Cold, rainy day

Today it rained most of the day.  Our high temperature was only 47 degrees, well below normal.  It got down to 52 degrees in the house so I had the first woodstove fire of the season to warm the house up.  An earlier fire than normal.  Daisy spent most of the day laying near the woodstove.  I didn't do much else either.

Re-shingling the garage roof - done

I finished re-shingling my garage just before dark on Thursday.  It went quicker than I expected, and quicker than things usually do. I was working to finish the work before Saturday, which is when the weather change and rain was predicted.  The weather changed and got colder, but no rain.  We only got a brief and light amount of moisture on Saturday, not enough to even get the pavement wet.

To be on the safe side I shingled as many rows as I could by standing on a ladder.  I was able to shingle almost ten rows standing on a stepladder. I would carry one shingle up to the roof along with four nails.  I would nail the shingle then go back to the ground to get another shingle and four nails.  So, slow going.  But a safer way to do the work.

After almost ten rows I then had to use an extension ladder. I got a few more rows done before I then had to step on the roof.  I held onto the rope to again be on the safe side.  By now I was carrying three, and sometimes four, shingles each time I went up the ladder to the roof.  Multiple shingles at a time picked up the pace. I would place the extra shingles under the tops of the nailed shingles to hold them in place.  Otherwise the shingle would slide down and off the roof.  The roof is steeper than what it looks like in the photos.

The size of the roof is 318+ square feet.  Ten bundles of shingles was predicted to cover 322 square feet.  Each shingle has three tabs. Due to the length of the roof about a third of a single tab was cut off and not used.  At the end I was one tab short of what I needed.  To make up for that one tab I nailed three of the one-third shares of tabs I had cut off earlier.  In the end very little was unused.

Even though I had the green old shingles still on the roof, I had a partial roll of felt from a previous shingle work I did some years ago.  And a roll of felt I bought at a garage sale years ago.  So I used a good portion of these felt rolls on this roof to use up the felt as this is the last shingle work I may ever need to do on my buildings' roofs.  The felt has lines so I used those lines to make sure I was shingling in a straight line.  I used a chalk line once and that was to lay the first roof of felt down.

To make a row of shingles be straight could be a challenge, especially in the lower half of the roof.  As you can see in the photos, the roof is bowed due to the age of the building.  I guess the age of the building is 80 years, or almost that long.

I think I did pretty well.  Once I got to the last row the line was only about an inch or two off from one side to the other side.  Not too noticeable unless you are really looking.

While the new shingles went over the roof top, I placed them under the previous shingle ridge.  After re-nailing the shingle ridge I got some roofing sealant I had and patched the cracks in the shingle ridge I had made when earlier I had removed the ridge nails and lifted the ridge up to slide the top of the new shingles under the ridge.

Another job done.

The re-shingled roof.  Looks better, doesn't it?

One calf jailbreak

Late this morning I had a calf jailbreak.  I was putting away tools since I was done with my re-shingling work, and when I came out of the tool shed I heard mooing.  Huh?  I looked in the backyard, and in the yard outside of the corral gate, was standing the largest/oldest of the calves, Sugar's calf.  Huh?  How did you get here?!

The rest of the cattle were in the NW corner of the neighbor's field.  The calf was looking their way, mooing and wondering how to get back to the herd.  So I let him into the corral, then into the north pasture, then into the middle pasture.  The rest of the cattle saw us and came running to the south and middle pastures gate.  I got the calf to this gate, then through the gate without letting the rest of the cattle come through the gate.

I then counted the cattle to make sure everyone else was still there.  Yup.

How did the calf get into my backyard?  The neighbor said she saw the calf in her front yard.  She had called me to let me know.  I wasn't in my house to hear the phone.  The calf then walked down the road avoiding traffic to get home and to the barn.  Once he got to my driveway he walked in and then to the backyard and the corral.  It was very fortunate that he didn't go elsewhere.

I checked the neighbor's fence and saw one spot where the fencing was lower.  I imagine the calf somehow pushed the fencing down a bit and then somehow stepped or hopped over.  I tugged the fencing up higher.  I'll see tomorrow if the calf pulls this trick again.

Re-shingling the garage roof - start

Sunday I started to work on re-shingling the garage roof.  Or I should say, the south half of the roof.  The north half - which has a different style of shingles - was re-shingled some years ago.  When?  I don't remember.  I think 15 or more years ago.  And those shingles are still good.

The half I am going to re-shingle now...  I fixed the roof twice when a tree branch fell in 2007, then later in 2015 when the tree fell on the roof.  In 2015 I did that repair because I planned on re-shingling the roof the next year, 2016.  Now, four years later I am finally getting to the job.  It is especially important to re-shingle as last Fall during all the rains I saw a spot inside the garage roof that was wet.

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2007/03/willow-crash.html

https://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/2015/09/garage-roof-fix.html

First up is to remove the old shingles.  The shingles may not look really bad in the following photo, but trust me, they were bad.  Curled and cracked, etc.

It took 2 days to remove the shingles.  The north side shingles were curled over the top to form a  ridge. I wanted to keep those shingles and ridge so I had to take care to loosen those shingles and go slow so as to not tear them.  And the roof is so steep I had to take extra care so I wouldn't slip off the roof.  As you can see in the following photo, I used a rope to hold on to so I wouldn't start to slide off the roof.

As you can see, I found that there was old shingle roofing under the white shingles.  I decided to keep these green shingling on the roof.  I will place my new shingles on top of these green shingles.

Another issue is where the roof meets the façade. Or doesn't quite meet it.  That may have been fine when the previous white shingles were new, but when those shingles aged I had lots of leaks in this area.

To fix this problem I bought a little wider metal edging for roofs.  It appears the metal edging is just wide enough to cover these gaps between the roof and façade.

Now to start the re-shingling and get it done by Friday before the weather changes and rain comes.  And to be careful I don't fall off the roof.  Wearing a helmet to protect my head won't work if I fall off the roof.  If you don't hear from me in a few days then maybe I fell off the roof.

Fall colors in the trees

 Tree leaves are slowly turning color.

English Walnut tree

English Walnut tree shaped by the cattle

Smaller English Walnut tree

English Walnut tree walnuts

Apple tree

Apple tree

Apricot tree

Apricot tree

Serviceberry bush

Cherry tree

Cherry tree

Pear tree

South patio and hayfield fence rebuild

Since I had recently completed the backyard and hayfield fence rebuild, and the patio fence add-on, I decided to rebuild a little bit of the yard and hayfield fence just south of the patio.  Now was the time to do the rebuild, before the cattle are let into the hayfield.  Also this part of the fence needed a rebuild as some years ago I had taken down this section as the old fence was falling apart, and I had put up a patchy fix.  Whenever I had cattle in the yard or hayfield I would place a corral panel at this location to better support this section of the fence.

This was a small section of the fence to rebuild, so it should be quick.  Well...  no.  I wanted all the fence boards in this section to match.  I had some rails left so I wanted to use most of them.  I also wanted to angle the corner of the fence so it would be easier to turn when cutting the hayfield.  So I had an ideal length for this west part of the fence. 27 feet.  Were the rails the right length to add up to be 27?  No.  Do I have any more rails?  Well.. maybe.

So I spent some time looking through the other stacks of boards and wood I have. Over the years I had added boards and wood to various stacks. For more than 10 years whenever I had to quickly unload some boards.  What was in those stacks now?

I spent three and a half hours one afternoon unstacking a lot of the boards and wood from the last large stack to look through.  But I found a few rails close to the length I wanted.  Just enough rails for one fence section.  I had three rails a little over 16 feet. I also found in this last stack of boards three rails a little over 9 feet.  26 feet was the closest I could get to 27 feet, almost just long enough.

Then I had the angled fence section. I needed a 13 foot length of rails and thought I had the right length.  But since one side was 26 instead of 27 feet I now need a little over a 13 foot length. The rails were just under 13 feet.  So I was almost one foot short. To make these under 13 foot rails work I had to move the west side and the south side over closer to one another. I hadn't planned on rebuilding any of the south part of the fence but I had to rebuild one section in order to move part of the section over a little bit. Moving the west part of the fence was annoying as a few days prior I had finished rebuilding that section and now I had to change what I had just done.  But I got the under 13 foot rails to work.

I was able to reuse most of the older fence posts.  While top parts of these fence posts were weathering and some starting to decay, all the sections in the ground were solid.  Amazingly the underground posts sections looked almost brand new.

The posts were over 7 feet tall.  But for whatever reason the person who originally built this fence put these posts around 30 inches in the ground.  For railroad ties... yes, 30 inches in the ground is good.  But for these sized posts, 30 inches is deeper that what was needed for these posts.

Look at how deep these posts were in the ground, and how the bottom looks better than the top.

Too long and too short

I didn't want to take apart the fence I had just rebuilt. So, to move the post over I dug next to the post and slid the post over.

I'm not all that fond of this bush. So I had no problem trimming the bush to be narrower in order to have the fence moved over.

For fence sections that are longer than 8 feet, I placed an extra fence post to make that fence section be stronger to keep the cattle from breaking them.  I also added wire to each of the rebuilt sections so the cattle can't get their head through the fence.

Before the fence was rebuilt.

After the fence was rebuilt

Cattle into neighbor's field

This morning I let my cattle into the field of one of my neighbors to the south.  Off and on over the years when the neighbors/renters did not have horses in this field  I let my cattle into the field as the neighbors/renters did not want tall and dry grass; though I never let my cattle into this field this late in the season.  This year, no horses, and a new owner of the field.

Earlier this year the new owner asked if I would cut the field for hay; but it wasn't worth doing so.  I offered to have my cattle eat the grass down for her.  But first the field needed to be sprayed for weeds by the county as the transmission lines go over the field. We're not sure if the county ever did so.  Then the fence along the road needed to be fixed.  Late Spring someone drove off the road and took out two of the fence posts.  No one had ever fixed the fence since then.

Since my pastures are getting eaten down pretty good; and I want to wait a little longer before I let the cattle into the hayfield; it was up to me to fix her fence if I wanted cattle in this field.  I could have placed a couple of corral panels temporarily to block the broken fence but I figured it wouldn't take me too long to fix the fence.  Of course it took me a little longer than expected, but that is the way it seems to be these days.  The person who originally had built the fence went for overkill so it took a lot longer to just take the broken fence apart so that I could rebuild it after putting two posts into the ground.

To let the cattle to go from my field to her field I have two gates in my fences near one another.  I still had to bring a short metal gate to chain and bungee cord to the two gates as the two gates didn't quite reach each other.

It was after 11 am when I carried the metal gate across the hayfield.  Even though it is dry out here, the hayfield grass was very wet. From dew?  Was dew that heavy last night?  My thick shoes got soaked, and so did the socks I was wearing in my shoes.

While carrying the metal gate I came across a very large area of pocket gophers mounds in the hayfield. A gopher moved into the hayfield once again.  By late afternoon I had trapped the pocket gopher.  Since the cattle will mostly be in the neighbor's field I then placed the trap back into the south pasture to get that pocket gopher who is still making fresh mounds of dirt.

The cattle had been resting in the middle pasture, but when they saw me in the hayfield setting the pocket gopher trap, they came to the hayfield fence as they thought I was going to let them into the hayfield.  So I called them into the south pasture and opened the gates to the neighbor's field.  As you can see below, #8 was confused.  She wouldn't come through the gates.  It wasn't until Little Red and Sugar and the other cows came through did #8 come through the open gate.

Little Red leading the way

Sugar

Panda complaining the neighbor's grass was on the dry side.

Diamond

Red

Beulah

The cattle went around the neighbor's field.  They ran over to the far corner and stood and stared at another neighbor's field.  Eventually they started walking around again checking things out.  Panda went back to my gates and stood and looked at my hayfield and mooed and mooed.  She wanted me to come over and let her into the hayfield.  Nope.   Later she went over to the other gate mid-field and looked at the hayfield and mooed.  Nope.  Not opening that gate either.

I must admit, the grass is definitely greener in my hayfield.

Now to see how long the cattle will eat the grass in the neighbor's field.  It may not be as green, but it is edible.

Here is a 1 minute 53 video of the cattle going from my field to the neighbor's field: https://youtu.be/nKo3tBlx9SE

Fall colors

 Fall is coming.   Here is how part of the lilac tree looked like today.

I picked another walnut.  This nut is drier than the other walnut I had picked earlier.  But it still should be drier.  I'll have to wait a little longer before I pick the walnuts.

One year anniversary

Today is the one year anniversary from when I had the accident where I fractured my skull.  I still don't remember how or when the accident occurred.  I think it happened between 6:30 pm and 7:30 pm.  I couldn't stay awake or conscious long enough to call Donna until the next afternoon.

Months later when I mostly recovered I complained to my neurologist that I wasn't completely recovered. The neurologist then told me my injuries and condition were among the worst she had seen, and my recovery was better and quicker than most of the injuries - even the less skull fracture injuries - she had seen.  So I guess, stop complaining.

Considering what happened to me I am mostly recovered.

Maybe this next year will be better.

Branch pile mess

I don't know why, but the cattle like to make a mess of some of the piles of branches.  I toss the branches in piles until I later decide what to do with them.  The cattle will spread some of the branches off the pile and around on the ground.  They did a worse job to other branch piles.

Patio fence

When rebuilding my backyard/hayfield fence I went through a number of my old rails looking for the right rails to use on that rebuild.  I also found three rails I didn't need for the rebuild but then found out they were the exact length needed if I wanted to put them on the patio.  I never had this part of the patio fenced as it isn't really needed.  But I found that when I let the cattle in the yard each Spring they would also go into the patio area.  So I had to put up temporary corral panels to keep the cattle out of the patio.  Since these rails were the exact length I decided to take an afternoon and put them up on this part of the patio.  Now I have one less corral panel to put up each Spring to keep the cattle out.

Stitching the photos together makes the fence look more bent than it actually is.

That afternoon I also put in a new 'post' in the ground on which to set the end of my metal corral gate.  The 16 ft gate is heavy and over time will droop on one end if it isn't supported.  While this gate has a bolt that goes into the post next to it to also support the gate, the heavy weight of the gate made it harder to get the bolt into the post when one also has to hold the gate up. The old 'post' I had used was no longer big enough to adequately support the end of the gate.

Straw and tarp

Now that the barley field across the road was cut earlier this week by Chris, the left over stuff was baled up as straw.  I thought Chris baled the straw but he subcontracted and sold that to someone else.  I was able to convince this guy to sell me one bale.  It is good to have straw for bedding for the cattle when it gets cold outside.  It cost me $40.

Since the straw bale was across the road he brought it over in his truck and I didn't have to use my tractor to get it.  His truck has metal arms that grab the bale and lift it onto the back of his truck, and then the arms lowers the bale to the ground.  Pretty neat.

His baler makes large bales.  As you can see the straw bale is about twice the size of my bales. It makes my bales look small.  This will be enough straw for my cattle this Winter.

Rain is still in the forecast for this weekend.  So I got my large tarp out and covered the bales outside the hayshed.

When I was putting the tarp over the bales the cattle out in the pasture saw me and came to a gate and started mooing at me.  Sorry girls. You'll get a bale another day.

Water and no water

It was a drier than normal August, and September has not seen any moisture yet.  Here are a couple of photos showing the difference between where I had irrigated in August and where the water did not go.

Rain is in the forecast for this weekend.  I hope we get lots of rain.