Cows and mats

Tomorrow I will have to put out another large hay bale for the cows.  They love to eat the hay.  And some like to step in the feeder with their front legs.

Here is one of heifer calves I am keeping.

Of course hauling cattle, even for a short distance, means manure gets left on the mats in the stock trailer.  Since I only had Fritz I kept him in the back half of the trailer.  Only two mats got messed up - other than a little touch of manure on the end of the front mats.  I left those in the trailer.  These messier mats I took out and left by the water trough.  Too cold to use my pressure washer to clean them. Yesterday snow and cold.  I didn't do anything with the mats.  Today it was slightly warmer and above freezing.  So I cleaned the mats off with buckets of water and hung them to dry.   It is raining tonight and predicted rain and snow tomorrow.  I'll see if they get somewhat dry so I can place them back in the stock trailer.

Stock trailer floor fixed

Today I had Curtis weld some metal to help my floor in the stock trailer.  If you remember, a few weeks ago the bull broke a few of the wood floor boards. The narrower open sections should make it harder for a board to break in the future.

The wire for the trailer taillights run under the middle metal rail.  As a broken board had pushed down the last section, the wire to the right taillight was separated.  So I fixed that also after Curtis weld that metal back to the end of the trailer.

When I put the wooden boards back in the trailer as a floor, I had a small gap.  Huh?  When I put the boards in a few weeks ago I had to cut one board narrower to just fit in the trailer.  Now the board was too narrow.  I had to find another board and cut it only a touch narrower to fit in the trailer.

So I am ready to haul two cows to the livestock auction tomorrow.  Really early tomorrow.

Back when I started to work on the trailer, Muscles was laying near it.

Stock trailer fix, tarp fix, etc.

I had surgery Friday morning.  It was planned and not due to an accident.  So I worked and worked Thursday to fix the stock trailer and the hay bales tarp as I wouldn't be able to do it for a while after surgery, especially since I would be in the hospital for a day, and who knew exactly how the surgery would go for me.

First I had to clean the manure out of the stock trailer.  Harder and longer to do when the manure is a day old and drying.   I checked the floor boards again.  I decided to replace two more boards in addition to the 5 or 6 I took out the previous day.  So about half the floor boards were replaced.  I had odd and ends of extra boards.  I had to trim or cut off some of the boards to make them fit.  It was getting dark when I cut the length and width of the last board to make it fit.  The metal bar that was bent down, I bent back up into place.  Some day later I will find another metal bar to add to replace the bad metal bar.

Earlier, after I had washed the trailer and was waiting for it to dry, I had added another tarp to cover my hay bales.  My previous - old - tarp had ripped in the wind even though I had tied down the tarp.

Saturday after I got home from the hospital I had to fix the tarp again, especially as lots of rain was forecast that evening and Sunday.  The second tarp I had added on Thursday was blown down from the previous tarp tear.  My previous tarp tie down could have used more twine to tie it in place.   Even though I am recovering and not supposed to do much, I knew this opening would bug me and I would eventually do something.  Donna also knew I would also do something and insisted she would be around when I would do something. So I got a ladder right away and climbed it and readjusted the tarp and added lots more twine to hold it in place.  It appears to have worked as the tarp has not moved / slid down again and the hay stayed dry in the rain.

For a brief time Sunday afternoon it rained really hard.  No hail, but one of my downspouts produced icy looking snow.  It was gone a day later.

I'm supposed to take it easy.  And I... have.  For the most part.  I guess.   I'm back to collecting apples that have fallen from the neighbors' trees.  I rode 29 bicycle miles today.  I herded my cattle into my southern neighbor's field this afternoon.  I shook some of the apples from her tree and tossed them over the fence for the cattle.  Good thing that I was wearing my bicycle helmet as at one point a cow stuck her head through the fence as I reached down to get an apple and we hit heads.  The bicycle helmet protected me as the surgery had been in my head.

I also started the fence rebuild I had planned back on September 25, 2019 before I got injured Sept 24.  Since then that fence rebuild was delayed or put off over and over as other things took priority over and over or I got side tracked.  Today I took the remainder of the old fence down and put in one post for the new fence before it got dark.  Hopefully I get the fence rebuilt this week and do not get side tracked or injured again.

Trailer wires

The calves were at it again this past Winter when they were in the NE pasture.  They chewed on and ripped apart the wires for the stock trailer's back lights.  Last year I had fixed the wiring and lights when the calves abused them.  This time I found the plastic screws that held two wires together were all ripped off, some chewed up, some missing.

One of the lights they took out of the trailer mount and then took the light out of the rubber ring.  I had to search before I found the two pieces over by a fence.

I can't wait until I have my equipment building built and the trailer inside it away from the cattle.