instead I used the second pickup to herd Toby back to the east gate.  Around and around the corral we went.  Many times.  A few times I almost got him to the east and somewhat in the corral panel area, but before I could position the pickup from fence to barn feeder to block Toby he ran in front or behind the pickup.  Over and over we went.

Finally I blocked Toby in and he couldn't get around the pickup.  Then Curtis and I moved the corral panels to make the area smaller.  A little more around and around and suddenly Toby ran over to the stock trailer and jumped inside it.  What!  Wow!  I quickly ran over and shut the trailer door before he could back out.  I barely got it closed and locked in time.

Toby was so big I could barely close the inside gate to keep him in the front half of the trailer.  When I did so, he freaked out and barely turned around. The trailer bulged, and the gate catch almost came undone.  Half the trailer won't work.  I opened the inside trailer gate and led Toby be in all the trailer.  Before we got going he turned back around so he was facing forward again.

Finally!  What I thought maybe could take an hour to do, took over 2 and 1/2 hours.  It was after 11:30 am.  Man, it was a good thing I did this today and not Thursday.  I would have never got it done in time for the auction.

I left everything as is in the corral.  I put a strap around the bottom of the trailer door.  The slide half of the door only has a latch on the top half, and I don't trust the cattle wouldn't push the bottom out and then the door off somehow.

Donna and I were on our way at 11:45am.

15 or so minutes in, when I was driving 55 mph on the highway the pickup and trailer seemed to start moving side to side a little bit.  Wow.  Watch out  Slow down.   I did.  Back to normal.  So the rest of the way I mainly drove 45 to 50 mph to be on the safe side.   A couple of times a could feel a little trailer sway start to happen so I slowed down.

I got to the auction near 2:30 pm.  A little longer than normal drive.

When I unloaded Toby at the auction place, he backed up to step outside.  A floor board in the back of the trailer cracked.  Toby got out of the trailer fine.  He was okay.  The auction people herded him to his pen.  Toby looked even bigger when walking in the auction corral.

I looked inside the trailer and in the middle of the trailer I saw one floor mat looked odd.  It looked like part of the mat was going through the floor.  I went in, pulled the mat up and saw at least half a board was gone.  The mat had gone way down.  Almost near the road?   Oh, my goodness!  It is a miracle Toby didn't break through the floor and get hurt.  I am sure he weighed over 2000 pounds.  I've carried more weight when hauling calves, but their weight is not on just four legs.  And I seen a metal bar in the very back had broken off at one end and was hanging down.

The trailer swaying back and forth a few times must have happened because Toby broke the floor board and had to quickly move and shift his weight.  Since he never got injured, I guess it was good I didn't see the floor board break before arriving at the auction place.  How could I have fixed the floor board on the road with Toby inside?

After unloading Toby Donna and I drove across Missoula to Red Robins to get something to eat.  I had hardly ate anything that day.  I actually started to feel a little hungry, and after my head injury I rarely feel hungry.

It was almost 7 pm when we got back home.  I got the second pickup out of the corral and parked it.  I put the corral panels away.  I had to use a sledgehammer and also jumping up and down on the two panels to straighten the bent rungs up and down and side to side.

I got the trailer mats out.  I saw the broken floor boards were worse than I earlier had seen.  Five boards need to be replaced.  It was getting close to dark, so I went and got and filled three pails of apples from a neighbor.  By then it was dark.  I'll wash the trailer tomorrow and also see if I have any strong and thick boards I can use to replace the broken boards.

I had already pulled the floor mat up before we drove back home where I took this photo.

The view during the drive.  I was busy talking and forgot to take my usual photo of the Swan Mountains and the waterfall.

Flathead Lake from the south and near Polson, MT.

This Summer there was a large forest fire.  At least eight buildings were burnt.  And forest.  There were better images of the burnt forest but I didn't get photos of them as I was to busy looking.

Flathead Lake.

More of Diamond's baby calf photos and video

Yesterday I had a photo of the youngest baby calf.   Here are some photos and video from earlier this week of the calf.  He was in the correct pasture and was near an older calf.  But when I got closer he ran off.  That unnerved his aunt and his mother and they came running over to check on the calf.

Here is a 36 second video of the calf and his mother and auntie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqzSvCAqhRs

Toby

Apples, branches, Toby and a wheelbarrow

Back to a mixture of doing things.

I worked at picking apples off the ground for me and several neighbors.  From Ruth's granddaughter's trees I got several buckets of apples.  From Rusty's trees I got four buckets of apples.  I don't feed the apples all at once to the cattle as that many apples may not be good for them.  But I did give the cattle several buckets of apples.

The other day when I parked my baler under the box elder trees by the pole shed, I stepped up on my baler's wheel to look up on top of the baler to see if a tree branch was above or rubbing on top of the baler.  As I stepped up to look at the branch I didn't notice another thick branch and whacked the top of my head scratching the skin.  This hurt and made me very unhappy.  The branch above the baler wasn't touching the baler.  But today I decided to trim a few other branches nearby. I had noticed a few other branches were now right against my toolshed roof.

I loaded the branches in my wheelbarrow and planned to haul them out to the pasture.  Toby decided he wanted to check them out and stopped me from pushing the wheelbarrow.  I quit and let him be.  No sense arguing with a bull.  Toby and the cows like eating box elder tree leaves.

Here is a 1 minute 11 second video of Toby and the branches and the wheelbarrow: https://youtu.be/RPL1q3IlKiE

Later, after the cows and Toby left, I put the branches back into the wheelbarrow and hauled them off.

I decided to check on the willow trees and beaver action.  My latest fence fix seems to have worked,  My previous fence fix... I 'm not sure.  I saw part of the top of that fence was bent down a bit.  Whether the beaver got over, I'm not sure.

Here is another willow tree.  You can see the fence wire around the tree has worked.  Still, the beaver reached up and gnawed off a side branch.

I accidently took another picture in the area.  I like the photo so I kept it.  The photo shows some willow trees the beavers didn't get to, and a tall fence wire I had put up to stop the cattle from reaching over to eat the willow trees.

On the way back to the house I saw Diamond was along the fence mooing.  What's up Diamond?   Oh, your calf got into the middle pasture and you are calling her back and she is not listening to you as the calf wants to check out the other cattle.  I had to go to the middle pasture and try to herd the calf back to the north pasture.  The calf is really leery of me and would run away.  I tried to herd the calf down the fence line to the gate.  But, around and around.  Finally the calf ran to the fence and slipped through the three fence wires and back into the north pasture and her mother.

I put a tarp over my hay bales outside of the hayshed. I also put a few temporary corral panels around the bales. Later I will put a few metal posts in the ground so the cattle won't push the corral panels around in order to reach the hay bales.

It is raining tonight.

Cattle into and out of Ruth's field

No baling of my hay today.  This afternoon I checked a few of the windrows and found in a few spots where the windrow was thicker and the hay underneath was still green and a little damp.  Not bad.  I could have baled the hay if I had to, but since the weather is nice, I can wait one more day for the hay to dry more before baling it.

So what did I do on Labor Day?  Saturday, after Donna baled some of my hay, and before I had started to put the bales into my barn, I had let the cattle in the south and middle pastures into Ruth's field to my south.  

Here is a 1 minute 1 second video of the cattle heading into Ruth's field.  https://youtu.be/DWA0Gyvp8Mo

There was a little grass to eat in her field.  Ruth's apple trees have dropped lots of apples into her backyard.  Instead of getting buckets to haul the apples home for the cattle, after I let my cattle into Ruth's field I tossed the apples over the fence into her pasture.  That was easier.

This morning I saw cow #8 briefly fight with Haynes, the bull.  Head to head #8 was pushing Hayes backwards. Haynes must have annoyed #8 earlier.  I think hanging around the cows is starting to make Haynes a little more interested and "active".

After two days, the grass was eaten down well, and this afternoon after getting more apples down the road from Ruth's granddaughter's trees and feeding two large plastic sacks of apples to the cattle, I let the cattle back into my pastures. 

As I walked home the cattle decided to follow me, then go into the middle pasture.  Toby, who for two days has been walking along the north/middle pasture fence and looking over to and calling out often to the cattle in Ruth's field, was happy when the cattle came near the north /middle pasture fence.

In the evening I was in the north pasture and saw the north/middle gate open.  What?!   Donna thinks I overdo locking the gate when I run the chain through the eye hook twice.  It can be a pain to unhook and open my gates locked that way.  Well... the calves love to play with the chain.  Usually double hooking the chain works.  Not this time.  

The calves got the chain out of the catch area on the gate.  Then they pulled the chain and got one strand out of the eye hook.  Then they pulled on the chain another way and pulled it out of the small hole in the gate catch area.  Now I am not sure if the calves then pulled the chain completely out of the eye hook, or if the very windy day pushed on the gate enough that the long chain slowly slipped out of the eye hook and the gate opened partway.  Why I am not sure is that I expected the cattle to be here and there in the wrong pasture.  Especially Toby.  But everyone was in their correct pasture.  No one was near the gate when it opened(?) and didn't realize it became open.

I quickly closed the gate and gain double chain locked it again.

I also noticed the west fence section next to the gate had bent and stretched wire making an open area in the fence.  Toby will put his head and neck through this area of the fence so he can sniff the cows on the other side of the fence.  He had done this on the east section of fence next to the gate - until I put those boards on that section and put a stop to that behavior.  Tonight I re-straightened the stretched and bent wires on this fence section. Tomorrow I will place a board or two on this section of fence.  Toby... Toby... Toby...

Hayfield is cut, and dull teeth

I got my hayfield cut this afternoon.  Everything went well.   The tractor started no problem. I still have no clue why the tractor was difficult to start yesterday.   I figured I had two to three hours left of cutting if things went well.  It took me exactly two hours.  It is nice when things go to plan.

After cutting the field I used an air compressor to blow off all the grass and debris from the haybine and cleaned it up.  That took an hour as I really cleaned the haybine inside and out.   I then looked at the haybine's teeth.  One tooth had a broken tip so I replaced it.   While the hayfield was all cut very cleanly I still looked at the rest of the haybine's teeth.  I noticed some - 10 to 12 - teeth looked like they were started to get dull.  While, again, all the grass and alfalfa was cut well, I decided to replace the teeth that were starting to loose their ridges and look dull.

I had to make sure the teeth I was removing were aligned between the rock guards in order to take them off.

In the following photo the second tooth from the right side was dull.  I don't know why, but the right side of the sickle bar had an extra metal bar on top of the rightmost teeth.  I finally got the dull tooth off, but it took a lot of effort to get the upper metal bar up high enough and then the dull tooth off.

I didn't want to take the entire sickle bar off the haybine even though it would have made removing all the dull teeth easier.  In addition to the section with the extra metal bar, some areas had an extra metal tooth / sickle bar protector and that was more work to remove.  You can partially see what I am talking about in the previous photos on the right side.   In the following photo I already took it off.  It was on the left side.  The larger nuts had bolted it on.

Getting a good metal tooth back on the second to the right was a pain.  A nut had slipped underneath the tooth.  The photos make it look easy to access.  Um.. no.  The wheel that turns and knocked the grass down and towards the teeth  is just above the photos and I had to duck down to access the teeth trying to avoid banging my head or getting poked in the face by the wheel's tines.  And to find the nut under the metal tooth I had to lay my head on the ground to see under the tooth.

This section with the extra metal bar and all the nuts... I lost a nut.  Even using a magnet I couldn't find the nut. Once again something drops into the grass, and if I don't immediately look for it, it disappears. I don't know - it goes back to the alternative universe I was born in before coming to this universe after my head injury?    I had to go get another nut from elsewhere.  

It took me several hours to replace the dull teeth, and make a couple of bolt replacements. 

Other than re-greasing a few areas, my haybine should be ready for next year.

After I put the haybine away I hooked up my rake.  The rows I had cut on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday are ready to bale and I raked 2 rows into one; in total 14 rows into 7.  Tomorrow the baling starts.

Also, I counted the number of rows I cut.  Earlier I thought - for some reason - I may have 26 or 27 rows.  Actually the total is 40 rows.

Hay cutting and Toby

I didn't get all my hay cut today.  I got sidetracked.  It was dewy this morning so I couldn't start cutting hay earlier.  I made a minor repair on the haybine.  Still early and dewy so I went and talked with my neighbor Curtis and told him about my tractor.  That wasn't a long conversation.  Then since it was still dewy I went to tell my neighbor "Larry" thanks as he was the one who suggested my tractor problem could be because of debris in the tank.  Larry wasn't home but his mother was.  Mother/son... we are probably talking ages of 80 and 60 years old.  I ended up talking with the mother for much longer than I realized.

When I got home I had an earlier phone message from my neighbor to the north.  Toby was over there.  I went and looked for Toby.  He wasn't there.  The neighbor didn't know where Toby went.  The neighbor doesn't close his gates.  I went looking.  Where is Toby?  He wasn't at the neighbors.  I finally found Toby in my hayfield.  He walked through the neighbors properties.  Walked to the road?  Then walked down to my driveway and came back home.  I had the gate open between the hayfield and backyard as earlier I had been working the haybine and I planned on buying more diesel for the tractor.  So I quickly herded Toby in the north pasture.  I plan to sell Toby at the livestock later this month so this wandering will end.

I bought diesel and then finally got to cutting hay.  Naturally I didn't get all my field cut.  Tomorrow I should finish.  Unless I get distracted.

Tractor fixed. Toby jumps.

I got my tractor fixed today and got it back a little before 5 pm.  The slow down and occasional speed up cause... debris in the fuel tank.  And not what you think would be debris.  This was a gooey chalky substance.  It was strange.  The owner said he had to check it out after the employee discovered it in the fuel tank.  The gooey chalky substance moved about and would thicken and thin.  That was why the speed up / slow down was intermittent.   The owner and employee were surprised this was my problem.  How did this get in my tank?   When I put diesel in the tank?  Most likely not as then I wouldn't be the only person with this problem as other people bought diesel from the gas station.  When the RDO John Deere repair shop worked on my fuel tank and fuel gauge in June? They did something / dropped something in the tank?  Something that dissolved somewhat in the diesel?  Most likely, as this problem started to occur shortly after I picked up my tractor in June from John Deere.

After I got my tractor I started to again cut my hayfield.  I worked for over three hours.  Not a problem with the tractor.  It ran like it did before I had RDO John Deere work on my tractor.

I now have 14 rows cut. That should be half my field - even though when looking at the field it doesn't seem like half of the field is cut.  If everything goes right tomorrow, and if I am lucky, maybe I can get the rest cut tomorrow. Mostly like I'll finish cutting the day after tomorrow.

While I was waiting for my tractor to be repaired I looked out at the cattle in the pastures.  Wait a minute.  One of the cattle looks to be checking out other cattle.  Is that Toby?  He should be in the north pasture, not the middle pasture.  I went out and checked.  Yes, it was Toby.  So I had to go and check the north/middle pasture fence.  I found where he jumped over the fence.  It is amazing he didn't break the top single strand of old wire.  He did stretch it a lot when he jumped.   A few sections over I found where the wire came apart.  The wire didn't break.  Two parts of the wire were connected, and now the connection was straightened and then came apart. 

I got tools and fixed the wire.  I don't know how Toby was able to stretch the wire across several posts as to fix and straighten the wire I had to detach the wire from the steel fence posts in order to move and straighten the wire, even when using my fence stretcher tool to pull the wire.

Stretched wire.

Unconnected wire.

In the pasture I checked that the other cows and calves were in the north pasture.  Yes, they were.  Diamond's calf looks cute.

I also walked to the river.  I seen the beaver got back to the willow trees where he/she got to earlier. The beaver chewed off more of the willow trees.   Even though I had fixed the fence after the last time, I saw two new spots where it appeared the beaver may have gotten through.  I made more repairs to the fencing and I'll see if this finally stops this beaver.  I hope so.  Not a lot of some of the willow trees left.  On some other willow trees elsewhere I seen the beaver climbed a couple of the fencing and then chewed a few small branches.   This beaver is determined to get to my willow trees.