Last week we did get a lot of stuff done. I was able to “mow” the front hillside with the animals. Normally one would think our new front fence would be sufficient, but it is not. Both the young Border Collie and Border Terrier can get past the fence, one jumps on top of it and drops just past the fence in the little spot before the rocks, the other just crawls through it. This meant we needed to get them locked up in the back garden area. They can run out into the orchard, lavender patch and back garden area. Chance, Border Collie, figured out how to jump through gate so we blocked that, then she learned to jump in the corner next to the post so she can jump on top of the gate, this requires a little scrambling but the upright post helps her stabilize. Once settled on top she just jumps down. Gingerman and I installed a cattle panel onto the top of the gate that raises it another two feet, she cannot jump it now.
Once that was done it was safe for the animals to come into the front hillside. I didn’t count on the cows liking it so much that they came in every day. It took about a week for everyone to knock it down sufficiently. Of course there were consequences, the cows broke a part of the plastic irrigation pipe that took me a few days to figure out. I could not figure out why there was a swamp in the making in one area and that same side was not getting watered. The dogs loved the swampy area, it’s cool and muddy.
We sold the last horned brown Dexter cow we owned. She was the nicest of the batch but compared to the black ones she was the craziest we had on the farm. She was very pregnant and a proven mother about six years old. We sold her for $1800. The price of cattle currently is crazy. We have of course cut the herd down dramatically last year. We will only have three cows for slaughter next year. We only have five female cows left. Our bull will come off the group at the end of the month. We will pull the rams off the sheep at the same time.
The fruit continues to come on at an unrelenting pace. Gingerman went up with me to pick yellow plums. Using the tractor as a platform is more efficient than a ladder. Plus, I get to steer and not pick fruit! We picked about 40# of plums and Annmarie made jam. We gave a large portion away and will just let the rest drop to the ground. The sheep will clean them all up.
Sunday became the day the Gingerman and I would tag and band calves. I went out and started picking our tame blackberries. They are getting picked about every four days now and we just had a hot spell which they loved. Gingerman came out and helped me finish up, we picked two half flats full of blackberries. I have a running total of how many blackberries we have collected to date, when the season is over I will add it all up, it’s a lot!
The Gingerman had brought his four wheeler over and I took the tractor out to herd the cows into the barn lot. We locked the horse up with some food in the lamb shed so she would be content. If we keep her out she wants to help and in reality she is no help at all. We got the cows pushed down fairly easily. I did notice that the spring in field #3 is dried up. There is no water coming out of the ground in the middle of the field. There is a small spring in the corner that is still running but that one has always ran since we have been here. I did notice that the golden plum tree actually has plums! I checked them today and they have about another week before they are ready. We will give some seeds to the Gingerman and hopefully he can propagate some new trees from seed. The plum tree is probably at least 80 years old. The plums are quite sweet when they are ripe. Our Italian Plum tree has antoher 1-2 weeks before they are ready and there is at least another week on the nectarines. Those are the last of our fruit trees that will need to be harvested. We are quickly running out of freezer space for the fruit. We have an entire standup freezer stuffed full of fruit and there may be just enough room for the nectarines. We will need to take out the tomatoes and process them to make that open space.
We got the cows all pushed into the corral and after sorting off two cows I latched the gate loosely and one of the brown cows pushed it open. Now we had contaminated our keeper group and were going to have to run everyone back through the chute and sort them again. Right after that happened I looked up and the Gingerman was standing fairly awkward. One of the brown cows had bum rushed him and ran into his knee directly or kicked his sorting board and that clubbed him into his right knee. He limped for the rest of the cow fiasco and is currently laying down on the couch with his extremity elevated and an ice pack applied.
We ear tagged the girl first, it went fairly smoothly. The next one was the smaller boy calf. He did not cooperate. We managed to get him banded (both testicles were verified present) and tagged without getting any cow poop on us. I consider this a significant win. Unfortunately, we saved the largest calf for last.
On our way to the ground we both managed to get covered in cow poop. It went downhill from there. The calf had virtually no scrotum. There was only room for one testicle. So we had to just keep trying to get the band on and both testicles pushed through. It took about ten minutes to get both testicles contained.
I mowed weeds with the Kubota because the parts for the John Deere bucket have not arrived. I mowed until the tractor heated up then came back to the shop and cleaned out the dust and weed debris. I also killed all of the puncture vine that was growing in the driveway. I had already sprayed and killed one wave. All in all it was productive despite the weather.
I came home early on Monday so Mr Rainman and I could sort the cows. We wanted to wean off the babies and move them down with the teenagers, then sort off the bull and put him in Alcatraz, pull six horned cows off the herd and load up into the trailer to go to the sale first thing Tuesday morning, and let the other momma cows go toward the upper pastures. This was all preceded by getting the cows into the corral. Despite three attempts the two of us could not drive the cows toward the corral. We need the arena panels to go across the spring access in the barn lot, the cows just kept breaking around us.
I went into the house and retrieved the border collie Chance so that the cows would move. There were some explicitly worded commands given once she started to ignore me. Eventually, we got the cows into the corral. Mr Rainman had just finished the last of the repairs on the corral on Monday and it worked. We managed to get six of the horned devils into the trailer.
They were dropped off at the auction house and the check for their sale already came to the house! It was pretty much what I expected for cows who are old and just had calves weaned off the day before. The important part is that they are no longer on the farm. The herd was already calmer once we got the crazy out of the group.
We are back to having to do nightly feeding of the sheep in the barn again. They take seven bales spread out amongst the feeders. I set out 10 bales initially and figured out what they could eat in a day from that. There are a couple of bales in the feeders that they don’t particularly like so if they want to nibble on something they are there. I had forgotten the cardinal rule of feeding the sheep at night, chase all the sheep out first and shut the door of the barn before feeding. The first night was total chaos with the sheep running around and jumping on the bales as I attempted to unwrap them to load them into the feeders. A couple of the bales had to stay on the floor as I could not get them away from the sheep. I now follow the cardinal rule when feeding and it is a lot more organized and a lot faster.
Well I got the cows to the butcher and we will be eating #34, his carcass weight was 370#. I will smile every time we have beef for the next year.
On Saturday we were going to make apple butter. My mother had given us about 25 gallons of apples so I wanted to make a big batch. Annmarie had to go to work so I was left alone. I just kept filling up the huge pot we had on the stove. Once Annmarie was back and added my requested “triple normal spice amount” and we tasted the concoction it was decided that another 16# of apples were needed. By the time we taste tested the mixture to perfection the poor pot only had a couple of inches of empty space at the top. We ended up canning almost three gallons in half pints and still had two gallons leftover. Out came the large yogurt containers and we ended up filling eight of those. In about fifteen minutes of texting I had them all given away. With the beef coming we did not want more stuff in our freezer and we have plenty canned!
Sunday I worked on the corral. I dug out the dirt and weeds around the loose railroad ties, then mounded gravel around them. I used a seven foot breaker bar to drive the gravel in around the posts. I was able to tighten up all but two. The post on the end by the gate that took the most abuse would only tighten up so much. In an effort to rectify this issue I realized that we had an unused circular pen gate that I thought would fit perfectly in the opening. I brought it over with the tractor and it does indeed fit in the opening with zero modifications. I ordered some all-thread, nuts and washers so that I could weld a piece of 1/2” pipe on the end of the all-thread. I will then drill a hole all the way through the railroad tie and install one above and below the attachment points on the gate. I am then going to drop a piece of half inch rebar down the entire side and duplicate this on both sides of the gate. This will tie the entire gate and pen together at its weakest point. I am too old to be working that breaker bar for an hour. I had to rest between posts.
We have combined all of the sheep. The ewes that were fat and we thought pregnant have not given birth and are way past when they should have had babies. So all the sheep and the rams are mixed together. Annmarie and I went over last week to look at a place in Hermiston that someone wants grazed down. This weekend I am taking the sheep over and with a few hours of fence repair they should be good for at least a month. The field is all green grass about a foot height. The field is pretty wet so anything heavier than sheep would cause divots in the field. This will help us both out. I will definitely have to count sheep before we go as I am not even sure how many we have!
I have been working on the Gazebo after work. I have managed to get a cable up near the top of the pillars shaped like a hexagon. We are going to string lights from the cable. I would have got that done today but I realized I did not have any small zip ties. I also need a short extension cord. It is going to look pretty cool at night with the lights in it.
We are also now starting to plan our downstairs bathroom remodel. We needed some more tile and are going to go with one that looks like linen wall paper. I measured the bathroom and Annmarie drew it up in a CAD program so we could see the layout. We can get all of the Schluter parts to create a waterproof base to lay all of the tile on in Hermiston from the same store as the tile. We want to get a custom granite top cut for the vanity like we did upstairs. The vanity was a wash station from Annmarie’s grandmother. I will have to modify the top drawer to accommodate the plumbing. Once we get the sheep moved I will be able to load up the vanity into pickup and go to the Tricities to find someone who can create the top.
This really wasn’t my day all week. We have had a plugged tub drain since Sunday. I have poured two different treatments of lye down it. I have used the plunger and unknown amount and then used an industrial concentrated size Liquid Plumber. I did manage to get the water to trickle drain after purchasing a $20 rotosnake to try and clean out the drain. I could not make the second ninety degree corner with the snake no matter what I did. So Annmarie and I each took a shower and the water did not drain. On Tuesday, I called for a plumber and was able to get a service time on Thursday afternoon. We both ended up showering at our mother’s houses. I even crawled under the house one evening and looked for a clean out to use the rotosnake in, there are none under the house.
Today is Thursday and the plumber came out early in morning while I was in town. He called and said it was fixed about 20 minutes after saying he was headed out to our house from Pendleton. The reason the water would not drain was because the tub drain lever had gotten moved to the closed position! I have not taken a bath in over 30 years and it simply never occurred to me to check especially since Annmarie was gone all weekend. I am grateful the tub drain works. It does work well as I had to clean it today after the mess I had made in it.
I proceeded to go outside and finish the gate extensions on the corral. The two cows that needed to go to the butcher tomorrow are wild and one is the crazy jumper. My helper is out sick so this was a solo job. I was able to sort the four cows in the ram pasture fairly easily. I left one in the back pen and put the other three out in the horse stall area so they could see each other. I was able to get the rest of the herd into the barn lot pretty easily. I needed to get crazy #34 into the trailer, that cow had jumped out of the corral twice in the last year and avoided getting slaughtered both times. Now that the corral gate and wall extensions were completed I figured it was a done deal. I figured wrong.
I had to call Annmarie to come help me and to bring the border collie. I guarded the area leading to the spring because the temporary panels I normally use are in two separate places doing other jobs. The spring area needs to rebuilt after the flooding and I just have not done it. After five tries the cows went into the back barn area. It still took us several more tries to get number 34 into the corral with eight other cows. The one cow I had already sorted off was too small. There were two huge steers in the corral now so we proceeded to try and sort everyone off. We got it down to just those two and then got them into the chute but one ran into the trailer, turned around and can back into the chute causing a pissing match between two angry steers. They ended up popping the gate into the third offset pen in the corral. I had not extended that small gate as the cows were not supposed to go in there this time.
By the time I got around Annmarie was hollering that the cow was stuck. Yep, #34 had tried to jump the gate and got his front foot jammed down beside the gate on top of the gate hinge. Despite the cow trying to pull down the fence, no amount of pulling was getting that foot loose. I had tried to push the foot up, then got a rope and tried to pull it up over a board. After about three minutes I placed a frantic call to my nephew who lives a couple of miles away. I think the only thing he understood was I needed help ASAP and it involved a cow as the cow was bellowing and shrieking two feet from me. I was able to pull back on the railroad tie while #43 was trying to rip it out of the ground. The cow was beyond all reason.
We ended up putting two ropes over its head, one was perfect and went over the horns but the other went over one horn and the cow’s neck. At this point not getting gored through the corral fence was barely possible. We tied off both ropes to separate railroad ties. I unbolted the gate and attempted to get it off the hinges. Crazy #43 managed to kick it off and then fight the ropes. We had to take a break and get the other cow in the trailer. That crazy cow kept trying to get over the trailer divider the entire time we tried to get #34 into it.
When we went to get #34 in, he got away and managed to get out the downed gate about three feet and now truly raising hell as he could sense freedom. I ended up using the tractor to push him back through the gate and then got one of the ropes stuck under a tire. Annmarie had to cut the rope. Luckily, it was the old rope, not the brand new one she had gotten out of the tack room. We managed to get the rope tightened down and the gate open to the chute. #34 ran down the chute by himself and Annmarie slammed the door shut. There are still two ropes around him that will not be back until after the steers get butchered. The trailer looks like a bouncy house with both steers in it. We put an extra strap across the back and left it backed into the corral.
This is a stupid problem. We are definitely going to be taking every single crazy cow to the auction in the next month. Once the calves are weaned. We need calmer cows. The corral is hard to jump from one area to the next. You have to climb a seven foot wall every time!
While I was moving cows I noticed that the white ram in Alcatraz had some abrasions on his forehead. I fed them then went around to the back of the pen and noticed that the gates were falling down! I did not have time to fix it so a little redneck twine was utilized. It only needs to hold for another day.
Stewart Creek Somethings 