cows

Bull capers

Steve Hardin1 Comment

I made it to work this morning and was just getting started when I received a text from one of our neighbors. The Bull was out of our pasture. This is never good as he can wander but more importantly our bull is easily recognizable. I don’t think there is another horned dexter bull that good looking anywhere near here. I knew Annmarie was busy and figured if I ran home immediately I could get him back into the pasture and get back to make my meeting. On the way home I called Mr. Experience to see if he would help me in the hopes that we could do it quickly.

We spotted the bull near four corners out in a neighbors field. The gate was up so I am unclear how he got into the field. Mr. Experience asked me what the bull’s name was I told him “Bully”, so he opened the gate and tried to call “Mr Bully” out through the gate. We don’t have a name for the bull, but we do call him Bully when I am not hollering and calling him not nice names. I thought this was quite humorous. We also drove up the hill to open the upper gate to push him through but at that time he decided to run into the lower wheat field. I drove around and ran from the house side of the field and Mr Experience ran from the far side. I managed to stop the bull and Mr Experience opened a side gate. We had a dominance dance for a few minutes before I managed to get the bull turned around and headed toward the open gate. He ran in and under the fence via the creek crossing. He trotted up to the ladies over by the hay feeders.

We walked the fence lines back down to four corners but never found a hole. I found a broken hanging rock crib, one soft spot that needs a panel and a couple of spots where the top part of the woven wire is no longer stapled into the wooden posts. We could never find a set of his hoof prints outside the fenced area.

As we headed back to the house the bull and his cows were already behind the house and headed to the upper chicken coop near the separated heifers. Mr experience went up there to shoo them away with Zeke. I almost sent him with Mouse but Mouse doesn’t listen as well as Zeke. I had to go inside and change into my mud boots and a coat. When I got up to the creek crossing we discovered that the bull had jumped the fence in one spot. It doesn’t look like he crawled under the creek crossing. We had to lower the fence over the crossing and moved three panels over near the bank to cover the openings. This worked pretty good and kept the bull in place.

We have had to start putting Zeke back on the run again. He has gotten out of the yard the last three days in a row. I think Mr Experience found it under the foot bridge for the gas guys. He has made a slide spot along the mud bank like an alligator would! Yesterday he got out and rolled in alpaca poo. The stuff is sticky and slimy and smells very bad. It will not come out of dog fur with doggie bath detergent. We have to use Dawn soap from the kitchen. Zeke was very clean and flufffy this morning

I had to come inside and change my pants before I could go back to work as I had gotten mud on my tennis shoes and pants. I also had to wash my tennis shoes. This was when I realized I only own five pair of shoes: 1 pair of snow PACS, 1 pair of cheap rubber boots, 1 pair of tennis shoes, 1 pair of dress shoes and 1 pair of slippers. I had to wear my dress shoes to work. I still need some new leather boots for working outside and another pair of slip on business attire shoes. I will have to do the dreaded deed and go shoe shopping. This is infinitely more worse than clothing shopping when it comes to shopping horrors.

Cows sorted

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I stayed home today in an attempt to catch up on the painting. I had plans of working on it during the week but only got some walls cleaned and pictures down. Today I pulled all the picture pins out of the walls. We will have to start all over again when it comes to pictures. This is painful but it does allow us to change out what was hanging on the walls. So we are already talking about what pictures we want to keep and rearranging the items when we put them back.

I spent a couple of hours taping off the kitchen and then cutting in the corners with paint. I got that all done before Annmarie came back. Before I can roll on paint I will have to plastic off the entire kitchen.

Our plan was to sort cows this afternoon. We need to get the one nutter calf away from any breeding heifers. We also want to wean off the calves. The stupid cows are still letting the year old calves nurse off of them. We pushed the sheep up into the upper prime pasture and locked the horses behind the barn. We brought the dogs along with Gizmo to work the cows. They were hanging out down by the schoolhouse. Mouse kept wanting to get out front of us and chase everything. I kept calling him back nonstop until he started to stay closer. When we got down to lower pasture fence I just picked up each border collie and tossed them over the fence. We were crossing the stream when I found the skull of one of our horned sheep, a young one probably only about 8 months old from a few years ago when all our sheep had horns. I carried the skull back to the house so I can mount it up on a wall. Mouse, Gizmo and I stayed down on the lower flat and Annmarie and Zeke went up on the hillside to push the cows down to the gate. Zeke was listening very well when all of a sudden he just took off and was running around in large circles on the hillside. Annmarie was hollering loudly and he did not listen at all. Turns out he had spooked a rabbit and was hot on its trail! He kept gaining distance the longer they ran until the rabbit ran for a pile of wood. As soon as the rabbit disappeared then Zeke started listening again.

Annmarie was hot! She was hollering at Zeke, she was hollering at me, she was hollering at Mouse, she had some serious tyrant like attributes bleeding off her. We continued to work the cows and the directions kept coming. Once in the barn lot the cows just did not want to go into the corral area. Annmarie tried the dogs but the cows were gunning for the dogs. We finally had to put the dogs away and get out the shakers to drive them into the corral. Annmarie says I don’t pay enough attention to how the animals are behaving. This is true. We finally got the cows sorted, 7 plus the bull will go back down to the schoolhouse area and 6 others will go into the upper prime pasture. The upper prime pasture has water now so we can leave the cows penned up there with a couple of large bales of hay.

I ended up putting two large bales in the upper prime pasture and two more large bales down by their normal feeding area. We decided to give the 8 cows a chance to wander down on their own. The sheep all came wandering down toward me when I took this picture as I was on the tractor. All the animals know the tractor means food. It took us 2.5 hours to sort the cows and it took me another 1.5 hours to do the evening chores.

I am totally psyched about the underground green house. We are trying to come up with a location. I think it needs to go in the ram pasture. Unfortunately, it will be taking up a big chunk. I think it will require some spray paint to mark out several locations so we can find the right spot.

To make sure we had two fences between the separate herds I had to put the gate back up. I used some bailing twine, that stuff is good for everything. If you look real close you can see my handiwork in the picture below!

It snowed and the chore time doubled

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We are going to have a White Christmas this year. It is always amazingly pretty to see all the snow, it blankets the ground and covers all the imperfections. Unfortunately, it brings its own set of problems. Everything is harder as I now have to slog through six inches of snow. I attempted to shovel the sidewalks and a couple of paths through the yard but was unable to find a snow shovel. I was positive we had one in the wood shed, I was wrong. I ended up using a broom to clean off all the walkways, cars and front porch. I also looked for the extra 50# bag of ice melt I “knew” we had left over from last year. Nope, it was nowhere to be found.

After creating paths, cleaning off the walkway and a path all the way out to the cars I cleaned off the cars themselves. It got just over freezing so I was hoping the snow would melt after I cleaned it off. I was fairly successful with this technique. Now that didn’t include the time I ended up on my keister after my feet become horizontal faster than my body. I hooked my car battery up to the charger. We just got the car back from the auto body shop and the next day it would not start. Now it was a very cold morning so I am not ruling out a bad battery after sitting idle for 3 weeks but the charger will let us know if it is truly dead or they didn’t get something hooked up correctly.

When I made it out to the barn, there was a new set of twins and a very jumpy mother. I tried to casually sort out the mother with little success. There were four ewes with white and black heads. I finally managed to corral them all into a corner and jump on a white and black headed ewe. I was wrestling her to the ground and trying to pin her down when I realized she was the wrong one. I gave up trying to catch her in the barn and opened up the chute, about half the mothers crowded in. The one I wanted foolishly followed them and I was able to wade in and snag her. The trouble was I had her babies in the main barn and she was stuck in the chute. I ended up just heaving her over the pen wall into the baby area. It was a struggle to get her over the wall. I snagged both babies and dropped them over with her. I found one under the feeder again! I had stuffed more straw under the feeders but the sheep keep dragging it out and the babies keep laying under it. Next summer I will be installing boards so that the sheep cannot get under the feeders. I just need to make a spot where the cats can get in so no mice have a predator free zone.

Next was driving the tractor up to the boneyard to drop off the ram carcass. I had to use speed, four wheel drive and positrack, to get up the back hill. We have a good six inches of snow on the ground. I was able to get up the hill after a couple of tries. On the way down the dogs and I stopped to let the mommas out to water and to lock Mika into the old milking area. It is now covered in straw and she will be spending the days and nights in there to keep her hoof dry while it heals. She does not like this so I will let her out this evening to go drink while I do the sheep chores and then lure her back with food and grain. The horses and sheep are very compliant when you offer them grain.

Next was clearing the driveway down to the road of snow. I like to do this whenever we have any significant amount of snow. This comes from living somewhere with lots of snow. Always count on the next day bringing more snow so you need to get it removed every day or it will get away from you. I also need to move a large bale of hay down to the cows. This is very hard when the snow is deep. I drug and pushed a path all the way down to the cow gate. I then got the dogs and pushed a bale down to the gate. The dogs were placed just inside the open gate to keep the cows from escaping and bum rushing the hay bale. I pushed the bale to the far end and wrestled the feed panels around it so the cows could not stomp it all into the snow. This should keep them happy for the next five to seven days. Mouse decided that he needed to save me instead of guard the gate. He is still a little too eager we need another year to mellow him out. By this time I am cold to the bone and headed back inside to warm up.

I needed to get Annmarie’s birthday present finished. I had a custom cutting board made for the kitchen insert out of Madrone with black walnut accents. The problem was I gave the measurements incorrectly. I measured from the 1 inch mark and forgot to subtract that extra inch. I took it out and ripped 3/8 inch off each edge and sanded it back down. I will use one of the cut off pieces to add a lip on the front of the cutting board. The lip is so when Annmarie lays it on the counter to use as a bread making board it won’t slide forward. I just need to get some black walnut 1/4 inch pegs to make this happen. I put it in place and put a bow on it as today is Annmarie’s birthday. She is miserably sick and has slept most of the day. We had to cancel our birthday dinner plans for tonight.

When I went out do do evening chores there were another set of just born twins! These are tiny little babies and both were wet. I ended up chasing everyone else out of the barn and laying down straw in the stair area. It’s its own area that we normally don’t use. I made a thick layer of straw and put hay and grain in it. I snagged both babies and dropped them into the straw. She came right in but kept running out when I tried to shut the gate. I finally managed to get the gate shut on the three of them. Hopefully, she will finish cleaning everyone up and be well bonded by the morning. No way those two twins would have survived the ram.

It’s supposed to snow some more tonight!

Chores

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Today was catchup day. This needs to happen every once in a while. The cows needed food but I didn’t want to go outside twice into the cold. So I held off going out until early afternoon and I could do all the chores at once.

We had our first set of twin lambs two weeks ago, then a second set a week later and a third set two days ago and another set today! Eight babies from four deliveries is mighty nice. The babies don’t know to be scared of humans and are very curious. Today this little nugget would not leave me alone and tried to follow me out of the barn as I was trying to shut all the mommas and untagged babies into the baby area. They are very cute and cuddly at the one week old mark. The ones born today were born this afternoon outside. They were still wet and the momma had not delivered the afterbirth yet. She was super flighty so I ended up having to close off the end of the barn and use her babies as bait to get her into the barn. We usually throw the afterbirth outside the barn window and the cats or magpies eat it.

The vet came out to the house yesterday and cut away the affected portion of Mika’s hoof. The White Line disease came back but its not near as bad as last time. An added bonus was not having to haul the horse into the vet clinic. We are still searching for an affordable used stock trailer.

The dogs have to help when I feed the cows. Especially, when the cows think they are starving. There was still a little alfalfa left where the feeder should of been. The cows had tipped the feeder over, I suspect that was the work of the bull. If I don’t take the dogs the cows will not stay back and let me put the collapsible feeder around the large bale. Its hard to move the feeder around when 13 cows are bum rushing the bale of feed.

I took the time today to dig out a loading platform out of the hillside. It actually looked like there night have been one there in the past. It doesn’t have a fancy platform but you can back a trailer up to it and load a piece of equipment onto the trailer. We may need it for the old tractor we sold and since the ground is not frozen solid yet I figured today was the day to make it happen. Especially since I think it will snow before Christmas. I even fed Bob in the machine shop. He has been sneaking down to Donna’s to get extra food. I saw one of the new feral adult cats in the window of the barn two days ago when I went to feed. Other than that I have not seen any of the three new cats. One died a mysterious death. Annmarie spotted another dead cat down on the main road. We honestly think its an owl or hawk. We have a resident hawk that is now coming up to the house and flying over all the time. It hollers and screams when it sees the dogs or cats or humans. We are the interlopers in its world.

I have had to change the way I am billing feed for the chicken spread sheet. Now that I cannot store large quantities of food (thank you mice) I can store up to 200 pounds in two large metal trash cans. I am just expensing out the feed for the month I buy it even if it goes halfway through the next month. I did manage to collect seven eggs today from 25 chickens. I usually do about 33% production rate in the winter so 8 eggs is what I would like to collect on a daily basis this Winter, not quite there yet.

There is one pregnant ewe that is almost as wide as she is long. It is a sight to see. I sure hope she only has triplets and that they are all alive. I didn’t have very good luck last year with keeping the ewe I had to pull lambs from alive. I have a 50% survival rate after pulling lambs from two separate ewes in the last eight years. Honestly, only having had to do it twice is pretty amazing considering we have had over 300 babies.

There have been several Mountain lions killed in the immediate vicinity of our farm. There is not even snow on the ground yet. We suspected one was hanging around the barn last winter so hopefully this year will be a better year or I might have to get a tag.

I am getting ready for the house floor tile install. I ordered screws off of Amazon and some extra driver bits oh and I did do a little Christmas shopping online and all of that will be here by in three days!! It is truly amazing how fast a purchase can get to us in rural America. Annmarie reminded me I need to calculate how much grout is needed and get it ordered. It takes two weeks to show up and its a custom order. So I will get that ordered next week.

Guests are coming

Steve Hardin1 Comment

It has been one of those weeks, long and stressful. Luckily, the farm has not been cooperating either so it helps break up the daily stress. We have been feeding the kenneled cats out in the barn but it appears that something is eating their food through the bars of their cages. We suspect a raccoon but don’t have any proof. I am going to have to set up the game cam to see if we can capture something. The cats really don’t care for humans, the single one today hissed and growled at me as I gave it water and food. I am hoping it will beat up on whatever is damaging our barn kitty. He is back to hobbling around on three legs and it looks like something bit his front left paw.

Annmarie printed a knob for our gate latch last week and I got it epoxied onto the handle. Now you don’t have to reach over the gate to unlatch the gate. Yes, I know I need to take the chisel and make my chewed up area look neat, but I have not done that and its too cold to put stain on the fence now. I also figured I could adjust the gate just by tightening and loosening the gate tension wire. Its super easy and fast, not sure why I didn’t do it before.

Wednesday I went out and did morning chores. Now this is not a normal occurrence, our new deal is I don’t leave for work until I have showered, pottied the dogs and fed them breakfast. I do all this so that Annmarie can do her Yoga in the morning. Every morning Gizmo comes down and does stretches next to Annmarie while she does Yoga, it is very cute. I keep trying to figure out how to get a picture that will be allowed to be posted on the blog. But so far I have not managed to capture one for public consumption. But we just had Hughes Net install satellite internet on Monday afternoon and Annmarie was on the phone with the help desk trying to get it to work right. She has spent about 4 hours this week on the phone getting it programmed right so that it actually works. So anyways, I volunteered to do the morning chores before heading to work. It had rained the previous night and I didn’t bother with mud boots. I just planned on giving the horses some food and letting the sheep out of the barn. I ended up having to feed and water the cats after feeding the horses. I was just about ready to go around and open the door to the barn for the sheep when I heard that sound, the bleet of a baby sheep! I scanned the barn and found a set of newborn twins. So I slowly walked into the barn, hoping the ram would not take offense, and pushed the sheep toward the door without upsetting momma enough to cause her to leave also. Luckily, I was able to single her and the babies out. I figured I might as well feed for that night since I was already out there working. Annmarie finally came out I was taking so long! The babies are solid black. We don’t have any solid black ewes yet and today we checked and they are both girls. My shoes were covered in sheep and mud leavings. I had to go change my shoes before heading to work.

Here is a picture of our safe. We do not know the combination and we want to be able to get into the safe with a combination. It is a four tumbler design with a wheel that goes to 99 so basically 10,000 possibilities. I am offering $100 for the person that gets it. I am sure I will have droves of offers. No damaging the safe during entry, straight combination only.

Today we went to town to get Thanksgiving groceries. We are having prime rib and fixings. The first store only had boneless prime rib. This deprives you of a whole second meal! It can be barbecued ribs or an amazing soup but it is always better the second time around. So we went to Safeway and had them cut us a 10# bone in prime rib, for the seven of us eating. I think it will be just enough meat. We do a salt casket bake and I will start doing a dry rub on the meat starting tomorrow until D-Day.

I spent the morning putting a new kitchen table together. I hate assembly furniture but we wanted to try out a new arrangement and we like it. Its a two person table with storage. I now need to make a custom table based off of this design and we will buy a solid piece of granite for the top. Annmarie will be able to bake and roll out dough very easily on a solid piece of granite.

So when we got home Annmarie ran out to run the momma into the barn in her area then the sheep into the main barn. As I was unloading groceries in the house Annmarie came in to tell me that there were cows in the wheat field. This sucks, but the good news was they were not ours! So we had to go try and put them into the upper prime pasture until we could figure out who owned them. They would not cooperate. Annmarie was way out in the wheat field attempting to yell directions to me. Now this would work better if she had her cell phone, nope, or if the person she was talking to was not a little hard of hearing. To top it all off, I had the dogs and kept yelling directions to them and it was cold so I had a big warm fuzzy hat with ear flaps on covering up my ears. It was very hard to hear her. She wanted me to get in the pickup and drive around and she did not want the dogs. So I did this and then spotted her head lamp from the road and walked out into the wheat field. She hollered at me to stay put and she would walk out to me. When she arrived she stated the cows had gone into the upper weed patch and she had shut the gate. There was some animals scratching at a bush along the fence line and she didn’t want to walk past it with no dog and no weapon. I really need to burn off the upper weed patch. Hopefully, the cows will still be there in the morning. The fence is not intact all the way around that field. This chewed up about 90 minutes of our time. We had some leftovers while sitting at our new breakfast nook and I was working on the blog when Sarah called.

Sarah had hit a deer. Sarah is 21 years old. Sarah has totaled 4 vehicles now. In her defense this time a driver going the opposite direction hit a deer and threw it into her lane and she ran over it. The radiator is caved in about 6 inches, the timing belt is off and the frame is bent on the front. There is deer hair stuck under the vehicle the entire length of the undercarriage. We had tossed a chain into the back of the pickup and Annmarie towed the car while I drove it back to our house. I am very unsure if it is repairable. I will need to look at it in the daylight hours. It leaked all the radiator fluid out onto the road.