Irrigations Pipes. South pasture harrowed.

Myron brought over 15 irrigation pipes this morning.  These are the pipes I wanted so I can have a fourth line. I run two lines. A third line is so I don't have to turn off the irrigation pump when moving one line.   Once in a while a fourth line would be helpful when the third line can't be used, or it overused.

I placed the newer pipes on my stack of other pipes.

The rest of the afternoon I harrowed the south pasture and got it finished.  It took me yesterday and today to harrow this pasture.  Having trees to go around slows one down.  And there were some fallen tree branches from the snow last week to clean up.

A little Spring snow and down goes a large and long tree branch.  Here is an example of one.

The branch was one of three that came off the second tree from the right side.  One can see how this tree looks a little sparse in the mid-section.

Here is a nearby tree where the branches fell off a few years ago when we had a heavy wet snow in November.   No branches off this tree this year.

For whatever reason this tree is slowly dying from the top down.

Here are fallen branches from a tree in the middle pasture.  This tree had lost lots of branches a few years ago during that November snowfall.   I trimmed the side branches from the fallen branches.  Tomorrow I will clean up the remaining debris, then start harrowing this pasture.

These are not small branches that broke off from the snow.  It is surprising such large branches break off from a small amount of snow.

Big and long branches.

Here are all the branches from this tree I will keep for firewood next Winter.

Some tree branches cut up

A month ago I chain sawed some tree branches in a pile I have of them.  That was after I had finished cutting up the fallen tree in the north pasture.   This was back when I was suffered from the piriformis syndrome, and standing and working was better than sitting.

This was my last, and oldest, pile of branches out in the pastures. My goal this year is to get rid of the pile, or at least eliminate part of it to make it smaller for now.  I cut up the branches I had added to the pile last year.  I cut branches for a few hours until it got dark.  I need to sharpen the chainsaw's chain before cutting more branches, which I haven't gotten around to yet.

The next day I did stack the cut branches.   The stack held until today.  I started harrowing this pasture today, and when I went around this tree I got too close and snagged the corner of the cut branches pile.  The pile is now only partly there.   Another day when I cut more branches I will restack these cut branches.

Ditches now burnt

A light wind this afternoon, and from a good direction.  So I burnt the rest of the ditch.

The previous burn went well.  I decided to burn the rest of the ditch, that is, the part I wasn't sure I would spend time burning.  The property owner drove by as I was burning, and he was in favor in burning the ditch along his property.  Some years ago when I last burned the ditch across the road, I left most of the ditch along his property alone. He then lawn mowed the ditch.  Being a ditch, and decades of no activity to maintain the ditch, that must have been a hassle and hard.  So he was happy I would burn the ditch this year for him. 

By the way, what didn't really get burnt in the ditch are snowberry plants.  They are so hardy that about the only way to get rid of them is to poison them.  Burning, mowing, chopping, rototilling, etc. doesn't prevent them from growing back.  I tried for the snowberry plants spreading on my property and ditches, and only poison stopped them.  And the herbicide has to be stronger than just 2,4-D.

Now on to other projects.

Move, burning, hayfield harrowed

This afternoon I used my pickup to haul furniture for Edward.   He got approval to move into an assisted living apartment.  He has Gaucher disease even though he is in his mid-40s.  Donna and Mabel have been looking out for him and taking him to see a doctor or to a hospital at times.  They gave him a sofa and a recliner and desk stand for his new apartment.  I had a pickup full of furniture to move.

The wind was still blowing in the 'wrong' direction today.  Not as strong.  But off-and-on wind speed.  I decided to burn a small section of the ditch across the road. The northern end of what I plan to burn.  It was against an area of rocks with little to no vegetation.  When I had mowed my 'strip' I had to go from the road to where I wanted to make the 'strip' in the field. I also wanted to mow around this telephone pole. Years ago when I last burned this ditch the telephone pole had caught on fire.  I don't want that to happen again.  So I had a path out to my 'strip' as I couldn't mow close to the rocks.

In the photo you can see the area is not big.

I didn't burn the rest of the ditch today as I wanted to finish harrowing the hayfield today.  Tomorrow the wind is predicted to be light and from a 'good' direction.

My harrowed hayfield

The harrow is holding up so far.

With the hayfield now harrowed, that opens up the window for me to fertilize the hayfield this year.

New used stool

I got a stool.  Over the weekend as I rode my bicycle I found this stool thrown away.  I don't have one like it and it seemed perfect for me. It is a solid and decent stool and a shame to throw away.  It fit on my bicycle, and after 8 miles, the stool was home.

More ditch burning, pocket gopher, fox

A nice day with light wind.  I put out a new large hay bale this morning.  No new calf.  Before starting to harrow the hayfield this afternoon I decided to burn some of the ditch across the road.   For much of the ditch the nearby field grass was high and thick as nothing is done with that field as a developer owns it.  I mowed a strip on part of the field.  I don't want to take a chance a fire could get away across the field.  I also went down the ditch along the pasture where the horses are.  I'm not worried about that field as the horses ate the grass and it is low and green.  I wanted to mow a buffer near the telephone pole and only burn that ditch to there.

Of course my lawn mower quit just before I reached the pole.  I couldn't restart the mower.  I pushed it home and then thought of checking the spark plug.  That was the problem.  I went back to finish mowing the buffer.

Then when I went to start burning it started to lightly rain.  So I walked back home.  Minutes later it quit raining.  *argh*   Ok, let me try this again.  I burnt the ditch along the horse pasture.

Looking to the south towards the telephone pole.  Then looking north from the pole.

This is what the ditch looks like south of the telephone pole.   No plans to burn this ditch.  We'll see if I change my mind another day.

Looking north at what I burned today and what I burned a week ago.

By the time I was done burning this section of the ditch, the wind picked up slightly.  And the wind blew from the worst direction.  The strip I had mowed for a ditch burn next to the grassy field would have been fine for a buffer.  And I could have done the burn, but I didn't want to risk the fire jumping the strip.  I'll do the burn another day.  We'll see when as the forecast has some rain and wind for the next few days.

Another reason to skip more ditch burning was I was a little tired.  I didn't think I was.  I went in the house to get a bite to eat and sit down.  A short time later I laid down as Rascal wanted to be with me.  And I was quickly out.  For an hour and a half.  I guess I was tired.

A week ago I noticed three fresh pocket gopher dirt mounds in the hayfield.  Already they are active?  Okay.   I set out a trap.  Of the three dirt mounds I only found a tunnel under one mound.  Perhaps the pocket gopher dug the first two spots then decided to go to the third spot and make a new tunnel.

Last week was rainy so I didn't check the trap for two or three days.  When I did, I found the trap on top of the ground and upside down.  When that happened in the past that meant another animal pulled the trap out of the hole so it could reach the pocket gopher in the trap.  That is why I tie the trap to a pole I put in the ground as I lost traps in the past.   I reset the trap in the hole.  After a few more days, no pocket gopher.  So I think some animal got the pocket gopher.

After my nap I decided to do a little more work.  I raked the manure away from the north hayfield fence.  For some reason last year when the cattle were in the hayfield they left lots of manure right at the fence.  I can only pull the harrow so close to the fence, so raking was necessary.   Then I pulled the harrow around the hayfield twice.   The first time around, as I was along the roadside, an animal came through the barb wire fence into the hayfield.  Close to the area where I had the pocket gopher trap last week.  It checked the ground in that area as it walked.  Yup.  I think this was the animal that pulled the trap out of the hole to get to the pocket gopher.    The animal looked like a fox.   There are coyotes around.  If this was a coyote, it was a smaller coyote.  When I saw the animal it was starting to get dark.  And of course it wasn't close to the tractor.  Perhaps a fox.  I had seen one at the ranch two decades ago.

Cleaned up some broken branches

No new calf today.   Calf 11 is doing well.  He was running around with some other calves this afternoon.

I cleaned up some broken branches from the recent snow.  Slow going as I'm not making it a priority.

Today I cleaned up this broken tree from the recent snow.   This is the only tree I have like this.  I had to look it up.  It is a Blueberry Juniper.   I never noticed the berries on the tree as they were up high.  The tree had grown into three trunks.  A few years ago I cut one trunk as that trunk was closer to another tree and I could barely drive between the two trees pulling my harrow.   Just my luck, remove one trunk and a few years later something happens and ruins the remaining trunk or two.   I don't know why some people let split tree trunks remain when the tree is young and the split first occurs.  For Pete's sake, remove one of the trunks.

Look to see the berries on the tree.

I still have more broken branches to clean up.  I'll get around to it.  I need to put out another large hay bale for the cattle tomorrow.

2025: Calf 12 - No Tail's

Another calf born early this morning.  The mother hadn't expelled her afterbirth yet. So it wasn't too much earlier that the calf was born; even though the calf was clean and dry when I first saw him.  Another bull calf.  This year that makes 6 boys and 6 girls.  The calf's size was back to the usual birth size of the calves.  The mother is a cow with no tail.

Michael and Kari came over early afternoon to help me band and ear tag the new calf. It went quick.  Unlike the previous calf this calf wanted to stand up and be let go once he was banded and ear tagged.  The second photo is the calf calling out to be let go.

Then we went looking for the previous calf, calf 11.  Today he was among most of the cattle in the loading corral.  A few other calves were interested in Michael.  They want to get to Michael to check him out but they couldn't get enough courage to get really close.

We found calf 11 in the middle of the others.  Then, where is his mother?  We looked and looked.  Then I saw her laying out in the extended corral.   After calf 11 peed he walked around looking for his mother.   Michael and I guided calf 11 out of the loading corral, across the corral, and then out to the extended corral.  It got muddier.  I took over as I had my mud boots on.   It still was a struggle for me as my one mud boot kept wanting to come off and stay in the mud.  I got the calf guided to remnants of the tractor tire tracks and he got to his mother and then started drinking.  He needs to drink more as he is a little narrow in his back half. 

One calf left to be born.  The mother is looking closer.  Any day now.  The sooner the better.

Hay bale. Mud. Fence fix.

Sunny dry day.  Good.  Give us time to dry things out.  The recent snow broke off some evergreen branches.  Late day I spent time cleaning some of the branches up out of the north pasture. I have more branches to clean up in the middle pasture tomorrow.

I put out a hay bale this morning.  Parts of the corral and extended corral are still muddy but I made it. When walking I was careful where I walked so as to not get stuck in the mud again.  I drove the tractor a little extra near the hay feeder.  That gave me some easy places to walk when I unwrapped the netwrap from the hay bale while the tractor held up the hay bale.

Somewhere on the lower left side of the photo is my lost sock.

No new calves today.  When looking at the calves I found this one in the loading corral's runway.  I herded her out then repaired the fence panel in the runway the cattle had pushed off one railroad tie.  I added some more long nails.  Maybe that will stop the cattle from moving the fence panel.

The last calf born is doing ok.  Most of the other calves hang around each other, or are next to their mother.  This last calf usually is elsewhere laying and relaxing.  And he seems ok with being by himself.

Snow once more, plus calf photos

It snowed again this morning.  Once again.  By late afternoon it melted again except for the shady areas.  High temperature was 45 degrees with a strong wind. So it felt cold all day.  More snow fell than what is shown in the photo.

The cattle figured out how to unchain and open the red gate so they could get into the loading corral's runway.  This was a first.

This little heifer was out in the extended corral.  I herded her back into the corral as I planned on putting out a large hay bale later into the extended corral.

I changed my mind on putting out a large hay bale.  Instead I put some hay from the replacement heifer's hay bale into the two wooden feeders.   That was because of the mud.  All this recent moisture these past two days made much of the corral mud.  When I walked out to check on the feeder in the extended corral the mud pulled off one of my mud boots.  I tried to get my foot back into the boot without getting muddy but I failed.  I fell into the mud.   Then it was very hard to pull the boot out of the mud.  Finally I did.

A small bowl I carried for earlier washing mud off the cattle's salt block went into the mud also.  It was hard to find the bowl in the mud, then hard to pull it out of the mud.  My foot was completely covered in mud so I didn't put it back into the boot.  I walked the shortest way out of the mud to a grassy area.  The mud pulled my sock off my foot.  I couldn't find the sock.   It's gone.

I walked back to the house via the hayfeld.  Snow on the ground and still falling, my foot was wet and cold.  Outside the house I took my coat off because the arms were covered in mud.  I took my jeans off because they were covered in mud.  I took the muddy boots off.  It took me hours to find the other sock.  I washed the mud off everything outside the house using a garden hose.  The mud was on so thick the water only got some of the mud off.  With water from the hose against the things I still had to use my hands rub off the rest of the mud. It was not easy as the mud didn't want to come off anything, including my feet.

I decided to wait until tomorrow to put out a new large hay bale.  The way this day went my tractor might have gotten stuck in the mud. Tomorrow is predicted to be sunny and a little warm, but still below average temperature-wise.  

Snow again

Mother Nature pulled an April Fool's joke on us.  I woke up to lots of snow.  What happened to the rain that was forecasted?

On one side of the house the snow was on the tulips rising up.   The other side with a roof overhang was snow free.

 

The snow stayed around until evening. We only got up to 38 degrees today.  Slow snow melt. Even though it was cloudy all day, by evening the only snow left was in the shady areas.

In the morning it was time to put out another large hay bale.

The corral had been drying up.  With a little under an inch of moisture the past 24 hours the corral went back to mud.  If I knew this was going to happen I would have waited longer before bringing the cows into the corral and extended corral.   Fortunately no new calves today.  Too muddy and wet.

This evening I opened the gate to the loading corral.  There is grass in there and will give the cattle a drier place to lay tonight.   Of course, even though the initial cows that entered the loading corral had eaten the hay, they immediately began to eat the green grass.   I'll see how things are tomorrow.  I don't want the cows to pull up all the grass and then turn this into a muddy area.

Ditch burning, calf photos and tree

Rain didn't come until 6 pm. I was able to burn the rest of my ditch this afternoon as the wind was light.

I checked on the calves today.  No new calves.   I noticed the cattle has pushed in one of the loading corral runway fence panels.

I walked around the corral looking for all the calves.  I was one calf short.  Then I looked in the loading corral runway and found the missing calf.

I saw these two calves laying together.  I went and got my camera as the calf on the left was laying right against the calf on the right.  His head was on the other calf's shoulder and under her head and neck.  Pretty view.  Initially I thought it was the last calf who was born as I couldn't see the ear tag.  Of course when I came back the left calf woke up and raised his head up.  No it wasn't the last born calf.

The last born calf is fine.  Every time I checked on him he was in a different part of the corral.  So he is moving around.  Sometimes laying next to his mother.  Other times elsewhere.

This is a female box elder tree.   The bark was peeling away at this location. I removed the bark.  Under the bark and against the tree were box elder bugs.  This is where they hide!   And on female box elder trees, not male box elder trees.