More cattle

 A week ago Friday (April 12) Tammy and I got my new cattle.  I planned on attending the big livestock auction the previous day (Thursday).  Tuesday night I was to call Dan to check if he still planned on visiting his daughter in Seattle or if he would be available to attend the auction with me.  I forgot to call him.  I woke up Thursday morning at 9 am with a start and with the thought the auction was today.  

I called Evan my cattle hauler as he had offered in the past to buy some cattle for me if I needed his help.  Evan also works at the auction.   I reached Evan and he ended up buying five steers for me.  There were a lot of cattle at the auction and it didn't get over until almost 6 pm.

Evan had no cattle loads to the Flathead Valley and it wasn't cost effective to haul only five head here.  So I had Evan haul the cattle to his place when he returned home and Friday morning Tammy and I drove down with my stock trailer to get the cattle.

I learned later that Evan had a number of cattle loads to haul Thursday night and didn't get home until 4 am.


Before we left Daisy did a 'cat scan' as she walked from the back of the trailer to the front of the pickup looking up as she walked underneath.  She then gave everything a clean bill of health.

To get to Evan's place we drove around the east side of Flathead Lake as the road was not as hilly as the road on the west side of the lake.

We had to stop for wild turkeys crossing the road.

Evan lives between Ronan and Hot Springs, Montana.  The road turned to gravel and we were out in the boondocks.  This time Tammy didn't worry once she no longer had cell phone service.

We crossed the Flathead River.

Crossing the bridge over the Flathead River.   As you can tell from the clouding up skies... these two photos are 'on the way' and 'returning from' Evan's place.

More views of the Flathead River.

Interesting clouds.

I am sure my uncles will agree... these fences are worse than my fences.

Tammy and I got to Evan's place at 10 am and loaded the cattle.  Then it was time to go back home.

Mission Mountains

South end of Flathead Lake.

We had no problems driving back home.  In the following photo notice the orange strap at the bottom of the doors.  After I loaded the cattle at Evan's place I noticed sliding door was loose at the bottom.  The way the doors work is they can open 'large' as seen in the photo of the cattle leaving the trailer.  Or the left side of the door can slide to the right over the right side.

Notice the latch is a little over half way up.  That, and the two metal 'hooks' on the top - on which the door slides, are all that holds the door on the door frame.  Nothing on the lower half of the door, and that makes the door a little 'loose' at the bottom.  I know how cattle can push against stuff and I was worried they could fall out of the back of the trailer when I was driving 60+ mph on the highway.  Why I never saw this before in the years I owned the trailer is a mystery.

Now I need to come up with a method to have a more secure door.   I think I can have another latch welded onto the door.

Notice that on the side 'escape' door it has two latches.

The second photo show how messy the cattle made the inside of the trailer during their trip.  I had to wash it out.

The rubber mats drying on the fence.

And last but not least... the new cattle.  It took them a few days to get accustomed to one another.  The new steers are pretty mellow and took to the corral well.  Momma, the heifer and the two steers had a harder time adjusting to the new cattle. The heifer now finally seems to accept the new cattle.  Momma still has a grudge against one or more of the steers.  I think it is harder for Momma as she is no longer the largest cattle and can't easily push the new cattle around.  The new cattle have yellow ear tags.

The cattle also are mellow around me.  The only 'Nervous Nellies' are the two steers I had gotten earlier this Winter. they still run off when I get near them.  It can be a problem with the new steers being comfortable with me.  I found one of the steers in the barn eating hay a few times after I carried hay over to the wooden feeder I am now also using as they are too many cattle to feed out of the barn feeder.  I have to now remember to partially close the barn door while balancing the hay I am carrying to the feeder.


Daisy wasn't sure of what to make of all these extra cattle.  Now she had more cattle to dodge when she crosses the corral to and from the barn.

Tonight, when Tammy came out to get me in the pasture she first stopped at corral to call for Daisy.  The cattle were around the feeder and Tammy said Daisy was so cute in carefully poking her head out of the barn to see Tammy.  Tammy could see the bottom of the barn door move out as Daisy pondered when to make her move.   She carefully slinked out of the barn door and once she turned the corner out of the door Daisy went 'zoom' to cross the corral to reach Tammy.  Once she reached the corral fence and Tammy only then did Daisy look back to see if the cattle were chasing her.  They weren't.

Neighbor's baby cattle

Here are a few photos of the neighbor's baby cattle.  I believe the calves were born last October/November.  As they appear to be Corriente cattle they don't get big.  So it looks like the calves stay smaller long.

Not even 6 months old and their horns are coming out.

Here is an adult cow.

Fixing a broken gate

Today I finished fixing the broken gate I had replaced in the corral last month.

Earlier I had to bolt the right vertical piece back on to the five horizontal pieces.

Then I got a metal plate and bolted it to the top bar that was broken in two.

Whenever I get around to replacing the gates in the 'back 40' pasture this gate will be ready to use.

CJ storage auction

Last Friday Tammy and I attended a storage unit auction.   They had four storage units up for auction.  The other four units advertised had been paid up and taken out of the auction.

5:30 pm on a Friday brought out lots of people.

The storage units sold for lots more money than I expected.  The same person bought the first three units and another person got the last one.   The bidders were three or four of men.  As people filed past the unit for a 'look-see' prior to the auction of the unit, one or more of the group, would tell the auctioneer their starting bid.  It worked as this eliminated the average person from bidding as we all were taken aback at a high starting bid.

The first unit - packed with household stuff - had a starting bid of $500 and the unit ended up selling for $900. Whoa.


The following two photos is of the second unit.   One could easily see all what was in this unit. This unit had a large cabinet and a bow-flex machine.  It sold for $300 or so.

The following unit was actually a double sized unit.  It sold for $1850.  This unit had it all: household stuff, tools and bongo drums.

Here is a six second video of the 'double sized unit' auction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuvItgBcTUs



The guy in brown was the winning bidder of the last unit which was mainly tools.  I think it sold for around $700.

Weekend snow

We got a little snow Saturday night / Sunday morning.  It was gone by mid afternoon.

Daisy wasn't so sure about the snow.

The tulips are coming up.  Daisy is munching on grass and not the tulip leaves.

Daisy shook her paws as she walked through the wet snow.

Grilled cheese

Tammy loves grilled cheese sandwiches.  And as you can see... the bigger the better.

Red feeder

Last Friday when I got the corral panels from Dan he also gave me an old broken down feeder.  I figured I would give the feeder a try to replace the bathtub for feeding Baby and the heifer.

The feeder needed some work.  The hard black plastic was no longer fastened to the frame.  Knowing the cattle they would get the plastic out of the frame.  So I got some bolts, screws and a drill, and after some hard work wrestling the plastic I got it attached back to the frame.

Before (left) and after (right) photos...

I put the feeder out for the cattle to use.

I'd like to say this solved the problem of the cattle pushing the hay out and onto the ground.  But they still do it.  Maybe not as much as when I used the bathtub, but still more hay than I care to be pushed out onto the ground and wasted.  I do notice the cattle don't step into the feeder now.

Eating out of a bathtub

I put hay for Baby and the heifer into an old bathtub as I don't have a feeder on their side of the barn.

The problem with the bathtub is much of the hay ends up outside the bathtub and on the ground.  Baby and - especially - the heifer like to eat from the bottom of the bathtub and as a result end up pushing lots of the hay out of the tub as they move their head around.  Then they step or go to the bathroom on it ruining the hay.  If I planned to keep the cattle separated for a long time I would build them their own feeder.


Here are Momma and the two steers on the other side of the corral.

After had I re-separated the cattle the other day the steers were even more skittish than usual.   One steer has a habit of standing at the feeder along its side.  Once this steer gets a mouth of hay it turns its head so it is not over the feeder.  When it gets a large clump of hay invariably the extra hay falls to the ground and mud and is wasted.  One day I walked around and over to see how much hay was falling and one steer got freaked out that I was doing something different and so close to him that he about ran over the other cattle to get away from me. It took 24 hours for the two steers to be comfortable enough to approach the feeder when I was filing it. 

Nervous Nellies

Here is the size of Momma's udder before the cattle opened the gate and Baby had access to Momma's milk.  I've noticed April 4 that after almost a month away from Baby Momma's udder still looks to have milk.

More corral panels

Dan bought a friend's collection of corral panels as the friend was moving.   Dan offered to sell the four damaged panels to me.  When I went out to get them last Friday Dan also offered four of the undamaged panels to me for what he paid for them.

As I found out with the four panels I already own, the panels come in handy when I need a temporary fence in a short time, or when the ground is frozen.

The damaged panels weren't in too bad of condition.  I was able to bend them to be mostly straight.  One panel did look like the previous owner had driven over it.  How this could happen is a mystery to me but this isn't the first panel or gate I have seen that had been run over.

First Treasure Market

Tammy renamed her antique and flea market to "The Ultimate Treasure Market" to give her event a catchy name.  This past weekend was her first event under the new name.

She had some banners made with the new name and I put them on our A-frame signs.

This past weekend was also the weekend for the Creston Auction so Tammy had some serious competition.  Add in a cool wet weekend for making it more challenging to hold a successful event.   But Tammy did better than expected, and better than her previous events, with over 500 people attending on Saturday and over 150 people on Sunday.

Creston Auction

I attended the (47th) annual Creston Auction on Saturday.  I actually got to the auction a little before it started.  Because Friday and Friday night were so wet from rain most of the stuff was covered by tarps or plastic.  Much of what wasn't covered was very wet.

As the morning went on auction helpers or the public started to uncover the merchandise.

Some stuff was good...

Some stuff was interesting to the right person...

I didn't take photos of the stuff that "only a mother could love".  I would say the auction was a good place to get rid of your old tube TV instead of paying to have it hauled off to the dump.


The small round feeder sold for $80.  I didn't buy it even though it would be perfect for feeding Baby and the heifer right now.

Tammy said she would stop eating chicken if I started to raise chickens so I didn't get the feeders either.

There were only four auctioneer wagons this year.   The first photo shows Bobby Roshon selling a saddle.  The second photo shows the Amish/Mennonite (?) auctioneer team.  The guy in the middle has been an auctioneer at the Creston auction before but the two auctioneers backups are new.  For some reason there are always a number of Amish/Mennonites in the audience at the Creston Auction each year.

It was a cool cloudy rain-threatening morning, and with a chill in the air and very little that interested me, I left after a few hours.  Tammy was running her Treasure Market Expo so she didn't attend the Creston Auction this year.

Ditch burning

I completed the burning of the ditches today.  The timing was right as the rain came this evening and the grass is starting to grow.

This is the section I had left to burn today as I had to quit burning last night when it got late.

There was not much of a breeze today when I burned.  This was both good and bad.  A light breeze meant little chance of the fire getting out of control.  On the other hand the fire just crept along.

Earlier in the week I had burned along the north hayfield fence and over half the west fence to create a decent boundary for when I planned to burn the hayfield.  But today I decided against burning the hayfield as the grass is growing and the fire would set it back.  I had burned the hayfield last year so it is not like the dead grass is over done.

Ent tree at night

Here are some photos I took one night back on January 25.  My "ent" tree made an impression on me in the darkness.

Here is how the tree looked back in 2009 when I trimmed the dead and dying parts of it: http://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2009/11/owl-ent-tree-part-3-final-photos.html

Here is how the tree looked January 25.

The first photo was when I used a flash to take the photo.  The second photo is without a flash.

The first photo must be how Tammy sees in the dark as she doesn't like the dark.  The second photo is how I see in the dark, which I like.

Working on a jailbreak

I discovered the cattle had been working on getting another gate open.

I slid the bar back into the end and the jailbreak was averted.