Burning ditches, etc.

I hadn't planned on it, but after seeing some burnt ditches on my bicycle ride today, I decided to burn my ditches.  The time is right: the snow is gone, it was dry today, and rain is in the forecast for tomorrow and off and on all week.

Having the hayfield dug up was nice as then I didn't have to worry about the fire getting away and out of control.

The ground is still damp and cool, but the light breeze usually kept the fire moving along.  Still I had to also help the fire along so it would not go out.

But I got it done.  One thing checked off my Spring checklist.

Also on my bicycle ride I discovered the house Curtis and his business partner owned was burnt down.  I had asked Curtis to let me know when the house was going to be burnt but he forgot to tell me.   He had the local fire department burn the house down yesterday as part of a pretty much all day fire training exercise.

Curtis and his business partner bought this house and property last year.  The house had been severely damaged in a fire and was unlivable and unfixable.  Curtis and his partner planned on cleaning up the property then flipping it and reselling it.   They also came across a large number of "house" logs, that is logs that are large and long enough to be used to build a log house.   Ever thinking, they now have the idea if no one buys the property for the price they are asking, they may build a log house and then sell the house and property for even more money.


No more calves yet.   Calf 1 is feeling good.  When talking with Curtis I saw the calf jump up and down a number of times in front of his mother.  "Look mom!  See what I can do!"

Later when I went out to check on how much hay the cattle had left, the calf was running here and there having just learned how to run.  His mother followed and mooed at him to be careful.  Much more of this and she'll lose all her pregnancy weight gain.  That calf is so cute.

Calf 1 - Day 2

Late this morning Donna came over to help me band/castrate my little boy calf.

The calf was laying next to the hay feeder while his mother ate hay.  The mother moved away from the feeder as I approached and then she called softly for her calf to join her.  I walked out of sight around the feeder and came up on the calf without him seeing me.  Then I was able to easily hold him down while Donna applied the band.  All this took only a few minutes and we were done.  No chasing of the calf was needed,

After the band has been applied.

The banding tool is laying in the hay below the calf.

Mom is asking the calf if he is ok after we banded him.

"Let's get out of here before they do something else to you!"

Then we placed temporary coral panels to prevent the cattle from reaching the river for water.  I am not worried about the cattle falling into the river; I am worried about a small calf being knocked into the river.  The river is high right now.  While the drinking area is not in the main current, I am concerned the flow is enough a calf would not be able to get out of the water.

Later in the afternoon Daisy walked out to the check on the cattle.  Then we walked to the river.  Below Daisy is guarding the corral panels to keep the cattle away.

Calf 1

Buddy was on schedule.  I let him be with the cows in order that the first calf would be born around the 24th of March.   And late this afternoon the first calf was born.

I didn't see the birth.  By how the cow acted and looked earlier this afternoon I expected the birth to be late this afternoon to evening.  So I found the calf probably a half to an hour after its birth.

It is a boy.  His mother was making small moo noises of concern to the calf when I got close to check the sex of the calf.  He was standing up looking for his mother's milk so I was able to see his balls hanging down.

Much of the snow was gone so there was a dry area for the birth.   It was drizzling when I took the photo and rain is predicted over the next week.  But the cow and her calf were close to large evergreen trees and can easily keep dry under them.

While it looks like the calf is missing the mother's udder, he actually is sucking on a teat on the far side of the udder.

Snow roof rake

My friend Mark wondered what a snow roof rake looked like.  In case others are interested...

Not shown... the handle has two more sections each of the same length to make it easy to stand on the ground to pull the snow off the roof.  Works great.

The blade has two black plastic rollers so the blade doesn't scratch/get hung up on the roof.

Btw: Daisy left me another mouse on the front step this morning.  This afternoon I shoveled much more snow away from the large hay bales.  I imagine I will be getting more mice left on my doorstep over the next few days.

Ranching

Sleep, squirrel, snow and hay

Friday night Donna and I attended a bull riding event.  

I think less than half of the 34 contestants stayed on their bull 8 seconds.   More time was taken in getting ready for the next bull rider.   A few times I yawned.  Donna thought I was bored.  Actually I was a little tired.  When I got home at 10 pm I watched the local news and weather.  I don't think I made it through the next commercials before I fell asleep sitting on the loveseat.  I woke up over two hours later at 12:30 am.  Daisy who went outside when I was watching the news was eager to get back in the house.  After checking on the cattle's water trough, I went to bed.

You'd think I would get up earlier than usual the next day.  Nope.  Daisy woke me up to go outside at 6:50 am.  Even though I had slept for 8 1/2 hours I quickly fell back asleep.  I checked and called for her a half hour later and she was nowhere to be found.

At 7:50 am I was awoken to a loud bang against the living room window.  I got up and looked.  A squirrel was on the ground digging in the snow for any missed sunflower seeds.  Apparently the squirrel had jumped for the suet cage and missed.  Even with 9 1/2 hours of sleep, I quickly fell back asleep.

Fifteen minutes later I was awoken to a softer bang against the widow.  This time I found the squirrel wrapped around the suet cage and trying to eat suet as the cage swung here and there.  I knocked on the window glass and scared the squirrel off.

I waited and the squirrel made its way back up the shrub.  When I saw which branch it planned to jump from to the cage I decided to get up for the day.  I trimmed the shrub lower.   I'll learn tomorrow if this finally works.


Today I put out two more large hay bales for the cattle.  Since I had left the tractor's bucket in the back yard and not the corral I was able to easily put it back on the tractor.  I scraped up the remainder of the last snowfall from the yard and driveway, then drove out to scrape clear another area for the two hay feeders.  The previous area was mucky with water from melted snow and manure.

I moved snow from a large pile in the yard out to the NE pasture.

Ooops.  So that is where my fence is located.  Another repair job this Spring.

Bird feeder and a squirrel

This past Summer a squirrel was run over on the road nearby.  I hoped that was the squirrel who tried to eat my bird's food last year.  Today a squirrel showed up at the feeders.  Darn!

This afternoon I woke up from an unplanned nap to find a squirrel sitting and eating in the 'umbrella' feeder seen below.  None of the birds had eaten the black sunflower seeds since I put them out weeks ago so I am not too upset that the squirrel ate all the seeds.

But then - after another unplanned nap -I found the squirrel trying to eat from the suet feeder.  Last year I had trimmed the shrub shorter and also raised the suet cage slightly when I found that squirrel could leap from the shrub to jump on the suet cage.   This year I found the squirrel standing on a shrub twig of a branch and holding onto the suet cage and trying to eat the suet.

After I chased the squirrel off into and up the pine tree in the background I worked on the suet cage.  I attempted to raise the suet cage higher.  Standing precariously on ladder in the snow and up against the house wall I tried to raise the wire holding the cage.  Too much pressure and the thin wire broke.

I didn't fall.  I got a different thicker wire and hooked it up to the roof on the house roof overhang.

Then I trimmed the shrub down even shorter.  I'll see tomorrow if this is enough to keep the @#$% squirrel from the feeder.

Preparing for the storm

The weather forecasters still insist we are going to get lots of snow and wind.  It hasn't happened yet.  Today must be the lull between the snow events.  The temperature warmed up above freezing today and by the end of the day it was raining lightly.  While rain in the Winter is not so good, the longer it rains the less it will snow.  Daisy insisted on going outside several times tonight.  Each time when she came back inside the house she expected me to rub the water off her wet fur.

Today it was time to put out two more large hay bales for the cattle.  I still have the - now - 16.6 inches of snow to clear so I put the bucket on my tractor and pushed snow.  First I had to distract the cattle with some small hay bales so I could enter the corral and get the bucket from there.

First I cleared the yard and the driveway then I cleared a path to the large bales and out to the pasture.  I had been just driving through the snow in the pasture, and probably still could even do so with this additional snow, but I wanted to use the tractor to clear a large area for the two hay bales out in the pasture.  I prefer to have an area free of snow for the hay rather than plopping the bales down in the snowbank.  And using the tractor I made an area large enough that the cattle don't have to stand in the snow to eat and have room nearby where they can lay down to rest.

I pushed most of the snow for the hay bales east of the bales.  If the wind blows as predicted it may be a little bit of a wind block for the cattle when they are eating from the bales.  The downside is the snow hill mostly blocks the view of the cattle from the backyard and corral.

The wild turkeys like it when I clear the yard.

The snow is piling up in the backyard.

Tree pruning

Now that it is Winter, once again I pruned my two apple trees.

In the next few days I will prune my neighbor's apple tree.

Geese and cattle

This afternoon some geese came and rested in the snow covered hayfield.

Not a bad photo considering my camera's back screen quit suddenly today.  I can't see what I am photographing.   I've had the camera 14 months.  This is why I no longer buy the newest camera spending big bucks.  They always seem to fail after a year.


I put out two more large hay bales for the cattle.   The cow with the bad leg is much better.  She stills has a bit of a limp but nothing like before.   When I let the cattle out of the corral to go to the large hay bales she also wanted to go. I think she would have been fine joining the other cattle but I will wait another day or two.

My septic system is still frozen.   I still have the crawl space opening open.   Daisy is not fond of using her littler box.  Now that the weather is nicer she goes outside several times a day.  So she is using her littler box less.  I thought she was going outside.  Yesterday when she came back inside the house she immediately jumped down into the crawl space. Oh....   that's right.  The crawl space is a large dirt area.  Hope that septic pipe unthaws soon.

Snow on the roof

Another decent day with the temperature a little above freezing.  With all of the snow we have had so far this Winter, this afternoon I spent a little time shoveling snow off some of the house roof.

As you can see in the following photo the snow almost covered the vent for the bathroom's drain.  The slightly darker circle beyond the vent pipe is the location of the bathroom's sun tunnel.

Missing heifer and septic system

I finally found my missing heifer this afternoon.  She had drowned in the river near where I had seen the cattle tracks in the snow.  Yesterday's temperature reached 40 degrees and more ice melted.  She must have been under the ice near the tracks when I looked earlier.

She shouldn't have drowned, but she did. The water level is not high right now and I don't think the area was to deep for her to keep her head above water.  If she walked ten feet towards the other shore she would be walking out of the water.  If she walked twenty or so feet downstream she would have been in knee deep water.

But I believe the heifer tried to get back from where she fell in.  If this was Spring, Summer or Fall she would have been able to.  But she couldn't pull herself back up onto the ice shelf over the water.

I believe the temperature the day the neighbor saw the cattle walk to the river was in the single digits.  That greatly shortened the time the heifer would be able to remain in the water.  If only she would have walked downstream.

I once saw a video and story about how to handle falling through the ice into a lake or river.  The dangerous part was getting out of the water.  The air temperature usually was colder than the water temperature.  If one couldn't quickly get out of the water they could either freeze to the ice or freeze to death from the part of the body out of the water, or both.

Other Winters here have had lots of snow, but no river ice.  Or if there was river ice, then not so much snow.   The combination of snow and ice rose above the barrier and allowed the cattle to go past it.

The ice shelf was flat.  I think another cow pushed the heifer into the river. I knew many of the other cows did not like her.  Kind of like true crime stories where a spouse pushed another off the cliff into the ocean below and then claimed they accidently slipped.    In the past I have called my cows racists; I guess I can add murderers too.  Who knows.. maybe they stood there and blocked her from climbing back onto the ice.

This was a perfect storm for the heifer.  If any one thing had not happened I think she would still be alive.

It is too late for the heifer but after I found her I added three more wires to the top of the metal fence posts to prevent the cattle from getting too far out to the river.  In the photo, from the heifer's location now, you can see how quickly the river gets shallow.

The other challenge I have right now is that one of my septic systems is not draining.   It is the old system that is now only for the kitchen, mud room, and washing machine.  Suddenly neither sink would drain.   I think the frost got down far enough to freeze the drainfield or the pipe from the house to the container, or both.

I opened the 'door' in the floor to the crawl space.  While not below freezing, it was plenty cold down there.  I am leaving the 'door' open in hopes of thawing the pipe out, if that is the problem.

I grew up in North Dakota and lived in Minnesota for many years, both places which have real Winters.  While this has been a colder than usual Winter for out here with plenty of snow, I didn't think this Winter has been all that bad.  Then I read that this has been the second coldest Winter on record for Kalispell.  I am surprised.  This certainly is not the second coldest Winter I ever experienced.  Not even close.  I guess I need to take this Winter more seriously.

Still missing

I counted the cattle again today.  Spice is still missing.

This morning I let the local livestock brand inspector know I am missing a heifer.  I also let the sheriff's department know in case someone sees Spice and calls. After talking with a few more neighbors about my missing heifer, I went to search for her again.

I walked through deep snow on both sides of the river upstream and downstream looking for tracks.  I only found a few deer tracks.  I looked down in the river where Spice may have fallen in.  Again, under cloudy skies, it was hard to see below the water surface unless looking straight down.

The temperature today got a little above freezing and I noticed the ice was less. I used a sledgehammer to break some of the ice where the cattle come to drink as I seen fresh tracks today.  If tapping with a sledgehammer would break the ice then a cow's weight would also. 

The only cattle tracks are located in the north pasture and corral.  None in the neighbor's property or my middle pasture or across the river.

So... still no idea of what happened to Spice and where she is.    Maybe aliens did take her.


Cow number #40 was in the corral drinking from the water trough when I returned from my search.  What excellent timing!  She is still limping badly.  I barely had to herd her to put her into the south part of the corral to be by herself.  I put out a whole bale of hay just for her, and as she ate from it I cleaned the manure from under the lean-to next to the barn and spread out a bale of straw for her to lay on and rest.  Now she doesn't have to walk far to get water to drink.

The spot

Downstream

Upstream

See how quickly the river gets shallow downstream.

Yesterday when walking to the river's edge to look for the missing heifer I saw an animal's head just above water a short distance upstream and along the ice.  Initially I thought it was the heifer's head barely coming out of the water.  Then I realized I was looking at a large beaver.  The beaver was lollygagging in the area as I watched.  As Donna came to the river I spoke to her.  Once I did the beaver quickly dove under the water with a loud noise and disappeared.

Below are a few signs of the beaver.  I noticed quite a number of other branches or trees chewed through as I walked upstream.

Overnight the beaver must have caught something and ate it here near where the cattle come to drink.

Missing heifer

I was feeding small bales of hay in the corral to the cattle this afternoon and I discovered Spice is missing.  I counted and recounted and recounted over and over and I always came up with one short.  I then figured out it was Spice.  

The last time I counted the cattle was six days ago on Thursday when the cattle were last in the corral to eat small hay bales.

I walked around the north pasture looking for her.  It has not snowed since I last saw her.  So I looked for tracks.  The only tracks away from the large hay bales and corral were a few that went down to the watering area at the river.  While the cattle drink from the water trough in the corral, the cattle being cattle, they sometimes want to drink from the river.

With all this cold weather the river is partially frozen.  The middle third of the river is open; each side of the river is iced over.  I found cattle tracks right up to the edge of the ice. I was surprised the ice held the cattle's weight.  I spoke with several neighbors asking if they saw Spice or anything unusual.  John saw three or four cattle walk to the river three days ago.  Other than that, nothing unusual.

No signs the ice broke under the cattle's weight.  But it could be possible, since most of the other cattle don't like Spice, one cow pushed Spice off the ice into the river.  This area is kind of deep but maybe only barely as deep as Spice is tall.  This deep area is not large.  The river quickly turns and as it does it gets shallow.  As shallow as to be only knee deep on me.  If Spice fell in the river she should be able to quickly get to a shallow area and then out of the river.

I walked along the river looking for signs of tracks. Donna came and helped look for tracks.  We walked the north pasture and halfway down the middle pasture.  No tracks on my side, either along the river or up in the pasture.

On the other side of the river there were one set of tracks in the snow.  I got my hip waders and walked across the river.  Those tracks were deer tracks.  I walked around a little more but did not see any more tracks.

By now it was starting to get dark so I quit.  I'll go out again tomorrow.

When we got back to the corral I let the cattle out so they could go to the large hay bales I set out earlier in the afternoon.  As the cattle walked out I noticed that #40 was limping badly.  She was favoring her front leg.  When I last fed them at 1 pm all cattle were fine.  Tomorrow I will have to try to get her back into the corral so as to limit her walking until her leg is better.

Going from unlucky 13 cows to 15 turns out to have been unlucky.  So much for making any money this year.  If Spice ends up dead, since I bought her I can write her on my taxes as a loss.  Since I raised Rose from a calf I could not count her death as a loss.

Cold

It keeps getting colder.  Last night it was minus 11 degrees.  Officially at the airport it was minus 18.

The warmest it got today was around 4 degrees above zero.  But we had sun!  It looked warmer than it was.  Temperatures like this makes me think I am back in North Dakota or Minnesota and not western Montana where it usually doesn't get this cold during Winter, or if it does, for not as long.

Right now - and the night is still young! - it is minus 11 degrees.  I believe the overnight low is predicted to be around minus 20.

I let the fire in the wood stove go out overnight.  This morning it was 48 degrees inside the house.  Tomorrow morning I wonder how cold it will be in the house?

The cattle are doing fine.  They have plenty of hay to eat and water to drink.  Yesterday I added a few more straw bales for the cattle to lay on in the loafing shed, and today I added one more bale.  I think the cattle eat half of the straw.

This afternoon, when not eating, a number of cattle laid in the loafing shed in the sun.  They chewed their cud and looked fine.  A few cattle standing around the hay feeders, relaxing and not eating, had a little bit of white frost in the fur around their mouths and noses from their breath.

Daisy hasn't been outside all day.  This evening when I went outside to check on the cattle's water Daisy was eager to join me.  She got halfway out the door when the cold hit her.  She quickly backed up and stayed in the house.  She appears to be satisfied to sit by the windows to look at the weather.  She often keeps an eye on me when I go outside.  Now if I could only teach her to dial 911 if I have an accident.

I am going through a lot of firewood to stay warm.

Even so cold, the sun shines warm enough mid afternoon to melt the snow crumbs from where I scraped snow off the roof.

A shoveled path to shorten the walk to the large hay bales.

Waiting for Summer

The past few days I have shoveled some snow off the hay bales.  This is what I have left to do tomorrow as my fingers were frozen by the time I reached this point.

Snow between more rows of bales.  The bale on the right is quack grass.  The cattle do eat it.  I put out one bale of regular grass and one bale of quack grass.  Now that the cattle ate the regular hay they are now working on the quack grass.

Turkeys and the New Year

Happy New Year!

Saturday afternoon a flock of turkeys came into the corral and back yard.  They headed back into the corral then the pasture when I came out of the house.

It snowed overnight and the wind blew much of the day.  The wind has died down now.  A cold day with only 15 as a high. It is forecast to get colder this week.  Daisy and I spent most of the day inside my nice and warm house.  I did spend a few hours shoveling some of the snow off the driveway.  I also spread four more bales of straw for the cattle to lay on in the loafing shed.  Otherwise they are doing well.