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that hay is getting slumpy

laughing



Old barley straw mound 'bales'. AKA pain in the ass....


Running it through a processor just trying to clean up a mess. The cows love it though, I was surprised.


They eat up their actual feed in a couple hours, the straw is a good time killer and helps keep 'em happy.

Putting it out on some sandy irrigated ground. Try and build up the soil a little with manure and straw.

cows are funny

And here I thought I had a big driveway! OMG - I hope you fellas get more mechanized soon. Great stuff! Yes, those cows are a funny breed. I show the wife the pics and she calls it "reality ranching".

Shoveling snow for 10 feet sucks. For 12 - 14 miles is insane! lol

Guess I'll quit whining about my 300 ft of drive way. Geezus!

I can honestly say I’ve never shoveled a bit of snow in my life!!!


I have made a lot of hundred degree days working outside.

Might need an uber fiskars maul for this...grin







Had a serious hankering for a 28" or so bar but the little 18er got it cut....eventually.. Laffin

Got a summer's supply of tommy hawk blocks now.....

Ben

Was 66deg when I went to work at 5:45 this am. Working away in the shop and we hear the south wind stop, then all the sudden it turns out of the north and comes a hammering down on us. Dropped from 60 something to 27deg in less than a half an hour and was raining buckets quickly switching to freezing slush. So I got to feed this evening in the screaming north wind with ice all over everything, thank god for the tractor shed so the seat was dry. Cows were happy to have a double up on cake and an extry bale. I was happy to get back into a warm pickup. Made me think of you guys up north for a minute. Supposed to be a second helping of this schit coming tomorrow. We could sure use the rain we been getting, we just prefer it stay liquid.

As a side note I was thinking about while I was rolling out a bale today. All my life my Grandad has worn hearing aides and been pretty deaf, he claims and likely rightly so, that it’s from riding open cab tractors forever. Yet when he bought a brand new JD a few years back he insisted on cabless and I noticed today that the dang thing doesn’t even have a muffler on the stack, it’s loud as hell even in the wind. Guess he’s not worried about hearing loss anymore.

Ben, how was the center of that old cottonwood?

You'll be in good shape after splitting that one up!

I cheat and split that stuff when it's good and cold, makes quite a difference.

You guys ever get plowed out?




Kid, I'll take powder over ice any day, that stuff sucks! March is usually when we hit the icy/slush season.

Watching the news right now and it looks like a mess in the 'midwest through the mideast'.....

Starting out at -20F again today, cabs are handy when chopping hay and straw for 3-4 hours every morning!


Yesterday.

Yeah Sam they plowed yesterday afternoon.... Fixing to go town now. I'm with you on powder over ice. At least powder you can plow through mostly.

-32 this morning

Love the vids Sam!

Tropical this morning.

It was like 30 below in town...only 20 below out here.

Oh my! We are iced up here, but it's just a few degrees below freezing. Supposed to be 60 again by this weekend. I don't mind any of it as long as we don't lose power and we don't have some damned tree fall on the house.

Damn.

It was 72 here.

But that front blew through and now it's cooled down to 64*...

Y'all hang in there. Spring's a comin'.

Ben and Jim, you guys are in the bulls eye for the cold air almost every morning. North central MT has been uber cold.

Usually we are colder than you guys and North Dakota is colder than us but not this year.


Tzone, I think the short days have messed with my sanity.....grin



Barry, I was just talking to a local rancher and he is due to start calving bred heifers on March 1st...

I guess it's going to warm up a little next week but I'm still nervous and we shouldn't start until March 10th or so.

May first Baby! Yeah, the calves will be smaller....calving in May.

I can live with that.


To hell with this cold nonsense.

That's still pushin' it this year...

You called it this year Jim!



Hell last year I was wishing we were calving in February. Temps were in the 30-50's....

But of course every few years you get one like this.

Ran out of No.1 dyed diesel in my little tank so we went to town the other night and filled the transfer tank on the pickup. Had a store bought dinner for the 5 of us. Was okay.

Got that pickup running again this afternoon and Daniel boy and I went around and fueled up the various tractors needed.

Road patrol, auger tractor, and two loaders. Road patrol and auger tractor are up at dad's, one loader is at my place and the other loader is out south where the cows are.


Went out south and fueled up that tractor and let Daniel boy out to play in the snow in the haystack.

That boy loves the cold and snow...pretty good for 2 years old.


I get done and walk over to see what he is up to....follow his tracks you know!


I holler over to him and he comes back a ways, then stops and says "birdie!".

I look up and a golden eagle is right in front of me...flaring out not more than 20 feet away. Big sumbitch.


I looks down and I schit you not a full sized white jack rabbit runs through my legs to safety in the hay bales.

Damnedest thing I ever saw.