Bicycle light crash

The evenings are now getting dark when I go for my end of day bicycle ride.  Today I fixed my bicycle light.  The batteries were old and corroded and even the plastic shell holding the lighting unit had corrosion sitting in it.  So I replaced the light with another one I had.

Tonight when cars were nearby I turned my bicycle light on.   I was over two miles from home when I encountered several new small potholes.  Even with the light on I didn't see them and I went flying over my bicycle handlebars and slightly to the right side.  So much for having a light - I see better without one.

I got entangled in my bicycle and hit the ground hard.  I lost my hat and bicycle computer.  I had to use my bicycle light to find them in the ditch.  My nice florescent yellow coat now has black on it from sliding on the pavement.

As you can see I bumped my head.  I didn't lose consciousness.  I also got some road rash on my gloved hand and mainly my right knee. My head bump is sore but my scraped knee is the most annoying.

I rode home with no problem.

Northern jailbreak

My neighbor Calvin called me around 9 am this morning.  He saw four of my cattle in his pasture.  I went out there.  He had six of my cattle: Buddy, Beulah, Mama, Number 7, Panda and one other cow.

They broke two fence wires and got through the fence.  I fixed the wires.

The rest of the herd was along my fence in another location and wanted into Calvin's field to join the others.  They hadn't seen how these six got through the fence.  Since I cut Calvin's field this Summer for hay, he doesn't have a lot of grass for the cattle to eat.  But there is enough to last them a little while.

Since Buddy and Number 7 were in Calvin's field, one of these two were mostly likely the ones who broke the fence.  Even though I patched the fence, the barb wires here are old.  If Buddy wanted to he could break them again.  Once Buddy knows of a way though a fence he doesn't forget.  With rain forecast every day this week I didn't want to go out daily to herd cattle from Calvin's field, especially in the rain.

Calvin didn't mind if the cattle were in his field now so I got my corral panels and set up a 'fence' to keep the cattle away from Calvin's 'stuff' that he stores in his field.  I used his old trailer as part of the fence.

Of course by the time I finished the corral fence the cattle all had come over to the 'stuff'.  Since it looked like I was trying to keep them from something, they wanted to be over there even more.

I left an opening in the corral 'fence' to herd the cattle through.  They didn't want to go.  We went around in circles as they had stuff to use to keep from walking in a straight line.  I got Curtis to help me keep the cattle from going in circles and in no time we got the cattle through the corral 'fence'.

Later I checked Calvin's fence for missing staples and wire clips for this fence's wood and metal posts.  Then I opened the gate between Calvin's and my fields.  By now all the cattle were more interesting in taking their siesta time.  Later in the afternoon some grazed in my field and some in Calvin's.

Laying in Calvin's field by the gate.

Why did the cattle want in Calvin's field?  The grass is greener in my field.

So this took up my morning.  After eating breakfast and replacing a worn bicycle tire and fixing a flat, I got back to discing my hay field.  I'm still working on the second pass.  I never seem to get a full day to work on discing.

Election judge

I was a chief election judge again this election.  Ted, Terry and Joan came back as election judges.  William did not.  I had left a phone message for him, then when I tried again to call him his phone had been disconnected.  I sent him an email.  No reply.  That is, no reply until 4 pm the day before the election when he called to apologize for not contacting me earlier.  He wanted to work at the election.  I called him back, left a voice mail me on his answering machine but he never returned my call.  So I convinced Donna to be an election judge.

We were busy but not overwhelmed.  There was a long line outside when we opened the polls at 7 am but after we worked through that line I don't think we had a line over more than a half dozen people at a time.  Still, the stream of voters were mostly steady and that helped the day pass quicker over the 15 hours we were at the voting site.

No machine or other problems this time and the election went smooth.

My only problem was the following.  Our polling place is in a church.  Each year - from prior to me working there to the present election - the judges took down all religious material for the election than replaced everything after the election.  Apparently they wanted no controversy about the separation of church and state.  No one ever complained one way or another, and neither did the pastors during my time.  The church doesn't have a pastor right now and apparently the church members complained about the last election and got the election dept to agree to not take the religious materials down for this election.  But no one told me.  So I got chewed out by a church official on election day when she saw we had taken down the religious posters and moved the table with all the religious material into a side hallway.  An election dept official apologized to me for forgetting to tell me about the new policy.

First pass done with disc

Today I finished the first pass of discing the hay field.  Only took me three days.

The middle of the hay field has a slight dip.  I imagine it was from when the field was last plowed.  Also the cattle made a path in the dip when going from one end of the field to the other.  This further increased the dip.  The dip was narrow enough the disc glided over it.  Since the sun had set, and it was getting dark by the time I finished the first pass of the field, I decided to do circles over the dip.  The disc seems to cut a little more when I turn a tight circle.

So I was going around and around and around and around to cut through and fill in the dip.  Donna had stopped by the house while I was doing this and she had no idea why I was driving in tight circles.  She remembered from years ago down the road when a farmer who was plowing his field died as he drove his tractor.  He slumped over and the tractor ended up driving in circles until someone found him.  So she thought something happened to me and she came out to check on me.

Nope.  I was just being me.  Driving in tight circles for a goofy reason.


After I parked the tractor for the night Kelly came up.  He had shot a nice buck and wanted to drive out to my pasture to retrieve it.  We lifted the deer into his pickup bed and drove to the hay field to gut and clean the deer.  In the hay field I don't have to worry about the cattle getting into the guts and innards.  Usually by morning it is all gone as the coyotes and/or birds eat it quickly.

The flat tire

I added dense heavy wooden blocks for weight on the disc so it would cut deeper.

The grooves in front of the tractor are from the initial pass. I overlap each time by half a 'row' to get a good cut.

A little left to do

Even disc'd underneath the towers

As seen from this one pass, the disc just fits between the legs of this tower.

Sunset and a little left of the field to disc.

Accidental photo

Starting to disc

I thought I would have my hay field dug up by now.  Back in September Wyatt said he could plow my hay field in October once the grass and alfalfa were killed.  Then I would drag a disc over the field to break up the dirt clods, then a harrow to make it smooth and fine.

Well, Wyatt - though laid off, is still working in helping the company to shut down the plant.  This will continue into December.  So he doesn't have time to plow my hay field.

But he said since I sprayed and killed off the alfalfa and grass, that dragging a disc would be sufficient.  He lent his disc a few years ago to a woman down the road and would get it back so I could use it.  I checked a few times and he still hadn't gotten the disc.  Finally he said he had another disc out in his back field.  We measured the disc and it would just fit through my gates.  My gate is 16 ft and his disc is a little over 15 ft.  First he had to put in a hydraulic cylinder and replace the hoses.

Once I took a shower, washed two loads of clothes and then picked up and stacked a pickup load of logs, I got the disc this afternoon. While I still have a few more pickup loads of logs to get and stack, cutting up the field before Winter is more important.

The disc barely fit through my gates.  I had to be really precise in pulling the disc through the gates.

After I got the disc through the first gate I noticed one tire was flat. The tire is old and had sat in the sun.  The thread came apart.  The tires are only really needed when lifting the disc up and transporting it.  With the tire flat, even with the disc lifted all the way up. the back row on that side slightly drags on the ground.

So I am pulling the disc now to cut up my hay field and will wait till later to pull the wheel off and have Wyatt replace the tire.  In the video below look at the tire on the right side to see the tear.

The disc is very noisy.  Very noisy.   Squeak!  Squeak!! Squeak!!!   I don't think it had been used in a long time.  I shut my tractor window and turn the radio up.

The disc cuts the ground but I find I will have to pull it around my hay field many times to cut up the ground good.  In my original plan where Wyatt first plowed the field I imagined I would have spend only two to three days to disc and harrow the field.  From what I got done in three hours today it looks that it will be much longer than that. 

Brown: sprayed.  Green: not sprayed.

Here is a 30 second video of the disc in action:  https://youtu.be/uQd3V3DnOsM

October precip record

What a wet month!!!  I am so over rain!    Normally we get 1.01 inches of precipitation in October.  A relatively dry month.  The (now old) record was 3.40 inches back in 1914.  This year we had 4.86 inches of precipitation!!!  We waayyy exceeded the old record. I say 'precipitation' and not rain as part of the amount is from one inch of snow.

The days without precipitation can be easily counted on one hand.  A few times during the month the roads would briefly get dry but that's about it.  The second to last day of the month the sun came out and it was blinding.  The river has risen quite a bit since the rain started and is quite high for this time of year.  Starting a fire in the wood stove can be a challenge as everything is so damp.

As a result I didn't get much done in October.  I got my firewood split and most (all that I wanted to) of the downed pasture trees cut into logs.  I believe I cut into logs thirteen large trees.  I also cut parts of at least a half dozen other trees. I'll finish cutting them next year.

I'm currently stacking the logs in the back yard so they can be split next year.  I have more logs than what can fit so I plan to stack the rest of the logs in the pasture.  Also slowing me down is that I am taking the bark off the logs that I can.  Most of the logs have loose bark but the last few trees to fall have their bark still firmly attached.

Prior to October my goals to complete before Winter included:

1. Split firewood and cut trees into logs
2. Plow my hayfield
3. Re-build a fence between the corral and the hayshed.
4. Remodel the house room with the wood stove.

It doesn't look like I will get all four items done as I am still working on item number 1.  November is forecast to be average temperatures but a 33% chance of higher than normal precipitation.

Fall Tamarack colors

Taken today in the south pasture.

Messing in the straw

Yesterday I let the cattle into the corral.  The calves hadn't eaten all of the hay in the feeder.  With rain everyday it was matter of time before the hay started to get moldy.  So I let the cattle in to eat the weeds and hay.  They did.  Today I found a little mold growing in the pallet that held the hay off the ground in the feeder.

I have extra straw under the side roof of the barn.  It is protected by a metal gate and a long wooden pallet tied together around a post.  Yesterday Buddy pushed one end of the metal gate up to eat some straw.  Beulah broke the top board of the wooden pallet to eat straw.  Since they weren't standing and going to the bathroom on the straw I let them be.  Cattle don't usually eat straw but occasionally they do to get some roughage.

Today I checked.  The metal gate was laying flat on the ground with straw completely covering it.  The wooden pallet was mostly broken and half laying in the mud and straw.  Four cattle were standing as far up on the straw as they could squeeze under the barn roof.  The straw was a mess.

I chased the cows away and dug out the metal gate and stood it up.  I wrapped barb wire around the gate and the post.  In the other end I pounded a metal t-post through part of the gate and into the ground.

I got three long boards and blocked the wooden pallet side.  The cattle could get their head through the boards but could no longer climb up on the straw.

Later in the afternoon after the cattle left the corral I closed the gates.  I dug the broken pallet out of the straw and mud and removed it from the corral.  The cattle wanted back into the corral.  So I took some of the straw and put it into the long wooden feeder.

First I had to fix the feeder's floor.  With all the rain the boards swelled up and in two places sides of the boards popped up.  I replaced one 2x4 board with a 2x2 board.  For the other spot I had to cut an inch and a half off the board so it would fit flat.

I let the cattle back into the corral.  Now that the straw wasn't in a place where they weren't suppose to go they weren't as interested in it.

Stacked firewood

Another rainy day.  Before the rain started late morning I got one thing done.  I woke up from a dream where the cattle broke into the corral.  Upon waking I realized some strands of barb wire were not attached to fence posts in the north fence along my neighbor's property and I needed to fix this before the cattle found them and slipped through, as I let the cattle into my north pasture yesterday.  I am trapping pocket gophers on the neighbor's land - or trying to, as all this wet weather caused the pocket gophers to stay deep underground.  I have been slipping through the fence in a few places where the wire is not completely attached.  So just before the rain started I fixed this.

Prior to today I have picked up my split firewood.  I got most of it stacked in the pole shed.  The rest of the firewood I stacked under the patio by the house.   The pole shed - where I stack firewood - is now full.  This is the first time that has ever happened.  I had it almost full going into Winter a few times in the past, but never this much.  I'm continuing to split logs and stack the firewood in the patio.  I have more logs to split from the back yard to make room for more logs from the pastures.  If it ever stops raining I can get this done.

The stack of firewood in the pole shed measures 6 ft across, 18 ft long and at the highest, 10 ft tall.   A cord of wood is 4 ft by 4 ft by 8 ft.   Based on cubic volume I believe I have about 8 cords of wood stacked in the pole shed, which should be more than enough to last me all Winter.

More firewood splitting

In between the rain each day I have been splitting more logs for firewood.  When it rains I cover the split piles with tarps.  Today I started stacking the wood in the pole shed where my previous split wood is stacked.  I got about half the recently split wood stacked.  I believe I will fill the area for firewood with what I have split and will have to find another sheltered place to store the rest.  Usually I am still splitting firewood after the snow is on the ground.  For once I am ahead of the game.

Here is my split wood before I started stacking it.  All split by hand.

Walnut tree and wood stove

Here are two photos of my English Walnut tree after the killing frost.  The leaves went from normal and green to this overnight.

Today I gave in and lit a fire in my wood stove.  I had been delaying using the wood stove because one of the things I want to get done before Winter is to re-do the room/hallway the stove sits in.  Re-do the ceiling, sand and re-paint the walls, rip up the carpet and put down new flooring, and put a sun tunnel in the ceiling for more light.

Up unto October and this wet and cold weather it looked like the room remodel was possible.  I'm still not ruling it out once I get my other outside projects done... but the clock is ticking.  I don't want to do the remodel during Winter.

I didn't want to use the wood stove as I thoroughly cleaned the stove and chimney this Summer and to do the remodel I have to temporarily move the stove.  But... this cold weather finally wore me down.  The inside house temperature today was 49 degrees and I decided not to put up with the cold anymore.  Especially as the weather outside today was in the low 40s, overcast and damp with a chill in the air.  Rain and these way below normal temperatures are predicted to continue into mid-next week.  I want my global warming back!!!!!

Now the temperature in the house is 66 degrees and it feels too warm to me.  I can't win.

Cattle and splitting firewood

Dan came and got the last four steers this afternoon.  I waited for one steer to finish peeing then I herded all of the steers into the loading corral and then loaded them into Dan's trailer.  We took it slow and had no problems.   Dan weighed them and said they weighed 2010 lbs, or 502.5 lbs each on average.  The largest steer (Curious George) was heavier than the others and we think it probably weighs 575 lbs or so.


The clouds cleared off last night and the temperature dropped to well below freezing. The coldest it has been since last March.  The larger English Walnut tree had been resisting the previous frosts but last night gave up and this morning all the remaining leaves were dead.  We had a heavy frost overnight and it took until noon to melt the frost and warm up.


With the break in the weather yesterday and today I spent some time cutting up logs and splitting them into firewood.  A few weeks ago I bought a new chainsaw as my previous chainsaw wouldn't start and I suspected the ethonol in the gas ruined that carburetor.   I bought a Husqvarna 455 Rancher 20-Inch gas-powered chain saw.  This saw has a longer bar than my old chainsaw.    The new chainsaw cuts through the logs really nice and quick.

I had some logs in the yard and cut them up.  Then I got them all split.  With all the rain we had recently the logs are still damp so I left them scattered outside so they can dry before I stack them under cover.  I'll see how this goes as the weather forecast has rain starting tomorrow and going into next week.

I have more logs to split.  I also want to cut up all the fallen trees in the pasture into logs for later splitting: one of my goals for this year before Winter arrives.

Cut but not split

Split.   (what a mess!)

Snow and cattle

It snowed again overnight.  While today's high temperature was slightly warmer as we got over 40 degrees, we started the morning off colder.  Most of the snow melted but at the end of the day the shaded areas had a little more snow than the previous day.

I gave the four steers a bunch of apples.  A short time later I noticed one apple had been accidentally pushed back through the fence.  Curious George tried to reach the apple under the fence and got his head stuck.  He had turned his head sideways to slip under the fence then turned upright.  When his head was upright he couldn't get it back under the fence.  Also when through the fence his ears popped up and that also prevented him from pulling back through the fence.  When they get stuck I notice the cattle usually try to push forward more than they pull back.  My new fence boards bent slightly but held when George frantically pushed against the fence.

My walking closer made him even more panicked which wasn't helping.  To give him time and space to settle down I went in the house to get my camera.  then as I approached he turned his head just right and pulled out from under the fence.  I got the photo just after his head slipped back under the fence.

It is hard to see in the photo but the side of his head is grass stained green.   Other than that he seems to be fine.

Buddy is back with the cows.  I went and found where he went through the fence.  It wasn't at his usual spot.  I patched the fence.

Daisy followed me out to the pasture when I worked on the fence.  Then over to the neighbor's property where I set some traps to catch their pocket gophers.  When I walked through an area of tall grass Daisy got distracted by the potential of finding a mouse.  I left her be after she gave me a "Be quiet.  Get out of here. I'm hunting." look.

Hours later as I split firewood Daisy showed up and wanted supper. Later in the evening she was outside.  She didn't come to get her "special treat" cat food supper.  Then I saw the reason why.  Sitting on top of my TV antennae was a large owl.  It wasn't afraid of me walking around.  I had to wiggle the antennae before it would fly away.  A short time later Daisy showed up at the door.


I got my check today from selling the calves.  The market is down!!!  Really down!

Last year I sold my steers for $2.11 a pound.  This year I sold my steers for $1.24 a pound.
Last year I sold my heifers for $1.90 a pound.  This year I sold the three black heifers for $1.07 a pound and the grey and red heifers for $1.035 a pound.

Wow! The price of cattle sure had dropped - and last year they already had dropped in the Fall when I sold them.  Expect the price of steaks and hamburger to drop next year once the cattle sold now make it through the system.

The steers weighed close (9 lbs less) to last year's steers.  I'll know better once Dan buys and weighs the four largest steers.  The two heifers weighed about 15 pounds on average less than last year's heifers.  The surprise was the three black heifers - they weighed 70 pounds more on average than last year's heifers.  And so far, weighed more than the steers.  I'm not sure why.

So as you can see from the prices I made much less money than last year.  Many thousands of dollars less.  It appears I barely made enough to pay for the high priced hay from last year.  Not much I can do when the market drops so suddenly and so low.  On to next year with hopes of better prices.

First snow

What global warming??!!   Seriously... a snow storm in early October??!!  A snow storm in early November can happen, but early October?  I want my global warming back!  Or at least normal weather.  I have stuff to complete before Winter is suppose to really come.

It was raining when Daisy went outside at 5 am.  It took three times for her to stay outside more than five minutes as it was raining steady and the wind was howling.  The weather service said the wind reached 44 mph.  I was happy if Daisy stayed inside but she kept wanting to go back outside and wouldn't let me sleep until she got her way.  Whenever she came back inside I got an earful from her complaining about the weather.  "Hey Daisy, I'm not happy about the weather either."

I checked at 6 am.  Rain, wind, and no Daisy.

Around 7 am Daisy was at the door meowing. It was snowing hard.  I saw a flash like a lightning bolt occurred nearby.   Lightning during a snowstorm?  I heard it can happen.  Daisy immediately jumped up on my bed and curled next/on me.  After washing her wet fur she went to sleep.

It was still blowing and snowing when I woke up at 9 am.  I stayed in my warm bed.

At 10 am someone called.  No one on the line.  A telemarketer?  Later I learned Dan had called around then but had terrible static on his end of the line.

I noticed my answering machine had no power.  I checked the machine, nothing wrong with it.  Then I noticed that the entire house was without power.  I called the electric company's power outage reporting line.  With a house account and an irrigation account it was confusing as to which option to select as both have the same address.  I left a voicemail message.

After 2 pm I called again.  While I figured the electric company had many outages due to the wet snow I thought it wouldn't take over 4 hours to fix mine; especially as both my neighbor to the north and the neighbor to the south had power.  I chose one option on their automated line to report an outage.  A few minutes later I called a number to talk to a person and see if I chose the correct option for my house.  No, they had no report I was out of power.

After 5 pm the electric company truck drove past my place.  Their boom truck was too tall to fit under my driveway gate.  They stopped on the road and checked the lines going to my house.  It turns out the fuse on the lines leading from the road pole to my house was bad.  They replaced the fuse and I finally had power.  Hooray!  Apparently the electric company had over 30 outages and over 6,000 people without power.

The wind had died down and the temperature by then was in the mid to upper 30s.  The only snow left was the snow in the shade of trees and buildings.  I saw a photo from Columbia Falls where someone had made a snowman.

On Sunday Buddy had broken the fence in his "favorite" spot and had gone into the north pasture.  I let him be.  This morning the cattle stood under various trees as it snowed.  Eventually they stood at the gate to the north pasture where Buddy stood on the other side.   I left everyone be. It was still snowing and blowing.  Later in the afternoon I didn't see Buddy in the north pasture.  Either he was around the trees close to the river, else he re-broke the fixed fence and went back to his cows who were now circulating around the pasture and eating.  Someday I'll rebuild this fence to be better so he stops doing this.

The 'rain shadow' effect out beyond the tree due to the blowing snow.

We got 1 inch of snow.  Elsewhere here are some of the snow totals.  Combined with the rain I believe we set a new precipitation record for the date.  FYI: my elevation is around/just under 3000 ft.

Cold and wet Fall day

It rained much of the day and the temperature was in the lows 40s.  This was a day I spent indoors.

Here are a few photos from September 23 of the Fall colors.


My pear tree produced about a dozen pears.  Too bad I was busy and missed picking most of them before they went bad.

Serviceberry bush. Protected from the cattle and the deer.  I also missed most of the fruit as I was busy elsewhere when it ripened.  I'm sure the birds got much of it.

Box elder trees.

Mailbox repair

Last Winter a car slid and clipped my mailbox post.  The accident didn't break the post but did cause it to lean a lot.  The post continued to stand (lean) since then and it wasn't until the end of September that I got around to fixing the post and everything.

This photo is from 2010 but things looked about the same up until the car slid against the post.  The additional thing missing from the photo was a board nailed to the two thin posts of the right.  The purpose of the board was to protect the mailbox from snowplow snow damage.

First I replaced the post. I wanted something more solid than an ordinary wooden post.  Initially I thought I would use an old railroad tie but I ended up using a scrap piece of cast iron pipe.  The pipe was just long enough to use as a mailbox post as the mailbox sits around 42 inches high.

 A bonus with the pipe is the flange on top. I could bolt on a wooden platform for the mailbox.  The top board is to screw the mailbox to.

Because the county is not responsible for damage to mailboxes when they plow snow off the roads I wanted something to protect my mailbox.  I already had one mailbox I had to replace due to snowplow snow damage.  So that was part of the purpose of the bottom platform board. I needed something to screw boards to in order to protect the mailbox from snow damage.

A nice solid mailbox

Going to cattle auction

Today I hauled most of my calves to the cattle auction in Missoula.  The auction will be held tomorrow.  Cattle prices have been really dropping every week since the beginning of September - and I thought the prices were low to begin with.  I and other cattle sellers are going to get hammered this Fall as we sell our cattle.   I'll see once my cattle sell tomorrow, but I may have little to no profit this year.

Last night Dan and his son came over and picked out four steers they wanted to buy.  So those calves were left in the corral until Dan and his son pick them up next week.

That left nine calves to go into my stock trailer.  They filled the trailer.  It looked like there was room for only one more calf.  My plan if Dan and his son didn't buy any calves was to raise three steers over Winter and sell them in the Spring.

The calves are so calm and well trained they easily followed me - and my bag of apples - into the loading corral this morning.  Donna then came and helped me sort out of the loading corral the four steers Dan and his son want.

On the to-do list for next year is to build a small area just outside of the head gate.  Since the head gate's doors swing outward there is a few feet between the head gate and the back trailer door.  The head gate is about the height of the trailer's floor.   I used to have dirt piled and packed up on each side of the had gate.  The dirt ramp still exists on the inside of the head gate but on the outside the cattle over the years wore it down.  Therefore, after the calves step through the head gate they step down a down a little bit before they step up into the trailer.  As cattle are hesitant enough to go into a stock trailer anything that makes it harder for them makes it harder for me.  And with the step down I can't rush the calves as I don't want to chance one breaking a leg.

We took it slow and the cattle slowly one by one stepped into the trailer.  Some calves stepped up into the trailer quicker than other calves.

Donna and I had the cattle sorted and loaded in 45 minutes or less. We just finished up when Dan came over to help.  Donna and I were on the road shortly after 9:15 am.  As we drove out of the ranch we noticed Buddy way out in the pasture standing tall with his head way up as he was intently watching us.  He knew we were taking some of his kids away.

I have the same number of calves - nine - as last year but the trailer seemed heavier on the drive to the auction. With my under-powered pickup I could hardly drive more than 55 mph unless I was driving downhill.  Once the trailer was unloaded the weight was back to what I remembered from last year.  On the drive back I was able to get up to 65 mph.

The morning was drizzly to a light rain for the first half of the trip.  We saw breaks of sun by the time we reached Missoula and the auction before noon.  Going the day before the auction usually means no lines to unload ones cattle and the previous trailer had just finished unloading when we arrived.

When we unloaded the calves Clyde kept trying to get back into the trailer.  Usually cattle can't wait to get out of a stock trailer.  But Clyde is smarter than the average calf; he wanted in the trailer and wanted to go back home with us.  He would climb back into the trailer against the tide of the other calves coming out of the trailer.  It took several tries before we got him out of the trailer long enough to close the trailer door.

Then it was back home. Donna and I stopped at the Thai restaurant in Polson, MT.  Their small parking lot was filled with vehicles with little room for a truck pulling a trailer so I had to park in an empty lot next to the restaurant.

We drove on the east side of Flathead Lake as it has less traffic, a slower speed limit and less hills.  We saw the cutest little black bear on the side of the road waiting to cross as we drove.  As we approached the bear headed back down into the ditch.

I was home by 3 pm. Once I got home I opened all of the internal corral gates for the remaining four calves to roam.  One calf walked around and called out. Apparently one of his best buds was among the calves who left.  The energy level here at the ranch sure has changed since the nine calves have left.  The level seems quiet to a low energy now.  Even though I still have cattle the ranch feels a little empty now.  I'm going to miss them little calves.

Then I had the long and dirty job of washing out the manure from the stock trailer.

Waiting to be loaded into the stock trailer.

Waiting to be loaded into the stock trailer.

Loaded into the stock trailer.  Clyde (red calf) looking at me.

Wet drive along Flathead Lake.

Dirty stock trailer.