Tree Stump 5

On May 30, Tammy's last night here before returning to Minnesota, she and I burnt another tree stump.

Compared to the other stumps we burned, this 'stump" could be considered to be more like a major root.   Since most of the other stumps we burned were two night affairs, this stump was a good size for Tammy's last night here.  One night and the stump would be gone.

I found this stump in the Spring when I was leveling a hill around the area where Tammy and I burned a major tree stump last September.  Considering how thorough we burned the major stump I didn't expect to find any more stumps or roots in the area.  Here is the area before I found this stump.

And this is what the stump looked like when we were done burning...

The fire...

Tammy, isn't the fire a little hot sitting so close?

Wood stove in June

Here it is mid-June.  A week before Summer officially begins.  Our high temperature today was 52 F.  20 degrees below our normal high.  It is cold, rainy, damp. Snow is falling at elevations above 5500 ft. Last night when I was working on my south pasture gate re-build it felt more like Fall, like the end of October more than the middle of June.  I was cold.

So.. today after I had my new car muffler installed, and bought a wheel to attach to my main corral's 16 ft long gate (Thanks for the idea Curt!), I came home and filled my wood stove with paper and wood and started a fire to warm up the house and me.

Did I mention this is mid-June and supposedly Summer?  And that we can probably could count on two hands the number of days this year the temperature has been above normal?  How we have been overall below normal temperature-wise since May 2010?  14 months is a long time for global warming to have passed us by!

The good news is that the weather forecast has a few days next week as having above normal temperatures.  Then it is back to cold and wet for the rest of the month.  Oh joy. 

June lilacs

My lilacs also are in full bloom.  They smell real nice.

June tulips

I still have some tulips blooming.  The red tulips have dropped their petals but the yellow and pink tulips are now in bloom.

As you can see my lawn needs mowing.  The horses are working away on eating the grass in the back yard.  Once the owners bring the other four horses this weekend, and the backyard is eaten down, I'll let the horses loose in the entire yard.  That is, once I protect my flowers.

Old pants

This afternoon I went uptown to pick up my new muffler.  As it rained all afternoon and I couldn't do anything outside, on the way home I stopped at the new Goodwill Thrift store.  I found three pairs of blue jeans in my size that are more than good enough for working around the ranch.  In fact they are better than a number of my jeans.  And they only cost me $14.98 total.

In honor of getting these newer jeans, I am retiring one of my really patched up pants.  They are part of what Tammy calls my "homeless person" look.  I could retire the other two pants from my "homeless person" collection but I need them for ranch projects that have a good chance of ripping the pants.

Here is the pair of pants that will be part of my next fire...

You know... on second thought, it would be shame to burn these pants. They don't have any open holes and don't seem to be too bad, do they?

Well... I'll probably summon the will and get rid of them.  ..Probably. 

Horses in back yard

This morning I let the horses out into my back yard.  Unlike cattle, horses are more leisurely in getting out to taller grass as they didn't rush the gate after I opened it.  They've been in and out of the yard and corral all day.  They are well behaved so I am letting them have access to the yard even during the night.

I did add protection to my two small nut trees in the back yard.  Here is how I protected my walnut tree.  The tree is growing in spite of my goof-ups.  The wire on the fence boards is because some years ago the cattle put their heads through the fence and ate part of the tree.  The wire on top of the fence is because last year the tree grew above the fence and the horses reached over the top of the fence and ate the top part of the tree.  So that is why I put together this mish-mash of wire to protect my tree while the horses are in the back yard.

Here are photos of "Cowboy". She comes up to me to sniff and check me out. She isn't quite ready for me to pet her yet as she moves away when I try to pet her neck.  She is still fascinated by the cattle when the cattle are in the closest part of the pasture to the corral.

Here are photos of "Fancy".  You see from the first photo that she is an old horse.  I believe she is 28 years old.

The second photo shows she has an itch.  Several times today she rubbed against my gate.  She rubbed against the gate last year.  That is why I have it fastened to the barn. Otherwise she rubs the gate so hard that she moves and bends it.

Tree Stump 4

Here are the photos from the third tree stump Tammy and I burned back on May 29.

This stump is an old stump near the river in the south pasture.  Years ago I had burned a stump near this one.  I found this stump last year when I was digging a small hill next to where the old stump was burned.  When leveling the hill I found this stump.

It was a large stump but I ended up chopping and pulling out a third of it in order to dig deeper around the main root.  Therefore Tammy and I were able to burn this stump in a single fire.

We got a late start starting this bonfire as we didn't start until almost 10:30 pm.  We quit around 2 am.

That is the river in the background.

While the fire was hot, the heat was around the stump.  I tossed a magazine on top of the stump and it sat there for quite a long time with fire all around the stump before the magazine caught fire and burned up.

Even though it was a nice night - though on the cool side - we did have a brief rain shower past over.  That is why Tammy has the blanket over her head - to keep dry.

I forgot to take a photo of the stump before the burning, but here is what was left of the stump the next day.

Two horses arrived

Cheryl brought two horses here today.  She brought "Fancy" who she had here last summer, and she brought "Cowboy" who is new to the ranch.

Fancy is the appaloosa horse and is around 28 years old.  She did well last year and gained weight.  She kept the weight on over the Winter but Cheryl said Fancy lost weight this Spring after Cheryl took her winter blanket off.  Hopefully she gains weight again on my pasture.

Fancy settled right in and began grazing.  Cowboy was more excited and paced around the corral.  She was especially unnerved by the cattle in the middle pasture.   Cheryl didn't think Cowboy ever saw cattle before.  Cowboy didn't know what to make of the cattle and she would pace back and forth along the corral fence watching the cattle.

This evening both horses had settled down.  The cattle were in the middle of the middle pasture and not so close to catch Cowboy's eye.

Tomorrow I will let them into the back yard to eat the tall grass there. To keep the horses in the back yard, from the garage to the patio, I put five corral gates that I haven't hung yet.  The photo shows the part of the yard where I mowed the grass when my uncles and aunts visited me.  Behind where I stood to take this photos is the tall grass.

Also today: while I thought I would get two tree stump holes filled in, I filled in the remaining three stump holes.  Yay! It helped that it didn't rain other than a minor brief shower around noon. The dirt to be put back into the holes wasn't as moisture laden as yesterday and a little easier to move.

Now to rest as I am tired.

Cattle pasture, day 3

I spent another afternoon working in the pasture.  It is a good thing I have large trees with good rain shadows as it rained several times while I was out there.  I got another tree stump hole filled in, a smallish sized hole.  Three down, three to go.  It is times like these that I wish I had a tractor with a loader.  I'd be done with the hole filling by now.

The cattle seemed to have settled into a routine.  They were not wandering around the pasture as much and took a number of siesta breaks while I was in the pasture.

They seem to favor the SE tree and the tree near my last tree stump burn.  I had cleanup work there as I had to haul off several wheelbarrow loads of cut tree stump roots.  I also broke into smaller pieces the boards I didn't use in the last tree stump burn.  I then stacked them under the tree.

The cattle were already around and near this tree when I showed up to haul off the tree roots.  Some cattle watched me and other cattle ignored me and chewed their cud.

Boss Lady checked out and chewed on another tree stump I had done some initial digging around.

 Then she came over to "help" me with the tree roots.

When I filled in the tree stump the other day I left a small dirt pile from the nearby tree stump I had done some initial digging around.  Today I discovered the dirt pile had been leveled by the cattle.  *sigh*  This will make it harder to completely fill in the hole after I burn the stump.

The dirt pile used to be on the right side.

Later when I was breaking and stacking the boards the three cattle laying under the next tree hung out for a while before getting up to the join the herd under the SE tree. I think I was making too much noise for them to sleep.  The following photo is the herd in a conga line coming over later to check out what I was doing.

Lastly, a photo of my two brockle-faced heifers.

Cattle pasture, day 2

The cattle are settling into a routine.  Like other cattle in the past, these cattle like to lay under the large tree in the SE corner of the pasture, and under the tree where I had a salt feeder until I moved it closer to the river.  Since the cattle like to siesta here I brought the south pasture's wooden salt feeder back to the prior salt feeder's spot and placed a couple blocks of salt in it.  As I placed the salt feeder the cattle all got up from laying under the trees and crowded under and behind the SE tree and watched me carefully.

The cattle sometimes are all together, other times they are in several groups.  Heckle and Jeckle, my two brockle-faced cattle,  tend to stay near each other and sometimes they are off by themselves away from the herd.  My two little heifers with a little of the Pinzgauer breed in them (my "skunk back" cattle) also tend to stay near each other in the herd.

By the afternoon the cattle got more used to me in the pasture.

When fixing the salt feeder I had to go back to the house for more nails.  Half the herd came running after me then stopped when I turned around.  When I continued walking they started running after me again.  This time I waited and eventually some walked passed me.

When it was dark after I completed fixing the salt feeder the cattle were laying under three trees.  As I walked between the trees none of the cattle got up - which was unusual - though I am sure they were all watching me as I walked by.

Fixed a salt feeder

Friday I rebuilt the middle pasture's salt feeder holder as the board on the bottom was giving away.

The wood was so old and dry I could only pull out a few of the nails.  The others I broke off.  The nails were so old they were a rusty shadow of their former self.  Of course with the wood so old and dry pounding new(er) nails into the wood was a challenge.  Even though I knew a pile of cow manure was nearby I was so distracted/annoyed by the problem with the nails I kneeled in the manure.

I started late so it was dark by the time I finished rebuilding the feeder.  The coyotes howled loudly across the river.

The feeder is better than ever and is quite solid.  I added "feet" to the feeder to make it more stable as the cattle sometimes tip it over.