Fat lip

Early evening when I gave the cattle their hay bales one of the cattle suddenly pushed me hard against/into the hay feeder.  I got up and turned around and saw it was Buddy.  He was impatient to get to the hay and had tried to push me out of the way.  I moved slightly and he came in beside me.  As I got the twine off and tried to spread the hay out to the end of the feeder Beulah came in on the other side of me.  Neither Buddy (not that I really tried) nor Beulah (who I tried) would move.  I was stuck in the gap between their necks.  I had to climb into the feeder to get away - muddy manure feet and all.

My face must have gone against the feeder when Buddy pushed me as I have a fat lip now.  I usually keep an eye out for Buddy but in the early darkness and crush of cattle I didn't see him come around behind me.

When I went out late evening to feed the cattle again I kept an eye on Buddy.  This time he came to the end of the feeder to reach the hay and I tossed part of the bale his way before he would come around to the side.

Homeless collection pants

It was a rainy day today so I spent most of the day inside the house.  I turned my attention to the two pants in my '"homeless collection".  Even with more time to patch them - or maybe cause I had more time to look at them - I decided to not patch either pair.  Both pair went into the wood stove and are ash now so I can't change my mind.

I almost didn't have any pants without patches (I know! Crazy isn't it?!) but last week when working on the fence I ripped the knee of a good pair of pants and now have a patch on the knee.

It seems as if I can not have a pair of pants without a patch.
It won't be long next year before I have a new pair of pants to restart my homeless collection. 

Inversion gone

The inversion that settled in for the past week is finally gone.  We saw the sun today. I had to wear sunglasses.  It was a beautiful day.

Two large hay bales for the cattle

Last week the cattle went through the first hay bale in three days.  Fast.  But I hope that was because there wasn't a lot of grass before the snow and then the cold snowy weather temporarily increased their food intake.

For the last four or so days I have been feeding the cattle small bales from the barn.  That way I get the cattle into the corral so I then can move large hay bales out in the pasture without the cattle getting in the way.  And I wanted to use up some hay from the barn so I have some room inside the barn.  That's why I fed the cattle for more than just one day.

But Tuesday it was time to go back to the large hay bales.  With the small bales I don't feed them just once or twice a day, but four times a day.  I spread the amount out over four times to closer mimic their eating habits when grazing grass, which is somewhat like: eat for several hours, chew cud for several hours, then eat for several hours.  I don't mind feeding the cattle four times a day... for a short while.  Weeks of that does get old.

When in the corral waiting for their next feeding the cattle also tried to get to the weedy hay.   They reached over the front barrier and somehow they moved the pallet in front and started to chew on a few bales.  So each day I would toss a bale of weedy hay on the ground in the loafing shed for them to lay on.  Even so they ate much of the hay and weeds - more than I expected.  The weedy bales smelled bad from the wormwood/sage weeds.

So Tuesday afternoon, while the cattle were occupied by a few fresh bales of hay, I drove the tractor through the corral to get to the large bales and then take them to the pasture.

I plugged the tractor's engine heater in a few hours before I started the tractor and the tractor started right up.  The last time I started the tractor the temperature was in the 30s and I had to turn the diesel engine over a few times before the tractor would start.

I forgot to mention that the last time I used the tractor's bale spear to move the large hay bale I was rushing to get it done before dark and I didn't put the bale spear on correctly as the spear wasn't hooked on top. I sheared the two cotter pines that secure the spear onto the tractor.  I was able to move the bale once I hooked the spear on correctly.  On Black Friday I bought two new cotter pins at Ace Hardware.  This time I made sure I put the bale spear on correctly.  Then I put in the two new cotter pins to hold the spear in place.

The following photos shows the cotter pins in the bale spear when the spear is not attached to the tractor.

Cotter pin

Note: the rod between the loader's arms is suppose to be slightly bent.  Supposedly this way the rod provides stability between the arms without being rigid.


I put two large hay bales out in the north pasture.  I then assembled the new bale feeder for the second bale.  These feeders allow 12 cattle to eat at one time.  With 14 cattle now no one has to wait their turn.  And since I have some cows that do not want to eat next to another cow, two feeders should cut down on fights.

I positioned the feeders in the same area of the pasture but some distance apart.  In the evening when I let the cattle out - including Rose from her part of the corral - to eat from the feeders most all of them followed their trail in the snow to the first feeder.  But shortly one cow noticed the second feeder and she ran over to the new feeder all excited.  Then another cow saw the second feeder and she ran over.  I quit watching, but knowing these cows they will run from one feeder to another so as to "not miss out on the good hay". They were over it by Wednesday morning once they realized both bales have the same type of hay.  In the corral with its two wooden feeders Buddy, Beulah and a few other cows - the larger ones - tend to stay at one feeder and not run between them.


Since I have extra wooden pallets I set the bales on them to keep the bales off the ground and dry.

The two hay bales

Rose

My racist black cows are still picking on the red cows.  Rose is at the bottom of the pecking order among the red cows.  It doesn't matter that I have two feeders; usually a black cow is at each feeder and one will chase Rose away from the feeder.  A black cow will even take a break from eating hay to chase Rose away.

I would chase the racist black cow away so Rose could go back to the feeder but when I went away a black cow would come back to chase Rose away.

I noticed, that while they couldn't get to all of the weedy bales under the loafing shed, the cattle's attempts caused several bales to tip over in the protected area.  I took one bale and laid it out in an open area under the loafing shed roof.  Rose then came over and ate the good grass among the weeds.  She was able to eat until the cattle ate all the hay in the two feeders and then came over and chased her off so they could eat the rest of the weedy hay.

So I opened the gate to south of the barn and let Rose in by herself to eat the hay in the south feeder.  She ate there the rest of the afternoon until I put more hay out for the cattle after 5 pm.  Then Rose wanted back in with the rest of the cattle.  How much hay she got then - I don't know.

Btw - now that I bought another hay feeder yesterday -guess what? - someone has two feeders for sale on Craigslist today.  Yup.  Same old story.

Ranch Black Friday

This Black Friday I got items for the ranch.  Murdoch's was having 15% off store wide on most items.  Did that include large ag items?   When Donna's daughter and son-in-law visited Murdoch's Friday morning they were told that the large hay feeders were included in the 15% offer.

In the afternoon, after getting some tools at Ace Hardware's Black Friday sale, I visited Murdoch's.  Mid afternoon and their parking lot was full, with lots of shoppers in the store.

Yes, the hay feeders were 15% off.  So I bought another bull level heavy duty hay feeder to match the one I already have.  I used that feeder all last Winter with no ill effects to the feeder from the cattle pushing on it.

The way it seems to work - when I want a feeder or second feeder none are for sale at auctions, in the sale papers, or on Craigslist.  When I have one and don't need another one they are found for sale.  Rather than waiting even longer for a second feeder I bought this one 15% off for $675.  Metal feeders are not cheap.

Snow

The weather forecast said the Winter storm and snow would arrive at 8 am this morning and that is what it did.  I woke up a few minutes after 8 am and saw snow when I looked out the window.  I went outside and opened the gate to the north pasture so the cattle could reach the hay able.

The cattle were in the middle pasture somewhat close to the north pasture fence and eyeing the hay.  They came when I opened the gate with Beulah and Mama in the lead.  They were so excited they ran to the right to the corral and not left to the hay in the feeder. I walked over to the feeder and called them and they turned and came running to the feeder.

Buddy was his cool calm self and was still grazing in the middle pasture.  He then walked to the fence to look at the herd at the hay.  I called for him and after turning around a few time came to me at the gate and then walked over to join the cattle at the feeder.

Several cattle low on the pecking order had to wait to eat from the hay bale as the other cattle pushed them away while they ate.

At the river I could see clumps of snow floating.

Daisy and I pretty much spent the day inside as it snowed until the afternoon and the wind blew strong and will continue to blow strong until 5 am tomorrow.

I did ride 5 miles on my bicycle in the afternoon.  Riding was slower than usual due to the snowy and icy road.

Cattle work, fence work

Monday was a decent day weather wise.  I got more fence work done but did not complete the fence.  The weather forecast insists we will have a Winter storm on Tuesday so this may be the last I do on fences for the year.  We'll see.

First, time was taken up by cattle work.  In the early afternoon I saw that Mama was in the south pasture by herself. Earlier half of the cattle herd were at the river to drink and Mama must have then crossed into the south pasture. She headed to the fence with the south neighbor and I was concerned she would do something bad.  She wanted to join the rest of the herd who were in the other south neighbor's field south of the hay field.  I tried to herd mama but she didn't want to leave the fence and was getting annoyed with me.  She was near the part of the fence I had rebuilt to have more strands of wire and was higher but I was concerned she would go west to the four strand part of the fence which was lower, and then jump the fence.

Then I got the idea of also opening the gate to the hay field in addition to the gate I had opened to the middle pasture.  Mama watched me, and once I opened the gate and called for her, she came over and trotted through the gate into the hay field where she could go and join the herd (who by now saw me with Mama and were coming back into the hay field from the neighbor's pasture).

Since snow is in the forecast, and the cattle have pretty much eaten most of the grass, using the tractor I carried a large hay bale out to the metal feeder in the north pasture.  I'll open the gate tomorrow morning and let the cattle in eat the bale.  Even though the cattle were at the southern neighbor's pasture, they saw me working around the hay feeder and came over to watch me.

The rest of the afternoon I worked on my corral fence.  The railroad post I put in the previous evening was good so I nailed boards to it.  I got two more railroad ties and put them into the ground at the other end of the opening and then nailed boards to them.

Of the 60 foot opening I now have fenced about half of it and have 30 feet left.  Too bad Tuesday won't be like Monday; I would have gotten the rest of the railroad ties into the ground for posts.

'New' 14 ft gate and the back side of the new fence.

'New' 14 ft gate and the front side of the new fence.

Here are the other two sections I built on Monday.  The left darker section was built last year.   This is, as Tammy had called it before she left, my 'redneck ghetto fence'.  The boards were salvaged from a building business's burn pile.

Monday night's sunset as I worked on the fence.

Gate change, etc.

Tuesday morning a Winter storm is coming.  I have my corral fence to complete.  What do I do?  Instead of digging more holes for railroad ties I decided this morning to switch gates in the corral fence I am building.  While the current 12 ft gate is wide enough to drive my tractor through when carrying a large hay bale into that part of the corral, I find I really have to watch out I don't hit my fence.  I have a 14 ft gate and decided now - before I build the fence - is the time to switch gates.

12 ft gate  (bent where Buddy pushed against it in an effort to sniff a couple of cows in pre-heat on the other side).

The problem with the 14 ft gate was that most of the rails on one end of the gate were not attached to the frame.  It is an old gate I bought as part of a group.  My neighbor Curtis has a welder and he welded the rails back to the frame.  He even welded a chain to the frame that I can use to run through an eye bolt to hold the gate shut.

Naturally the gate's hinges would be in a different place so swapping the gates wasn't as simple as 'swapping the gates'.  But eventually I got it done.

Because the 14 ft gate is longer that meant I had to move by two feet the existing railroad tie on the other end.  I got that done before dark.

The previous day I had dug a hole for the railroad tie for the next section.  I had to fill in that hole and dig a new hole two feet over.  I got that done before dark.

I put a railroad tie in the hole and filled the dirt back in.  It was dark when I finished.  Tomorrow I will check to see if I did it right.


I also did a side job earlier.  I noticed I hadn't placed a 'resting post' for a previous gate I worked on this Fall.  So I found a short broken railroad tie piece and dug it into the ground.  This is for a 16 ft gate.  The gate is long and heavy, and over time gravity would otherwise pull one end down closer to the ground.

This evening's sunset.  (I couldn't decide which photo I liked better so I included both).

Feeder, straw, fence

Saturday's projects...

I fixed the wooden feeder.  I still don't know why the boards didn't fit tight this year.  I cut a new board to fill the gap.

I put up barriers to the straw so that when the cattle are in the corral this Winter they won't make a mess of the straw before I lay it out for them.

I also fixed the barrier to the weedy hay.

I started to finish the fence that will split the corral.  This is the last part of the corral fence to do.  I started on it last year but only got two gates and one section done.

The nights now get below freezing and the ground freezes.  The afternoons get above freezing and the ground thaws allowing for a few hours of digging.  Next week the weather forecast calls for below freezing for a large number of days and that most likely will be the end of fence work for the year.  So I have today, Sunday and Monday to finish the corral fence.

Today I didn't get as far as I would have liked.  I had to spend a few hours finding the boards I will use for the fence. The boards I want to use are the salvage boards I got over the year from the neighboring business' burn pile.  So my piles of boards are a miss-mash of different boards and different lengths of boards gotten various times.

Semi-sorted boards by type and length

Once I found four similar sized boards of the length I wanted for one section of fence I had to trim the lengths to be the same.

Then I spent time taking down the old barb wire and snow fence.  I did get a hole dug for the first railroad tie by the time it got dark.  I covered the hole so it wouldn't freeze tonight.  Then I can work on putting the railroad tie in the ground tomorrow without having to wait until the ground thaws.

Corral light and garage roof

A busy day.

I fixed the garage roof.  To patch the tear I used an eight foot section left over from when I roofed the garage many years ago.   If I had the time and inclination right now I would take off and replace the fascia board as the top of it is two levels making it tricky to nail the roofing to it. Why two levels?  I'm not sure.  Perhaps the boards are really meant to be used next to one another and the levels would then overlap.   Also parts of the top of the fascia is soft with rot.

Over the past three days I added a light to the barn in the corral.  Dan and Donna both told me I needed a light for the corral, especially if I have to help a cow calve in the dark.  Two times the cattle got out into the yard in the dark, once with Tammy and once with Donna.  Both times it was a challenge to count the black cattle in the dark when making sure we got them all back into the corral.

Installing the light should have been easy as it wasn't a complicated wiring job. Of course, I had problems, the last being the light wouldn't work.   Thursday morning Curtis helped me with his electrical testing equipment.  Initially the tester indicated current in all the wiring to the light.  Then did the light bulb get damaged since I tested it prior to installing the light?

I wondered about the light switch as it had three connecting screws.  Not knowing I assumed the third screw was a ground connection.  It wasn't.  It was a three-pole switch, useful when one wants two switches to control a single light.  I replaced the switch with a two-pole switch with two screws.  Also one of my hot wire twisting connections wasn't that good.  Initially it was fine but after moving the wire around when checking stuff the connection got loose - further complicating and confusing our debugging of why the light wouldn't work.

But it all works now.  The light lights up the corral very well, much more than the following photos indicate.

The upper two boxes and wire are what I added.

Mounted up high.

I also rode 40 miles on my bicycle on Thursday.

After the storm

I didn't walk out in the pasture to see if any trees where blown over, but from the house I don't see anything fallen.  The cattle all seem to have weathered the storm well.

The high winds of Tuesday night / Wednesday morning tore part of the asphalt roofing off the garage.  The tool shed roof is fine but the garage has a section about 2 ft by 7 ft long torn from the bottom.  I found a leftover section of the rolled roofing from back when I re-roofed that half of the garage roof ten or more years ago.  The temperature Wednesday was barely 40 degrees so the roll is stiff.  I brought the roll into the house to warm up and hopefully Thursday I can fix the roof.   *sigh*  Always fixing something or another around here this year.

The above photo is from my new camera.  My previous camera's screen in the back of the camera cracked and no longer showed images.  The past few weeks I have been taking photos blindly as I had no way of seeing what I was taking.

I decided that with my track record with cameras I wasn't going to spend several hundred dollars on a new camera.  The cameras don't seem to last more than a few years.  So I have been looking for a cheap simple camera.  I was waiting for Black Friday prices when I was at Walmart getting something else when I stopped to also look at their cameras.  They had a half dozen display models of cameras they were closing out.  While I have tried to avoid getting another Canon camera, the Canon Elph 150 IS camera was the best of the closeout bunch.  $79, so I bought it.  It doesn't have the sweeping panoramic mode which I miss.  I haven't tested it in a low light situation which is another feature I like, so we'll see.  It is better than what I had.

Storming

The wind has been strong most of the day but now it is really howling and driving rain hard against the house windows.  Parts of the Valley has lost power due to fallen trees.  I'm fine.

Daisy was outside earlier this evening running around like a wild cat in the wind.  She came in the house briefly and was running around the house before going back outside to run around in the wind some more.  She came back inside once it began to rain.  She was laying near the wood stove until the wind really picked up.  She sat and looked out the window a bit before coming to lay by me and against the computer keyboard.

I hope the cattle found a good place in the trees to get somewhat out of the wind and rain.

In the morning I'll see how things are and if any damage.

Diesel and oil change

This morning I drove my tractor a few miles over to the gas station to fill it up with diesel.   I chose Sunday morning as the traffic was light.  Now my tractor is ready for Winter.

Not your typical sight at a gas station

This gas station sells off-road red dyed diesel which is cheaper as it isn't taxed and is appropriate for my tractor.  The diesel cost $1.88 a gallon.

The other thing of note I did today was change the oil in my pickup.  Normally that isn't such a big deal, but I haven't personally changed oil in any of my vehicles since I graduated from college, got a job and moved into an apartment.  I got into the habit of taking my vehicle in to have the oil changed and that stuck with me over all these years, especially as my last car was so low to the ground.  It has been over 30 years since I changed the oil myself.  It went well other than the oil filter is under the engine near the oil drain plug.  Removing the filter was a little messy for me.

Small chores in warm weather

The weather has been much nicer than predicted.  Over the past few days I worked on small projects put on hold due to my roof project.

1. Finished fixing the pole shed wall.


2. Sorted through, organized and put some of the stuff back that formerly was along the inside of the pole shed wall.  Stuff dad had there and 15 years of me adding stuff. What didn't fit organizationally I hauled over to the hay shed where it fit.  Of course that mean some minor organizing in the hay shed.  It doesn't sound like much but it was time consuming.


3. I worked on putting in the boards that make up the floor into the large wooden feeder.  I don't know why but every year the boards fit differently.  This year, on one side, part of a board barely wouldn't fit while on the other half of the feeder there is a large enough opening I will have to cut a new board to close it.  Moving the pieces around wouldn't fix the problem. I went to trim the one board with the jigsaw.  The screw and blade came off.  Even using the magnet and a flashlight I couldn't find the pieces after 10+ minutes of searching.  Kelly returned from hunting and then helped me.  Within a minute of looking, and using just a small flashlight, he found both pieces in the grass.  Amazing.


4. I patched the fence rail between the hay field and the backyard.  The cattle pushed against it and broke it.  Rather than finding (digging out) another rail I nailed several boards to the broken rail to patch and fix it.


5. I carried the pieces of irrigation pipe still in the north pasture and backyard out to the place along the fence in the middle pasture where I will store them over Winter.  I want these pieces at least out of the way before snow covers and hides them.  Later, after sunset, I heard the cattle rattling the pipes. 


6. Using my tractor I helped my neighbor Curtis move three large pieces of machinery into his building. He got another hot tub to repair and resell and I helped unload it from his trailer and then set flat on the ground.


7. Then Curtis helped me put the new door on my tractor.  Two people made the task go easier and quicker.


8. With my tractor I lifted and moved the metal hay feeder from the corral out to the north pasture.  The weather forecast  may mean I will be feeding hay to the cattle sooner than later.  The feeder is three sections bolted together.  I tightened up the bolts and nuts.  One bolt lost its nut.  The bolt's threads also had gotten damaged.  A new nut wouldn't hold tight, even after re-cutting the threads.  Fortunately I found a new bolt.  With the feeder half way across the pasture that meant lots of walking back and forth to the tool shed.  Daisy walked with me once.  The second time she just sat there and looked at me with an expression of, "Really?  You're walking back out there when we were just there?  Fine.  You go but I am staying here."  She sat in the corral and kept an eye on me until I returned.


9. Plus a few other small tasks.

Roof is done... finally

The forecast called for rain and snow Wednesday.  Thankfully the forecast was wrong.  Well, at least until after dark when a snow band passed through and dropped a quick dusting of snow.  The afternoon was dry and even had sun for a while.  As a result I was able to work on my tool shed roof.

I finishing shingling the roof.  I was able to complete the work using only one bundle of shingles and not two.  I actually needed two shingles from the second bundle to complete the roof's ridge cover but I decided to use a short piece of the old roofing that was in good condition.

The old roofing used as part of the ridge covering.

I would have finished the pole shed wall but I ended up helping my neighbor Curtis.  He bought another fix-up car and needed me to steer the car while he towed it home.  I have one more board to cut before nailing a few boards and then I'll be done.

I used the tabs trimmed off earlier to cover the wider gap along the roof's hump.

Completed ridge.

Completed roof

Dragging it out

It rained all of Monday so...no work on the tool shed roof.

Tuesday the sun shone briefly in the morning before it clouded back over.  But no rain.  Even though I had to wait for the heavy frost to melt, and took time to roll up the rest of the garden hoses once it warmed above freezing, I thought I would be able to finish the tool shed roof.  Silly me, when will I ever learn?

All I had to finish was the small strip of roof on the north side.   But it wasn't that easy.  The strip was not the same width across the roof due to the roof's shape.  The east side was wider than the west side.  I was running low on shingles and didn't want to lay more rows than I had to.

Two rows of shingles would cover the roof - except! for about six feet on the east side.  The east six feet was about an inch too wide for two rows of shingles. The inch that was troublesome was in the gap between the tabs.

My solution.  I cut some of the best part of the old rolled roofing and laid it in the strip. Unless one looked in the gap between the tabs, you'd never know the one row didn't completely cover the new rolled roofing.

The hump in the middle of the roof looks to be a problem but I'll come up with a solution when I install the ridge shingles.

When I got to installing the ridge shingles I only had four three tab shingles left and it was getting late. I cut the three tab shingles into 12 shingles to lay over the ridge.  I quickly nailed them down so I could measure the area they covered so I could then calculate how many more shingles I needed to buy.  It looks like I needed just a few more shingles than is in one bundle.  It figures.

I went to Home Depot to get two more bundles of shingles.  By the time I got home it was too dark to finish shingling.

Later when I was on my nightly bicycle ride I realized I installed the ridge shingles wrong.

 

I had installed the three tab shingles from the left to right.  So when I was in a hurry to install the ridge shingles before dark I also nailed them left to right.  However, due to the prevailing wind direction, I need to install the ridge shingles from right to left.  So.... I'll have to remove the ridge shingles and re-nail them correctly.

Rain is forecast again for tomorrow.   Anything to drag this out.

Major roof progress

It was suppose to rain on Sunday but the rain held off until after dark.  So I was able to work much of the day on my tool shed roof.

Saturday when I wasn't baling straw I worked on the tool shed roof.   I was able to installed the starter course of shingles and then install four rows of shingles.

Sunday I got an early start to beat the predicted rain.  I was able to shingle the entire south side of the roof.  I also shingled part of the north roof where the rolled roofing didn't cover, the 1 foot 9 inch section off to the side of the roof. 

All I have left is to shingle the foot or so above the rolled roofing.  The forecast is not looking good as the weather is supposed to be mostly rain or snow this upcoming week.

This shows the roof 'bump' where several studs sit higher than the other studs.

Completed south side