Cattle into middle pasture photos

Since I talked about cattle in my last blog post, I thought I would share a few photos from Thursday when I let the cattle into the middle pasture.

Speckles' calf in the north pasture

Like father, like son

The gate is open.  Toby eats at the gate as the other cattle come.

Coming through the gate

Beulah

Toby still at the gate

Toby now bringing up the rear.

Calves in the middle pasture

Speckles' calf in the middle pasture

This evening, after I finished cutting Calvin's field with my haybine, I saw that some cattle were in the south pasture. *sigh*  The cattle always are testing the boundaries.  At the gate were Red, Toby and someone's calf.  Red wanted back into the middle pasture so her calf could drink milk.  Further off were Little Red (naturally) and a black heifer or cow.  I left them there and did not come back to the gate when Little Red came to it later.   I checked the fence, especially the new section I had just rebuilt.  I was concerned that Red or Little Red had convinced Toby to wreck the rebuilt fence so they could get back through. The fence was fine.  But it appeared the cattle crossed the river to a gravel bar (where I could see hoof prints), walked along, then re-crossed the river south of the fence to get to the south pasture. *sigh* 

Bicycle guests

Yesterday I stopped and talked to two long distance bicyclists who were taking a break a short distance down the road from my ranch.   They are riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.  They are from Florida but for this trip they are riding from the route's start in Alberta, Canada with the goal of making it to Colorado.

Adventure Cycling's Great Divide Mountain Bike Route  (web site has a nice 5 minute video)

Wikipedia's Great Divide Mountain Bike Route

Great Divide Mountain Bike Route 2018 GDMBR (part 3) Montana  This video starts in southern Montana and travels north.

This website has a map: https://bikepacking.com/event/tour-divide-2019/

Eli and G (You know me and my bad remembering of people's names I've forgotten her unusual and interesting name) were planning to meet up in south Kalispell with a friend of Eli's who was hitchhiking from Missoula to Glacier Park.  As we talked Eli got a text that his friend's ride took him all the way to Columbia Falls, past where we were presently located.   With no fixed place to camp that night, I let them set up their tent and sleep on my front lawn.

We talked late into the night.  Eli and G are taking the ride casual and experiencing the sights and people and not making a race of it.  So they slept in during the morning.  Before they left they were interested in seeing my cattle so I took them out to the middle pasture where the herd was located.

Being curious many of the cattle came over to check them out.  First were some of the heifers, then the calves and then a few cows.  Eventually Toby the bull came over and sniffed Eli.  I got a few photos of Little Red, the heifer.  I neglected to take a photo of Toby as I was keeping an eye on him.  But as usual he was chill and behaved.

Many of the cattle were curious about Eli's sandals.  And, yes, Eli got to experience stepping in fresh manure.

They were heading to Bigfork and beyond so I made them a crude map for them to take less traveled backroads and avoid Hwy 2 and Hwy 35.

On the road a quarter after 1 pm

Tractor wheel repair

By the time I finished moving all my hay bales last week I found that the tractor's left front wheel was leaking oil.  That is different.  But then this is a four-wheel drive tractor and the front axle and hubs all have gear oil in them.  I waited until today to fix the wheel as I expected I would need a new seal and didn't want to have the tractor apart over the 4th of July holiday and the weekend.

The wheel was able to be rocked when the tire was off the ground.  When I went to take the lug nuts off I found they were easy to take off.  A few years ago when I took the other front wheel off due to a flat tire I broke a socket wrench trying to take those lugs nuts off since the nuts were on super tight.  I suspect the problem was the lugs nuts were not tight.

The o-ring seal looked to be intact.  But in putting the axle hub back on the seal was pinched and torn.  My neighbor Curtis welcomed the chance to come over and double-check the wheel and gears as his project wasn't going well and he needed a break from it as he was getting frustrated.  Since my o-ring seal was torn Curtis offered (wanted) to go get a new one for me.  He wanted an excuse to go for a ride on his motorcycle as it was a nice afternoon.  He didn't want to go back to the project he was working on.

The local shops on this side of town didn't have a seal that would work.  The hub was 8.5 inches in diameter and the largest o-ring seals they had was for an 8 inch hub.  So Curtis went to the John Deere dealer south of town and got a new seal.

I put everything back together and it appears to work.  I drove the tractor briefly around the yard.  I had put new gear oil in the hub.  It is not old and black like the old oil so it may be harder to see if the seal still leaks.  I'll keep an eye on it.

Inside the wheel hub.

English walnut tree

I was surprised to find a few walnuts growing on my English Walnut tree.  I know this sounds like a strange statement, but I've had this tree for a real long time (I planted it 12 to 14? years ago) and never had walnuts before on this tree.

Over the years I've struggled to have the tree grow.  This is the small tree where I learned that cattle liked to eat tree leaves.  They didn't quite kill it and I nursed it back.  Lost a year of growth.  Then a few years later I realized horses are taller (duh!) and they also like some tree leaves as they reached over the fence protecting the tree from the cattle.  Another year of growth pretty much lost.  A few other times the tree had parts eaten.  And the leaves were very sensitive to frost when the tree was younger.

But it is growing nicely now.

I just figured the tree had to be bigger or older to produce walnuts.  I guess not.  So far I found only four walnuts growing.  There may be a few more as I didn't search the whole tree.

I am very curious to see if the English Walnuts from this tree are the same as the ones bought in a store.  Or if they are some other variety.

Even with wire protection the cattle get their tongue through and eat some leaves.

In the following photo is another English Walnut tree I planted back (I believe...) in 2009.  So it would be 10 years old.  It also has been set back a few times by the cattle eating the leaves.  Last year almost 90% of the leaves were eaten by Speckles. (https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2018/07/cattle-in-yard.html)

Bigfork rodeo

Usually Donna and I go to two consecutive nights of rodeo at the Flathead County fair.  This year I wanted to change it up.  Last year Bigfork started a rodeo.  So this year I wanted to go one night at the Bigfork rodeo and one night at the Flathead rodeo.  The Bigfork rodeo was yesterday, today and tomorrow and we went tonight.

The Bigfork rodeo is a temporary setup in a field just north of Bigfork.  I thought the rodeo was well put together from parking to vendors to the bleacher seating to the arena to the number of competitors.

Because we are not VIPs we were general admission so that meant no reserved seating.  The grounds opened at 5:30 and we were there by 5:45 pm in order to get good seats.  We sat at the top of one bleacher so we had a little back support.  The rodeo started at 7 pm and ran until a little after 9 pm.

Rain clouds were scattered around and missed us until exactly 7 pm when the rodeo started.  It pretty rained until about 20 minutes before the rodeo ended.  Light rain.  No rain briefly.  The light rain.  Then heavy rain.  Then light rain.  Then no rain.  Then rain. The sun came out.  But then it started raining again.  Sun went away.  Then rainbows came out.  But it kept raining.  Once it finally quit raining a slight breeze made us cold.  A number of people gave up and left early.  Donna had a water resistant coat.  She had a couple plastic garbage bags.  I put one above my head and kept it dry.  The rest of me got pretty wet.

When each event was done the highest scorer was interviewed and shown on the big screen.  This was bad.  Usually the interview was one or two questions.  Often something like, "So you're from Texas... how do you like the Big Sky country?", or "Congratulations on winning.  How do like the Bigfork rodeo?"  Often the sound/microphone was poorly handled and often we couldn't make out the contestant's answer.   Each 'interview' ended with, "And back to you in the booth!" as if she had just conducted an important interview.  Donna and I ended up laughing at the interviews and not with them.

The rodeo clown was a younger guy.  He was not as active with jokes like other rodeo clowns, but often the other rodeo clowns have safe corny dumb jokes that one groans at.  This guy was quieter but he did a lot of dancing to the music while the next contestant was getting ready.

In the beginning the clown came out and rode around the arena on a tame bull.  Later he tried to have a different bull pull a chariot but that didn't go well as the bull often would turn around and stare at the clown as the rig prevented him from reaching the clown and chariot.  Other rodeo people would have to run around to get the bull to turn and try to chase them to get the chariot moving again.  Finally they gave up.  But then the wranglers had a difficult time to get the bull back in the pen.  Mostly because the bull would lay down on the ground instead of running.

The best part of the clown's act - in my opionion - was the tug of war contest.  The clown tied a rope on two large guys.  He had two women from the audience come and stand and hold two hula hoops on opposite sides of the guys.  The clown gave each guy a large ball and the first guy to toss two large balls into the same hoop won.  The guys looked to be similar in size.  But when each guy ran the other way one guy was jerked back off his feet and to the ground.  As he struggled to stand up he was drug over to where the other guy tossed the ball through the hoop.  The contest wasn't close but it was fun to watch.

The rodeo had all the typical rodeo events.  What it didn't have was Indian relay races.  The temporary area wasn't large enough for the Indian races.

It was a fun time and an entertaining rodeo even if we got very wet.

Finally losing the rain.

Barrel racing

Bull riding

Bull riding

Fence 1 rebuild by river

I rebuilt the fence by the river where the heifers at first and then other cattle crossed to get from the middle to south pastures without having to cross the river.  It was an old fence, and not too long of a fence.  With all the tall grass you'd think the cattle wouldn't find any weaknesses in the old fence as you can barely see the fence.  But that's cattle for you!

This first photo shows where I temporarily placed tree branches to stop the cattle from crossing the broken down fence.

The large log was always there.  I just moved further down the fence line when taking the photo of the rebuilt fence.   The boards leaning against the log are from the old fence.  The old fence was a combination of boards for posts along with metal t-posts.  The new fence is all metal t-posts now that I have extra t-posts after my recent fence rebuilds elsewhere.  I also went from three strands of barb wire to four strands.

Half year bicycle milage

Happy 4th of July!

It's at the halfway point and here are my bicycle miles so far.  3070 miles.   Not as many miles as last year's six month total of 4710 miles, but that was a record year.   As it is, this year is the fourth highest mileage total out of 42 years of keeping track.


Mama is taking no chances.  She hides her calf when the calf sleeps.  This morning Mama and Diamond were in the corral, but no calf in sight. I tried to find and see the calf but Mama kept me at a distance, or on the other side of fences.  I think Mama hid the calf in the tall grass behind the loafing shed.   In the afternoon when I returned from a bicycle ride I saw the calf with Mama in the corral.  The calf was looking at the other calves on the other side of the gate and in the north pasture.  Later I saw Mama in the corral, but no sign of the calf.  Mama hid it again when the calf laid down to sleep.

Another Mama story

This afternoon Mama and Diamond were resting in the loafing shed so I avoided the corral when I went over to ask Curtis a question.  On my walk back all of a sudden I realized Mama was coming after me at a high rate of speed.  Mama is fast and quiet as a ninja so I don't know if I heard her or saw her out of the corner of my eye.  I yelled at Mama, waved my arms and ran.  Mama then veered off.  I was in the middle of the NE pasture.  Mama then went over to an evergreen tree along the north fence and was looking for something.  The something was her calf.  The calf was not laying with Mama in the loafing shed.  The calf was inside the fence surrounding this evergreen tree.

The fence surrounding and protecting the tree was off the ground a little bit. Some how the calf got under the fence and now could not figure out how to get out.  It walked circles around the tree inside the fence.  Since Mama would try to kill me if I got in there to get her calf out I left the calf be.  I figured it eventually would figure out how to crawl back under the fence.

I watched to see if Mama would again go in the corral. Then I could close the gate and then safely get the calf out of the fenced area.  But Mama remained in the NE pasture.

I told Donna that if the calf was still inside the fence at 8:30 pm I would use the pickup and try to get the calf out before dark.  I went off to work on my fence rebuild down by the river.  I didn't get back until around 9:15 pm and here was Donna waiting for me.  She had ridden her bicycle down and was here by 8:30 pm.   By now the calf was hungry and calling for Mama, who was nearby.

I had Donna drive my pickup to try to herd Mama.  But I quickly realized that was going to be difficult as Mama ran over to her calf and the fence and we couldn't get the pickup where she stood between the tree fence and the north pasture fence.  Since Mama was relatively calm and on the other side of the fenced tree I got out of the pickup and got inside the fence with the calf.  I could see why the calf hadn't gotten out of the fence.  The fence had dropped down to the ground on most of the its sides.

Since Mama and the calf were relatively calm I took the opportunity to put an ear tag on the calf.  That went smooth.

It was crowded inside the fence with the tree and the calf. I tried to lift one side of the fence up and back the calf up to get outside the fence.  But the calf didn't want to back up.  I struggled to back the calf up and hold the fence up.  I could do one but not both since the calf was not cooperating.  I was getting frustrated.  The calf was getting frustrated.  By most importantly Mama was getting upset.

I would get the calf half way out but Mama got mad at me "manhandling" her calf and she charged the fence.  Mama's action pushed the calf back inside the fence and I had to let go of the calf and fence and jump back to the back side of the enclosure.  Mama would bend the fence in until the tree stopped it.  I can still see Mama's head and face pressed against the fence wire until she could go forward no more.  Then she backed off.

The experience was what I imagine being in a metal cage and large sharks are circling and banging on the cage trying to get in.  Donna parked the pickup on one side of the fenced area so Mama could not completely circle the area and I had a corner to retreat to.  But Mama would go on the other three sides trying to reach me.  Whenever Mama was on the south side of the fenced area I would try to lift the north side back up again and get the calf out.  Again Mama crashed into the north side fence pushing her calf back inside as Mama tried to run me over.

I was getting upset as I would almost have her calf out and Mama's action would stop me.  I had my sorting stick and I would 'wap' Mama over her head with the stick to get her to back off.  I used the stick a few times trying to get the calf to back up.  But whenever Mama was on the west or south side, and I tried to lift the fence, the calf tried to go forward where Mama was.

My enclosure was getting smaller and Mama was caving it in.   I don't remember how but I got the fence high enough, and it stayed up long enough that I could get the calf backed up and turned around and out of the fenced area before Mama could try to crush me again.

Once the calf was out she went to Mama as she was hungry and wanted to drink.  Mama stood and watched me.  I scolded Mama telling her I was trying to help her and her calf and if she hadn't acted the way she did I would have had her calf out along ago.  Mama didn't like being scolded so she walked off with her calf in tow.  Diamond has also been nearby - but not part of the action - and she also left with Mama and the calf.

Donna didn't seem too happy.  I think she was concerned Mama was going to get me and then Donna would be left with trying to rescue me, getting the calf out of the fence, and getting me to the hospital.   If it was Tammy, as she told me many times when she thought I was doing something iffy or dangerous, that she wouldn't call 911 or take me to the hospital, that I got what I deserved.  Donna didn't say anything other than, "Yes, I saw that." when I asked "Did you see that??!!!" after each time Mama tried to kill me.

So, again, another year, another Mama story.  And here yesterday I thought I had dodged having another Mama story.

Calf 13 - Mama's

After a long time - since May 10 - I have a new calf.  Mama gave birth last evening.  I am positive Mama and Diamond ate too much pennycress weed and aborted their first calf and had to get pregnant a second time.

This morning Donna helped me check the sex of the calf.  Mama was her ever protective self so we had to do the check by looking from behind the corral fence.  Eventually we came to the conclusion the calf is female, a heifer.  The calf is all chocolate brown, like so many of Toby's calves this year.  I would like to put an ear tag on the calf to help tell it apart from the other calves, but the effort to try to separate the calf from Mama was be so great that it isn't worth it.  Before you can say, 'no tag, that is how you tell Mama's calf apart', I'll let you know two other all chocolate brown calves (#40 and #70) tore off their ear tags already.

Mama's udder and nipples are so huge one would think such a small calf wouldn't be able to drink.  But from the energy the little calf has already, she has been drinking.  Mama is patient and helpful to have her calves drink.

I know the calf looks black in the photos, but she is a dark chocolate brown.

Here is a 13 second video of Mama and her new calf this morning.  The calf is just shy of 12 hours old.   https://youtu.be/hnnxAZF-7hQ

Only Diamond is left to calf and then I will be done for the year.  Diamond's udder is slowly getting bigger so I think she will calve sooner than later.

I'm glad I got the hay bales into the hayshed yesterday.  Started raining this afternoon and it is supposed to be rainy off-and-on all week.

Hay into hayshed

The weather forecast is for a good chance of rain the rest of this week.   After several days of warm and dry weather the hay bales appear to be dry after last week's rain.

The bales sat for a while as you can see the grass was stunted under the bales.

So I spent all day today putting the hay bales into the hayshed.

I discovered I had miscounted the number of hay bales I had made.  Not 57, but 59 bales.

First I had to move out last year's 20 hay bales.  I had to readjust the second level of the first row of this year's bales I had placed in the hayshed last week.  Those bales had settled and were now slightly resting against the back wall.

Then all day I got and stacked hay bale after hay bale.  The second row had three levels.  As you can see below one of the level three bales settled back against the first row's second level bales.  But this did not cause that second level to settle against the back wall.  So all is good.  At least until next year when I remove that bale.  Its tipping back makes it difficult to spear the bale to get it down.  The same thing happened last/this year.  I was able to finally spear last year's tipped bale but I also inadvertently caught the twine from the bale below and removed it.

Tipped bale on the third level of the second row.

The third row has the third level bales sitting correctly.

Once I had this year's bales into the hayshed I put last year's bales back in the shed. Every time I moved last year's bales more hay flaked off.  One bale fell so much apart that only the core remained.  The rest was in a loose pile that I had to gather up.  One pickup load of the loose hay I put in the barn.  The other I pushed into the hayshed as I ran out of time and light today.

This is the last I will move last year's bales until I take them out to feed the cattle. Even with the second cutting's bales and the neighbor's bales I will add later, I will still be able to feed last year's bales to the cattle this Winter.

As I put the loose hay into the barn Diamond tried to eat it out of the pickup.  Those cattle: when they have hay they want grass.  When they have all the grass they can eat, they want hay.

When I started the pickup after I finished unloading the hay, in the headlights I could see Mama had just given birth to a newborn calf in the loafing shed.  This being Mama I could not get close to see what sex the calf is.  That job will be tomorrow.

South hayfield fence rebuild

Since the hayfield south pasture fence rebuild went so well I decided to continue fence rebuilding.  I have a gate I wanted to install in the SW hayfield corner.  That way in the future if my southern neighbor wants my cattle to again eat the grass down in their small pasture I can easily run the cattle into their field and not have my cattle move through a larger area of my hayfield.

As you can see below, in order to move my cattle from my south pasture to my neighbor's pasture, this new gate can be used in conjunction with the corner hayfield south pasture gate I had installed last year.

I also wanted to replace the barb wire gate that was starting to fall down in the middle of the hayfield's south fence.  This is a gate for the Bonneville Power people to access the towers for their easement.

For two of the railroad tires I had a problem digging their holes.  The holes go 30 inches deep and in the middle of two holes, 20 inches deep, I ran into large tree roots.  No trees were around.  No trees since forever.  But larch tree roots decay extremely slowly.  These roots were many, many decades old.

I had to use a somewhat sharp metal bar to break the roots so I could remove them from the holes.

Old tree root removed from the hole

I hadn't planned on rebuilding the fence until later this year. The cattle won't be in the hayfield until after the second hay cutting grows back late this Summer or Fall. However the new renter has a horse and plans on bringing it to this pasture once the horse is trained.  Since the fence rebuild is a complete rebuild it is much easier to be able to take the entire fence down before rebuilding it.  And I could take my time now.  So I rebuilt my fence that borders the pasture now, finishing June 29.  I have a minor section of fence that borders the yard and I left that fence alone.  Their caragana hedge also blocks the way on the other side of the fence.  So the need to rebuild that fence is low.

Again I replaced all the mostly broken wooden posts.  I replaced the 5 and 1/2 foot metal t-posts with 6 foot t-posts.  I had noticed that after I rebuilt the hayfield south pasture fence and made it higher, the deer would now jump over the lower south hayfield fence to reach my alfalfa field.  So I made the south fence higher.   The deer still can jump over the fences but the higher the fence the more they think about it and the more likely they may stay in the neighbor's field and leave my field alone.

Again, lots of posts.   From the corner to the middle gate is 40 posts.  From the gate to the yard is another 17 posts.   The total length including gates is 506 feet.

Hayfield South Pasture fence rebuild

For a few weeks in May I rebuilt the fence between the hayfield and south pasture.  I did this when the cattle were still in the corral and before they were set loose into the pasture.  No more do I have to worry about the cattle breaking into the hayfield from the south pasture, like what happened several times last year.

I replaced the old galvanized gates with standard tube metal gates.  These metal gates were the first gates I installed 15 (?) years ago to replace a barb wire gate that was falling down.  They were the only metal gates I had at the time.

I redid the barb wire.  What was a five strand fence is now 9 strands between the north end and the gate, and 11 strands between the gate and the south end.   The old barb wire was patched in many places.  I removed most of the patches which took extra time.  Below is an example of one of the old patches.

I replaced all the old posts.  The wooden ones pretty much only held the wires apart.  The old metal t-posts were 5 and 1/2 feet long and I replaced them with 6 foot metal t-posts.  Every fourth post is a wooden post, the rest are metal posts.  As you can see a few photos above I added a few more railroad ties and boards around the gates.   North to the gate are 27 posts, for 216 feet.  The gate to the south side is 34 posts for 272 feet.  Add in two 10 foot gates and the extra railroad ties and boards for another 6 feet each.   The total fence length is 520 feet of fence.

The old fence had some field fence attached to help keep the cattle from breaking through.  The new fence of 9 and 11 strands is so narrow and tight the cattle can't get their head through the fence.  I still plan on re-attaching the field fence to this new fence anyway, and adding more field fence I have (to get rid of it sitting around) to make the entire fence have field fence attached to it.   I haven't done it yet as I worked on a few other things first, including another fence rebuild (more about another day).

This evening as I walked along the fence counting the posts, cow #7 (Maria) was near the fence.  She quickly moved away from the fence as I walked by.  She remembers how I shouted at her other years as she was along the fence sticking her head through and pushing against the fence.  She can't do it now so I didn't say anything.  But she remembered.

Strong rain and hail storm

Last night as I put last year's hay bales back in the hayshed it rained lightly.  It quit raining once I had the bales in the shed.  It didn't rain any more overnight, nor this morning and early afternoon.  If I knew the weather forecast was wrong I would have left the bales out of the hayshed.  That way I could have moved more of this year's hay bales into the hayshed today.  I don't want to move last year's hay bales until I could leave them out until I get all of this year's bales in the shed.

Good thing I didn't move last year's bales out of the hayshed today.  A strong thunderstorm came in suddenly this afternoon after 4:30 pm.  I was patching/strengthening fencing in the fruit tree area when I saw a savagely dark blue line of clouds come from the west / southwest.  Once the clouds were overhead they didn't look as dark blue.  So I thought we'd only get some minor rain.  Then it started to rain large drops here and there.  Steadily the rain picked up.  Then the wind.  Then pea sized hail.  And lots of hail for a long time.  The ground was white, and water began to pool as it rained much faster than the ground could absorb. With the strong wind I ran out and got my bicycle wind spinner which was leaning over and spinning wildly.  It took less than 30 seconds and about a half dozen steps total but I got majorly wet.

Hail piled up here and there.  While it was definitely cooler after the long storm, I was surprised that the piles of hail that came out of the rain gutters were still there at sundown, six hours later. And water is still standing in pools here and there.  I have seen intense rain storms when I lived in the Midwest, but this was one of the more intense storms I have seen here.  Officially we had .85 inch of rain from this storm.  Later when I went to work on my fence rebuild it looked an inch of water was in my bucket of nails and water.

Six hours later some of this hail still had not melted.

Here is a 1 minute 52 second video of the storm: https://youtu.be/WFuDW6ggFuY

Hayshed work

Yesterday and today were warm and dry.  So I figured it was time this afternoon to start putting hay bales into the hayshed now that they were getting dry.  First I had to take out the 20 hay bales left over from last year.  Several of those hay bales had slumped against the back wall and that slightly pushed out two of the poles holding the wall up.  I used the tractor to push the wall back straight.  Nothing goes smooth as the extra haybine sat right where I needed to drive the tractor to push the wall.  And the haybine jack has sunk slightly in the ground the past year.  So the haybine hitch was an inch too low.  I had to use the tractor's loader to lift the haybine and set the jack on a block.  Then I could hook it up to the tractor.

Back and forth checking the one pole until I had it where I needed and nailed it back in place to the roof.  Calvin and his son came over as I was finishing the nailing.  I had Calvin move the tractor and push the second pole for me.  That saved me from having to go up and down the ladder multiple times.

It was getting late by the time I started to move this year's hay bales into the shed.  Also it started to sprinkle rain after I moved the first bale.  I moved seven bales.  Enough for two levels.  That is all I want for the back row.  If the bales slump again three levels puts too much pressure on the back wall.

Then I moved last year's bales back into the hayshed.  I did so because the forecast is for rain tonight and tomorrow and I don't want those bales to get wet.

I dislike moving last year's bales too much.  The more I move them the greater chance that the twine will get hooked or slip or start to come off the bale.  I had three or so bales that happened to.  Once I had the bales back in the hayshed I spent time raking up the hay that fell or flaked off the bales.  I think I have a pickup load of loose hay.  For now I left the loose hay in the corner of the hayshed.

First pocket gophers of the year

When I cut my hayfield I was surprised not to see any dirt mounds from new pocket gophers.  By now the gophers are on the move after raising their young this Spring.  Now, a week after I cut the hayfield, I have found a half dozen dirt mounds along my southern fence / SW corner.  They are moving in from Wyatt's field.  I wonder if the hayfield grass and alfalfa was too tall and thick for the pocket gophers?  You wouldn't think so as the pocket gophers live underground.  I have caught and killed two of them so far.  Need to nip it in the bud before they get established and invite their neighbors in.


The heifers that ate the rhubarb plants seem to be doing fine.  Two of them, Little Red and Little Beulah (of course), went to the south pasture within 24 hours of being in the middle pasture.  They found a weakness in the middle pasture fence along the river and walked the narrow strip of land between the fence and river until they reached the south pasture.  I got them back into the middle pasture.  The next afternoon those two were again in the south pasture.  This time they brought Red, Sugar, #60, Speckles and Speckles' calf with them.  By later afternoon Red and #60 were bellowing for their calves as the cows' udders were full.  I let them back into the middle pasture.  The next afternoon Little Red and Little Beulah, Red, Sugar, and Red's calf were in the south pasture.  Again in the evening I let them back into the middle pasture.

Today Little Beulah, Red, Toby and a calf were in the south pasture.  After I laid some tree branches over the fence spots along the river where the cattle had pushed the wire down, I let the whole herd into the south pasture.  It was time to rotate pastures anyway.  Of course my spoiled divas went to the gate to the hayfield and bellowed and bellowed at me to let them into the hayfield.  The hay bales are still in the hayfield and everyday it rains.  I don't want to put wet hay bales into the hayshed.  And the grass is growing nicely in the hayfield.   I didn't let the cattle into the hayfield.  The pastures are full of tall lush grass.


Either Mama or Diamond broke a wire on a fence protecting one of the small apricot trees.  They pushed the fence up and ate over 90% of the tree's leaves.  *sigh*  They have plenty of grass but they are obsessed with eating tree leaves.

Dog chase

In between rain showers I rode my bicycle several times.  In the afternoon as I rode on the road I was chased by two small dogs, although it was mainly one dog as the other got a late start and couldn't quite catch me.  The one dog that ran along side and tried to get me was was a barky little dog full of teeth and fury.  Usually when one get beyond the dog's territorial zone they quit chasing.  This dog kept chasing me.  I think it followed me more than a half mile before giving up.  Then a half mile later a car raced by me and pulled into the next intersection.  Two young guys came out and came at me.

The one guy was mad because I "let" the dog chase me.  What?!  I "let" the dog chase me???!!!

He told me that when the dog chased me and tried to attack me I should have stopped and not let the dog chase me.  I was dumbstruck.  This guy should have been apologizing to me for his dog chasing me and trying to bite me.  I told him I wasn't stopping and getting bitten by his dogs.

"They are just little dogs and you are bigger than them!  Do you know how far we had to go to get our dogs back?!"

I understand differences of opinion and usually just let it go.  But I don't suffer fools gladly.  Both these guys were idiots.

I told them, little or not, these dogs were trying to bite me and I wasn't about to get bitten.

Then he told me then I should have turned around and headed back.

What?!!     What an idiot!

I told him that dogs are territorial.  Turning around would just further upset the dog and I wasn't getting bitten.  The best thing to do was leave their territory.  The dog would quit chasing and go back home.

He whined some more at having to retrieve his dogs.   I told him that he needed to control his dogs so they wouldn't chase me.  He then said, "Sometimes shit happens."

"And it my fault you can't control your dogs?!  No, it's not my fault.  You need to control your dogs!"

Both these guys were millennials.  The second guy looked as stupid as he sounded.  As they walked back to their car the second guy made some stupid remark about this being my fault and I was an idiot.

Really?!   I said something back.   Something along the lines of 'you need to control your dogs, dude.'  I was getting madder by the minute and trying to not really go off on them and just only reply to their idiot remarks and not 'up the ante' by telling them explicitly how stupid they were and using profanity.  I had to bite my tongue.

This is a first.  In all my years I have never had someone upset with me when their dog chased and tried to bite me.  Usually they are apologetic or else they tried to pretend it wasn't happening.  I've never been told that I shouldn't have 'let' their dogs chase me.

Well, these guys got a little piece of my mind.  I'm still upset at these two fools.  Then I remind myself it could have gone differently.  A few months ago a friend was jogging on the road a few miles away.  A guy in a pickup driving by tried to run him over or off the road.  Paul said he was mad and flipped the guy off as he drove off.  The guy came back and they exchanged words and then he tried to run Paul over again.  The third time he came around Paul said he took off across the ditch and through a famer's field.  Another guy witnessed this and followed the guy in the pickup.  Eventually they drove past my place and a third of a mile north, on the bend, the first pickup lost control and went off the road, through a neighbor's mailbox, into a number of small trees down in the ditch and field, and totaled his pickup.  Law enforcement carried him out of the ditch on a stretcher and to the hospital and apparently jailed once he recuperated and was released from the hospital.

There are some doozies out here!