Adventures with cattle

I filled one of the water troughs and placed it in the hayfield near the corral.  Kyle will come over in the next few days to look at the pump for the water troughs to see what needs to be done to get it working.

The cattle and horses seem to be getting along, though the cattle are more curious and bold and the horses are fine with the cattle as long as they don't get too close.   The horses were close to the chain link fence until the cattle walked up to it.

One of Dan's cattle decided to push my smallest skunk back heifer.  To my surprise my heifer wouldn't let herself be bullied and began pushing back.  She pushed Dan's steer around the pasture until he got the message to leave her alone.  You go, girl!

Cattle into hayfield

Saturday evening I put the bloat blocks out for the cattle.  Tuesday noon I let them into the hayfield with the alfalfa grass - hence the need for bloat blocks.

I waited until the cattle were in the pasture near the gate.  I want the cattle to know I opened the gate and have given them permission to enter a new area.  Will they learn this lesson... who knows!

Initially most of the cattle stood around looking at me.  Others pretended to not be paying attention and were grazing.  But when the first of the cattle decided it would be okay to go through the gate into the hayfield, the grazers quickly stopped grazing and came over and through the gate.

The two skunk back heifers were at the bloats blocks so I let them be.  My plan was to close the gate after all the cattle entered the hayfield in order to give the pasture a rest.   Later I found the two heifers still near the bloat blocks and puzzled on how to join their comrades on the other side of the fence in the hayfield.  So I had to herd them through the gate.

I found the fence line on the south side with the neighbor had some posts missing the staples holding the barb wire.  The last few years horses were pastured in the neighbor's field and they liked to reach across the fence into my pasture.  So I pounded new staples into the posts.

The cattle split into two herds.  One was the bold bigger and aggressive cattle.  They did what cattle normally do when in a new field: go walk the field's perimeter fence and check out the boundaries and anything else of interest.  The other cattle were content to hang around in the general area of the gate and graze.  The two herds didn't merge back into a single herd until that night.

Here is the adventurous herd.   Lots of grass for them to eat.

Even with all that grass I found one steer trying to eat grass on the other side of the NW gate. This gate was strands of barb wire.  This steer would get its head under the bottom wire and push.  To prevent the gate from breaking I had him move away.  Back again he put his head under the gate.  After chasing it away the second time the rest of the cattle came over to see what the deal was and they all wanted to check out the gate.  Eventually they lost interest and moved on.

Another concern was the neighbor's cattle across the road.  When the herd was two, the adventurous group was fascinated with the cattle across the road and hung around my fence across from the other cattle. Several good things happened.  First, the neighbor's cattle appeared to ignore my cattle.  Second, my old fence worked at keeping my cattle in my field.  By morning the novelty wore off and my cattle no longer hang around there by that fence.

Hodgson auction

Last Saturday I attended a ranch auction nearby.  A guy was selling his horse ranch and stuff.  He had enough stuff for two days of selling, though I only attended the first day with the tools and ranch stuff.  The guns and other collectibles I didn't care about.

The auction started early at 9 am, though, as usual, I showed up an hour after the start.

Even though the auction had been well advertised, there weren't as many people as I expected.  That was good as the selling prices were reasonable.  And there were some items I wanted.

First and foremost on my wish list was a 16 ft gate as I really wanted one more gate in this size.  One was at the auction.  First they sold a 12 ft gate, and as the price was reasonable at $45, I bought that gate.  I almost bought the 16 ft gate for $65.  The alternate auctioneer was on a phone with a phone-buyer and before the main auctioneer could say "Sold", the alternate auctioneer indicated his buyer wanted to bid.  I ended up buying the gate for $75 as the phone bidder quit after bidding once.

There were over a dozen partial rolls of new barb wire.   I guess the owner never wanted to splice two strands of barb wire together and would buy another roll for another project.  First they sold five rolls of used barb wire.

See the rolls of used barb wire behind the woman?  Those rolls, and the ones on top of the fence posts ahead of her, I bought for $5.  I don't need any more barb wire but no one else would bid.  They had too many partial rolls of new barb wire left to sell and that was what the buyers wanted.  Even then I bought five partial rolls of new barb wire when no one else would bid.  These were small rolls, but worth $5.

They also had railroad ties for sale.  They had a large pile of long ties and some very large diameter posts.  Some of the ties were longer than any I've ever seen.  These ties were under my "nice to have but not really needed" category.  Therefore I dropped out when I had to bid $60.  A person then behind me bid $60 and got the ties.  This then became one of my "I shoulda bid more.." feelings.

The auction did have at the very end of the last row a pile of three 8.5 ft good used railroad ties, a good very large diameter post, and a very large diameter post that was not so good as it was split lengthways into two unequal sized pieces.  A bonus was that two of the ties had a pair of lags bolts for gates in each of them.

The guy who outbid me for the large pile of ties was around as the auctioneer moved closer to the small pie of ties.  And I had seen him looking over this small pile.   Dang.  I am going to have bid against him.  But as fortune would have it , someone distracted him a few items before the tie pile.  Even though he was nearby, he didn't bid against me and I bought the small pile of ties for only $5.  The buy of the day for me.  Especially as the lag bolts alone were worth more than $5.

The auction had three used round metal feeders.  The winning bid was only $110.  Man, of all the auctions I have attended, no feeders have sold for under $150.  I had bought a used round metal feeder this Spring before Tammy and I drove to Washington State to visit my relatives. So I didn't really need another one. The winning bidder only bought one feeder, the undamaged one. Bidder number two foolishly decided to take a second feeder at the same price.  If she had elected to open up the bidding again I am sure she could have gotten it cheaper.

The auctioneer did open the bidding up for the third bidder and the only bid was for $50.  I debated bidding $60 for two reasons.  Reason 1 was that it was very cheap.  Reason two was that the bidder was a competitor who once outbid me for a group of stuff at another auction.  The one item I wanted had no relation to the rest of the stuff; the auctioneer just grouped a bunch of stuff to move the auction along. I tried to buy the one item I wanted from this guy and he refused to sell it to me.  I've held a grudge ever since. 

But I didn't bid on the third feeder and the competitor bought it for $50.

The only other items of great interest to me were buckets of bolts - including lag bolts for gates - and third small pails of staple nails used for barb wire fencing.  However these items sold for plenty as it was 'buyers choice'.  Again and again the auctioneer auctioned the remaining buckets and pails.  The bucket with the lag bolts and other bolts I had an interest in were taken but the pails of staples remained.  However the owner wanted to speed things along and told the auctioneer to sell all the rest of the buckets and pails in one group.  Again it was a case of I only wanted one thing, but the price for everything was too much.


They tried to sell three horses. Even though they were registered horses, only two of the three horses sold.  One horse was 11 years old, another was 18 years old.  I don't know the age of the third horse. While they claimed to not have to reserve, the minimum bid was $200.  One horse, the 11 year old, (shown below) sold for $275.  I am not sure about the other as I was talking with a guy and not listening closely.

They tried to auction the ranch and buildings but there was no one interested.  The ranch was 42 acres with nice buildings.

Weeds and Pollen

This past week I've started spraying weeds.  I am working on the north pasture since no livestock is in there. Last year I sprayed a good amount of this pasture.  However for a large area of spotted knapweed last year I felt it would be quicker to use a weed whip to cut the knapweed before it could go to seed.  Well... this year I can tell the difference between where I sprayed and where I cut. The cut area is thick with knapweed.  This year I am spraying everything as I got an earlier start.  The weeds are only now beginning to flower or develop seeds depending on the type of weed.  I've only seen one flower on all the knapweed so far.

An exception is the western salsify, or goatsbeard.  A number have opened their seeds.  For the ones that haven't, spraying the weed may eventually kill the weed but that won't stop the weed's flowers from turning into seeds and opening to release them.  For these I have to pick off the flower heads then spray the weeds.  The weed will then die before it can create a new flower.

The pasture grass is high and with all the water this year the mosquitoes are horrible.  It was sunny and in the mid 80s today (hot!) and I had mosquitoes attack me mid afternoon.  If you stand in the shade of a tree you are asking to be eaten alive.

Another annoyance is that the grass is releasing its pollen right now which is causing me to sneeze and have a stuffy nose at times and get itchy when it collects on my arms..  The yellow in the photo is what I believe to be the pollen.  There is lots of it.

1500

Saturday I trapped my 28th pocket gopher for the year.   That makes 1500 pocket gophers trapped since I started trapping them back in the late Summer of 2003.  Eight years of trapping and an average of almost 200 per year.  I have put a dent in their population as I don't find as many this year.  That may change once the cattle eat the hayfield grass down and I can see the ground better.

Head gate move

I completed moving my head gate gate back eight feet.  It was now or never as once I rebuilt the east side of the loading corral that would lock in the location of the head gate from now on.

I wanted to move the head gate back a little bit after observing over the years several of the cattle haulers with goose-neck and/or 30 ft stock trailers having limited room in which to maneuver in the overall corral when backing up to the loading ramp.  I think the extra 8 ft will make it easier for them.

When two of my uncles were visiting me in early June I planned on using their help in moving the head gate.  They had helped me install the head gate four years ago when they were last here.

The night before the big move I dug out one of the 10 ft railroad ties located where I wanted to move the head gate.  The 10 ft ties were too tall to operate the head gate as the control lever is on top of the gate and goes forward and backward depending on how you want the gate's doors to open.  My uncle Curt looked at me funny when I said I was going to dig the ties out and remove them.  His idea was to cut the tops of the ties off to the height I needed.   I didn't want to do that for two reasons:

1. 10 ft ties are not all that common and I had other places where I could put these two ties.
2. I wanted to move the head gate's new location not only 8 ft back, bit also a little to one side.  This would give a slight bend to the end of the loading ramp, positioning it closer in direction to the corral's main gate.  This also would help in backing a stock trailer up the loading ramp.

So, even though these 10 ft ties are so heavy I can't lift them, I dug a large hole around them and leaned and drug them out of their holes.  No easy task.

Wednesday morning, June 8,  my uncles and I would get an early start.  I would dig out the second railroad tie and Curt would get the new bolts needed.  I woke up Wednesday morning to this:

"Hey!  Wait!  Where are you going?!"

Yup.  My uncles bailed on me.  

To be fair, the weather forecast when we woke up Wednesday morning was 100% chance of rain all day, and it was raining already and muddy in the corral.  No work was possible on Wednesday and my uncles and aunts had to leave Thursday at the latest.  They had only initially delayed their departure to Thursday so they could help me move the head gate.

So I was on my own.  This is where I was at when my uncles left.  And, yes, it rained all day on Wednesday.

After working on a a few other projects these past few weeks I turned my attention to the head gate early last week.  Instead of getting the gate moved in one day as planned with my uncles, it took me a number of days to complete.

First I had to dig out the second 10 ft railroad tie.  Then I found two solid 8.5 ft ties and placed them in the ground.  The head gate was attached to an old post and old railroad tie.  Neither of which I reused for the head gate.  One, because it was a post and not a railroad tie.  Second, the tie currently used was "disfigured".  "Disfigured" in that the tie's width varied.  The ends of the tie were not the full 5 to 7 inches width of a normal tie.

Placing the new ties in the ground was harder than it sounds.  As I mentioned earlier I planned to "bend" the last section of fence leading up the head gate.  The decision was: how much to bend the fence?

Then I had to calculate how far apart to put the two ties.  I had a limited amount of distance to work with as I had to balance the minimum distance together (the head gate opening) with the maximum distance apart (I needed to bolt the head gate to the ties).

I also had to factor in the height of the ties above the ground.  The maximum height (where the tie interfered with the lever).  The minimum height (where the gate bolted to the ties).

Complicating the height calculations was that I wanted the gate to be higher than the general ground level. The goal was to have the bottom of the gate close to the level of the stock trailer so the cattle would have little to no step up into the trailer.  Since the cattle are often reluctant to get into a trailer, the easier it is for them to do so, the easier it is to load them.  Once the gate is installed I place dirt around the head gate and give the last 8 ft of the loading ramp a slope up to the head gate.  This dirt ramp wasn't there when I placed the ties in the ground so I had to estimate how high to place the gates.

I measured once, twice, thrice.  Over and over.  At least I could kind of lift and move these 8.5 ties.  That ability came in handy as I found after I had placed the first tie in the ground that I forgot one calculation.

Any idea what that could be?

Remember the bend for the last fence section?  What happens when you move two straight lines to one side, yet want the end points to be parallel the the starting points?  The answer is that one line (fence) is longer than the other line (fence).  My problem was that both fences were the same length.  Even when placing the one tie as far to the end of the fence as I could (the ties were 7 inches thick so I did have some room to play with), my "short" fence was still several inches too short as seen in the following photo.  The head gate needed to sit flat against both ties.

I needed the two ties to be parallel in order to bolt the head gate to them.  So... I had to dig out the tie on the left and move it back those few inches so the ties were parallel.  Then I had to cut a few inches off the left ("long") fence so that the fence would not stick out past the tie.

Because the fence sections were straight and could not really bend, I had to trim their ends so they lay flat against the ties at the other end. Laying flat against the ties made for a more secure surface when nailing the fences to the ties.

With the new ties finally in place I removed the head gate from the old location.  For the 4 inch by 4 inch board at the bottom of the head gate, three of the four lags screws snapped in half when I tried to screw them out.  I had the strength to turn the screws (irresistible force) but they were screwed into an old railroad tie (immoveable object).

The rest of the bolts came out fairly easily.

Because it seemed as if the ties moved each day, I bolted the bottom 4" by 4" board onto the ties. Then I nailed a board across the top of the ties to hold them in place until I installed the head gate.  That fixed the width between the ties at 28.5 inches apart.  I swear that the previous day after I placed the ties in the ground they were 29 inches apart.

Because I was using new, full width, ties I needed new bolts.  Due to the design of the head gate (see photo below)  I only had two inches (beyond the width of the tie) to work with.  I needed to buy 8 inch bolts but could go as long as 9 inches.  No shorter than 8 inches.  Unlike the last time Curt and I shopped for bolts to initially install the head gate, this time I easily found 8 inch bolts at Home Depot.

Drilling through the railroad ties was a problem.  While the ties are dense, that was not the problem.  The problem was my drill bits were not long enough.  I do have a 1" long wood drill bit.  But as the bolts were 1/2", the 1" bit was too big.  When an animal is in the head gate there would be a lot of pressure on the gate and bolts and I wanted the bolt hole to be snug.

I drilled one side, then measured and drilled the other side.  The holes did not meet.  What?!  Hmmm... what did Curt and I do last time?  I remembered and found the nail/spike we used last time and pounded that through the tie hole I had drilled.  I found that my second hole was an inch off.    After I drilled through to match the hole I mixed up some cement and filled the bad hole.  The tie is dense and solid but I wasn't taking a chance that my bad hole would weaken the good hole.

My ties and bolts ready for the head gate.

When marking the location where to drill, I used putty.  Even so, when it came time to install the gate one bolt was a quarter inch off.  Also because I used (from my "treasure pile") a slightly larger bolt on one side, its washer would not fit in the head gate space.  I had to file one side of the washer flat.

I got my exercise.  The head gate is very heavy and it took my full attention to lift it and move it in place.  The gate would not stand in place so I had to put it back on the ground between tasks.

Measure.  Head gate: Up down.
Need a better way to mark where to drill.  Up down.
Drill.  Up down.
Washer doesn't fit.  Up down.
Washer still doesn't fit.  Up down.
Bolt doesn't fit into hole.  Up down.  Up down.
Try this.  Try that.  Up down.
Remove the board nailed to the top.  Up down.
Move the one tie slightly so the bolt will fit.  Up down.
Need a wrench.  Up down.
Nut will not thread onto bolt.  Strange.  It screwed on the bolt fine before I lifted the head gate up.  Up down.
The large bolt needed a bit more room.  I need to trim the tie around the bolt.  Up down.
Need more trimming.  Up down.
On and on.

Recessed bolt.

Finally I got part of the head gate bolted so I no longer had to lift the gate up and down.  *whew*


Here is the gate installed at the new location.   The railroad tie in front of the gate shows the old location of the head gate.

This shows how much of a bend I made in the head gate location as the post shows the right side of the former location.

Here are a couple of views of the loading ramp that shows the bend I put at the end with the head gate.

A side view.  Notice I already started to pile up dirt around the head gate for the dirt ramp.

When I removed the railroad tie the head gate used to be bolted to, I found this post buried next to it.  From the length of the post it appears a previous person pounded the post into the ground rather than removing it when no longer needed.

So what would have taken my uncles and I a day to complete, took me three or more days to complete.  But it is done.  Hooray! 

Jailbreak

Usually cattle are the ones that get out. Horses seem to be better behaved.  Thursday night after 9 pm I discovered the filly, Shufflebeads, in the front yard and not in the pasture where the other three horses were located.  She was in an excited state and wanted to be with the other horses but did not know how to accomplish this.

My first order of business was to close the front gate so she couldn't get out on the road.  That was harder than expected as Shufflebeads wasn't sure whether to follow me or remain near the other horses.  Once she decided to stay near the other horses I went and closed the gate.  Then I went back to the corral and opened that gate.

When I walked back to get Shufflebeads she came running at full gallop towards me and the gate.  Just as she was about to go through the gate she spotted the other horses running in the pasture towards the corral and she turned in the back yard to run towards them, even though my wood pile and a fence was in the way.  I ran around and herded her into the corral and closed the gate just as the other horses ran around the loafing shed and into the corral.

*Whew!* 

I don't know how Shufflebeads got out of the pasture.  Maybe she jumped the fence?  Then why didn't she jump back over the fence into the pasture?  She may have gotten through the fence into the garden area and then through that gate to the yard.  The gate freely opens from the garden area to the yard, but not the other way around.  I'll check tomorrow when the grass is dry for signs she came through this way.  It rained earlier and the grass was still wet after I got Shufflebeads back into the corral.

We had strong winds before the rain as a cold front moved through and perhaps the "excitement" from the storm was the reason Shufflebeads got out.

Flat tire

One has to be careful when driving on rocky forest service roads - even with good tires.  I had a flat tire this Wednesday afternoon.  The first one I ever had on the pickup.  It was a learning experience how to change a tire on this vehicle.

The spare tire is under the pickup and one has to use a long handle through the bumper to turn a mechanism to unwind a cable that lowers the tire.  Years ago a recall gave us Chevy owners a flexible piece that makes up the handle.   The flexible piece was needed as the metal piece on the end would not allow us to reach the turning mechanism.  A puzzling problem was that the directions called for assembling three pieces to make up the handle, with the last piece being the new flexible piece.  Sounds easy, but either I was flustered or the new flexible piece was touchy about how it was snapped to another piece.  I found I only needed two pieces snapped together to reach the mechanism.

Once the spare tire was lowered I was thankful to find it had air.  11 years under the pickup is a long time.  The tire wasn't fully inflated, but it had plenty of air.

I had to lay on a dusty rocky road on a hot sunny day to set the jack under the rear axle and turn it to raise the flat tire off the ground.   There were plenty of rocks to put against the other wheels to keep the pickup from rolling.  I used the jack handle to dig out a few rocks in the road poking me as I lay.

I went to my local Les Schwab tire center to have the flat tire fixed.  I discovered a former neighbor now works there.  Her husband is now working in the North Dakota oil fields.   Les Schwab fixed my flat for free.   The hole was an "X" which indicates a sharp rock caused it.

Yesterday I fixed a flat tire on my bicycle.  Today the pickup.  Tomorrow?

Hungry Horse Dam

My old (wet) school

Here is a recent photo of the school where I attended 7, 8, and 9 grades. That was before the new high school was built and 9th grade was moved to another building.  Yup.  The school is in Minot and is underwater.  The school survived the 1969 flood but things don't look so good this time.  I think it may be time to move the school.

Tree Stump 8

This is the last tree stump of the season. I swear.

Once again I found part of a tree stump near where I had removed one last year. Last year I dug out a tree stump here.  A week or so ago I noticed the ground had settled and sunk over the past year where the stump used to be.  I decided to dig the ground around the old hole and use it to fill in the low spot.  In doing so I uncovered yet more of the tree stump.  To be fair to me, there was a gap of a foot or so from the former tree stump and this part that I found.

I had to do a bit of digging to get all of the stump root out.  That is why I am including this stump in my count of stumps removed this year.

Pony, horses, gophers and cattle

The pony was in the north pasture Sunday.  It hung around the north fence to be nearer the horses in the pasture north of mine.  However today when I went in the north pasture in the afternoon the pony was gone and nowhere to be found.  Strange.  It showed up suddenly one day.  Then disappeared just as suddenly.  No broken fence.  No sign of where it came from or went to.

This evening Paul, the animal control official with the Sheriff's department, stopped by.  The person who owns the brand said he does not own any Shetland ponies.  Paul told him someone else then is using his brand.

Paul was a little surprised when I told him the pony disappeared with so signs of how he disappeared.  He told me Shetland ponies can be a pain as they can easily get through fences and go where they please.  They sound to me to be like "ninja horses".


My horses were enjoying the tall grass of the NE pasture today.   However this evening when the fireworks started they got scared.  The next neighbor over had friends over and they shot off loud and fancy fireworks tonight.  The fillies are high strung usually and with the loud fireworks noise, they took off with the older horses then joining them.  They ran around and around the NE pasture at full gallop.  When they ran into the corral as a safe place, and to catch their breath, I closed the gate to the NE pasture.  I'll keep them in the corral overnight.  They will feel safer there and also they can't get going too fast when they run in there.  I don't want them to accidentally run into a barb wire fence.


Today I moved the cattle into the south pasture.  The cattle now understand how my gates work and they easily moved through the gate once I opened it.  Well, all but one.  One of Dan's cattle tried to get around me instead of going through the gate,  but after cutting him off a few times he turned and joined the rest of the cattle.

The cattle were also more comfortable being in a "new" pasture.  The first time I let them in this pasture they would not get anywhere close to me, and eyed me warily.  This time, as I chopped a few Canadian thistle weeds on my way to retrieve the pocket gopher traps in this pasture, a number of cattle followed me or came towards me as they grazed.  A half dozen other cattle made a beeline to one of my pocket gopher trap's milk jug markers.  I got to it in time before they could stomp the heck out of it again.


Speaking of pocket gophers, I put the rest of my traps out in the field today.  The young have been moving out on their own as fresh dirt mounds are popping up here and there.  Tonight I even came across fresh dirt mounds in my fruit tree and garden area so tomorrow I'll have to move a trap back here.  I know it is the youngsters moving out on their own due to the size of the gophers I catch in my trap.

The other day, as I was bicycling to the neighbors inquiring as to the pony's owner, I saw road kill on the road next to the hayfield.  A regular gopher had been run over and killed trying to cross the road to my hayfield.  A regular gopher!  I had finally eliminated all of them last year.  I don't need any new ones moving back in.

I moved the cattle back into the south pasture instead of the hayfield as I had planned because I spoke with a nutritionist from Sweetlix, the company that makes the bloat blocks for cattle.

Jackie told me that the cattle need to be on the bloat blocks the entire time they have access to alfalfa.  I knew that a person puts the cattle on the bloat blocks two to three days before they have access to alfalfa so the cattle get the supplement into their system.  But I thought it kind of inoculated them.   Jackie told me the cattle need to lick on the block daily while exposed to alfalfa.

In the past I had used the blocks as an inoculation, especially as the cattle went through the blocks so fast.  The added molasses must make this taste like candy to them.  And these blocks are not cheap.  They now cost $23.99 each and a block is needed for every five cattle.

The cattle have never bloated, but that may have been because the alfalfa is only 20% to 25% of the hayfield.  And I had the cattle in the hayfield later in the season.  Right now the alfalfa is rich, or another way to put it "hot".  Now that the rain has quit and the sun has come out the grass and alfalfa are growing madly.  The alfalfa (and the goatsbeard weeds) are growing so fast they are leaking fluid at their joints.  The alfalfa has not flowered yet, though today I started to see my first alfalfa flowers.  I decided to wait until the alfalfa has finished flowering before adding the hayfield to the pasture rotation.  Even with the bloat block protection I want to be careful as cattle can die if they get bloated.


I also fixed a few things the horses broke.  One was a an old fence board in the yard that broke when the big horse leaned over the fence to sample the grass on the other side.  The other thing was a corral fence pole.  The cattle has broken it years ago and I nailed a patch to to hold it together.  The patch was coming apart so I found another pole and replaced the broken pole.

I also sprayed two tanks of herbicide on the weeds and clover in my fruit tree and garden area tonight.  Then I dug grass and weeds from around my rhubarb and a few strawberry plants.  The grass and weeds are so bad I am afraid of losing my strawberry plants.  The rhubarb plants' large leaves are helping keep the grass at bay for now.  The strawberry plants are tough and are fighting.  I found plants and to my surprise, ripe strawberries.  I ate a handful of them as I weeded.

That was my 4th of July. I hope you had a good one too.

More on gate and pony

I still have the Shetland pony.  The animal control person has not called me yet with the owner's name.  Nor has anyone else come to claim the pony.  For now the pony wanders around the north pasture.

I finished my gate work and miscellaneous corral repairs that I had hoped to complete on Saturday.

Here is how I coped on Saturday with no extra person to help me hold the gate.  I used blocks of wood to support the gate while I took measurements and did the drilling for the bolts.

Here is part of the old gate I replaced.  Yup, strands of barb wire nailed to boards to provide support.

Here is my gate when completed.  It is a lot nicer than strands of barb wire!  The gate is 16 ft long.

Here is a view placing the gate in context to the hay shed and corral.  FYI: the gate on the right is the one my uncles Curt and Larry helped me install when they were here last month.

Here you can see how the fence, when rebuilt, will be moved four feet to align with the end of the hay shed. It is 64 ft from the gate to the hay shed.

Also, the horses have finally eaten most of the yard grass down and tonight, now that I completed the gate work, I let them into the NE pasture.  After a few days, once the "horse hockey" in the yard has dried somewhat, I will use the lawn mower to mow the odds and ends and clumps of grass the horses hadn't eaten down.  I did find that the horses moved a wire wrap around a very young nut tree in the back yard and ate the three or four leaves the tree had produced.  I have hope that the tree will come back and re-grow new leaves.

Found: Shetland pony

Every day I think I am going to get a certain amount of work done.  I never seem to get everything planned done.  Something always comes up.  Today for example, I had the simple task of hanging another gate which should have taken a half day or less, then I would be on to other things.

The gate took longer than expected as the bolts only had one nut each, not two each.   No washers either.  I found nuts and washers fairly quickly but one bolt was damaged at the end.  I think the previous owner hammered the bolt out of the post.  It took a while to fix the bolt's threads.

Also, I had trouble removing the the plug at the top of the "L" on one bolt.  It took a bit of hammering with a punch to get the plug out so I could get the bolt off the gate.  I wanted the bolt off the gate as it is much easier to figure out where to drill in the railroad tie for the bolt when holding the bolt and not the gate.  Especially as it is only me working on the gate and I don't have my uncles here to help hold the gate and mark the location to drill.  Also, this bolt was the one with the bad threads at its end and it was easier to fix without having to hold on to the gate.

Toss in:

• the horses unplugging the electric cord for the drill, 
• one bolt location going through fence boards in addition to the railroad tie, 
• having to go back and forth to the tool shed lots of times for more or different tools, 
• the ground where a post went being in a gravel area (gravel and rocks started less than a foot under the top dirt),
• one handle on the post hole digger breaking, and 
• miscellaneous other glitches.

And you can see why the gate was taking longer than expected.

The biggest glitch during the day was when I was drilling the holes for the bolts.  All of a sudden I heard a whinny from the pasture.  I thought the horses were in the front yard.  I looked to find an unknown pony in the middle pasture.

The pony was standing near the gate between the middle and north pasture so I open the gate and it walked into the north pasture and headed for the corral.  The corral gate was closed and, as this was a male pony, there was no way I was letting that pony into the same area as the female horses I have currently.  The pony appears to be a gelding, but I am not taking any chances.

I called several of my neighbors and no one was missing a horse.  I got on my bicycle and started to visit other neighbors with horses and for whom I did not have a phone number.  No one was missing a horse but they would refer me to someone else, who also were not missing any horses.  I went north two miles.  I went south 1.5 miles.  I went east a half mile.

I had taken photos of the pony and would show people the photos on my camera.  No one recognized the pony.

Ten miles, over two hours, and talking to many neighbors, I gave up.  I called the Sheriff's department and  left a message with the animal control agent, Paul.  He came when I was in the hayfield checking my pocket gopher traps.  While he said he has been called for a number of horse problems along my road, he didn't recognize this pony.

We think the pony's brand is: J (Heart) (over) a rocker.    Paul called the brand in and in their old brand book they found a name for this brand.  Neither Paul or I recognized wither the man's name or the road he lived on.

Paul is still trying to pursue who the owner is and will call me when he finds out who that is.  For now the pony is in my NE and north pastures.  I hung the gate on the fence line between the two pastures and later will rebuild the fence completely.  I left the gate open so the pony could access the river for water.  For now it wants to be close to my other horses.  When those horses are in the front yard the pony goes into the NE pasture near them.  When the horses are in back of the corral the pony goes in the north pasture.

Another mystery is how the pony got into the middle pasture.    The middle pasture.  The pasture with the cattle.  The middle pasture, where the pony had to go through two fences to get there: my property line fence and then the fence that went around the middle pasture except for the river.  And the river is still running very high and fast.  If the pony swam across the river without drowning it would be a miracle.

The immediate four pastures to my north are fenced and have horses in each of them, so it is doubtful this pony came from that direction.  The field to my south is not fenced.  I checked my fences and nothing is broken.

Otherwise I don't know how this pony got into my middle pasture.  Maybe God picked it up and placed it there?

Flowers and a bee

My poppies have finally flowered today now that the temperature finally warmed up to the 70s.

A bee was busy checking out one flower.  It looked like the bee was also carrying a piece of the purple part of the flower as it buzzed around checking out the flower.