More boring water videos........its all I do now!


Sorry for the language. And being upside down.

What, no fine crystal? Barbarian!

Water running uphill Jim?

Always good to love your job😁

Jim, I start feeling that way about April.......grin

Tough love, Jim..crackin me up.....

You suck right nah, but youre gonna taste great!!

Sweet tanker setup.

We bought that trailer about a month ago, just knowing that it was going to get bad.

Now people are scrambling for trailers.

It holds 10,500 gallons and is really short. Terribly overweight on the highway, but handy on the ranch.

Hey, you didn't clean out the dirt before dumping in the water! It'd be a hoot to edit that in with some police body cam footage.

[video:youtube][/video]

Jim,

So this isn't the usual summer routine? The drought is that bad you're hauling water?

Those were some thirsty cattle, they sure were happy about that truck showing up.

Casey

You flung a cravin' on me. I'm going to my local steakhouse tomorrow!

RS

And super handy in case of a fire.....

Pavlov's steers know the sound of that tractor now.

Good lord they ate the trees !!!

No, never had to haul water before.

I could make a pile of money every day hauling water to the various fires around the state. Its a tough damn year.

Good man! Take your friends!

A nice, leisurely drive through the trees........

This is my kind of cow!!!

Damn. Haulilng water sucks. Might as well be a dairy farmer. In both situations, you are married to those cows.

You need a dog to keep those cows off the tanks until you have them filled up.

I should take one of those knothead dogs with me.

Looks like you have a tasty life.

BTDT and it is not easy.

You talk big, Jim, but I can tell you really love them cowies!

Drought is a depressing SOB.

After ranching in the desert for years, and during the horrible drought, no less, I have learned a thing or two about water and cattle.

If you need a couple of methods as alternative to hauling water, shoot me a PM. It doesn't take long to get tired of cost and trouble of hauling water, for sure.

They do look tasty!

Great videos! Hookin up the "tree inch." LOL.

That's what happens when you try to grow cows where it doesn't rain (that's what more than a few of the 'Fire would think)

Wishing you rain

some years ago, very hot summer, and uncle rode out with his son in a water truck for the cows. While son was out of the truck, uncle was in theh passenger seat and had a heart attack. That finished him. We always thought it was kind of poetic for an ol cattleman, to kack while watching the cows water.

Not as handy as them cows. Enough there for everyone to eat on if there is fire.

Where are you getting water? Is it a long haul?

Not too far. Pumping out of a drain ditch next to town. About 16 miles round trip.

Dang! I hope you guys get rain soon and lots of it. Just not all at once of course.

Well Jim, we might be hauling water as well. Just a small bunch though, not near on your scale.

We have 40 pair in a little pasture close to home. Spring fed creek runs right down the middle of it and for the first time anyone can remember she is getting scary low.


I was up there yesterday moving them back where they are supposed to be(some assshole snuck in a left a gate open....) and couldn't believe how low it is.


This is just a fuucked up deal all the way around.

But hey, crop adjuster said we might average 8 bushel on the spring wheat!

I saw FIVE clouds today. Not plumes. Clouds. Saw plumes YESTERDAY.

Sheesh. Wish it would rain. I hate this.

It can rain on Thursday.

We've got a 100 acres of hay to bale up first!

Even by Montana standards, doing that sort of work while walking on your hands is a bit showey, no?

Never fails...

Cut hay, or wash your pickup.

Jim has always been unafraid to show off....

We had a bit of rain, but been really dry since June.. Hope things turn around for you folks..

Perfect drying weather so I went buck wild on the swather last week. Clipped off 100 acres of alfalfa and around 30 acres of hay barley. Normally don't have that much laying on the ground all at once but rolled the dice.

Did I hear in the third video that the reason the cows won't drink from the pond is that it's a bit salty?

Sam, how is the hay compared to what would pass for normal?

In the case I haven't said it alreadyJim, I love the videos!

Richard, this is all second cutting alf('cept for the barley) that has been flood irrigated so it's in good shape.

Not super tonnage but should be in the 1.5-2 ton/acre range.

Get the bales off and the water back on ASAP!


Lot's of work but hay is money this year.

Keep plugin' away Sam, what you lose on the peanuts, you make up on the popcorn. That is to mean, some years are better than others. Any idea how much water per acre you put out?

Richard, no complaints here, it's been a great year for growing irrigated alfalfa.


We have flow meters and my dad records the usage.


Two pumps going putting out a combined 4500 gpm and we can flood not quite an acre/hour on the alfalfa. Corn ground can take a little longer.

Figure 20 acres a day.


324,000 gallons per acre?


That sounds like a lot but considering how much is flowing on by it's a literal drop in the bucket.

And hey, people are worried about the oceans rising anyway....

Not totally sure yet. We sent off a water sample this morning. There is a lab a couple towns over in Big Sandy.

If it turns out that the water is indeed bad, I am still not going to apologize to the cows. They got an ass chewing coming most of the time.

It can be a real heart break on these dry years. Some folks rely on stock ponds, and sometimes they go bad. Like kill your cows bad. They you got miles of grass and no water!

If you are half clever and three quarters dumb you haul water like me.

That sucks you might have to start hauling water Sam.

Not much other choice this year I guess. Would be different if the dry area was small, could haul the herd to an area with water and grass. Guys around here used to haul to Tioga ND once in a while.

Seems like no one has any to spare this year.

Not much different than yesterday. I thought some of you guys might get a kick out of an old Peterbilt.

East bound and down, loaded up and truckin .....

Ha! It should be. Just the standard old Peterbilt hood grab.

We have a pair of old Mack dump trucks with the bull dogs on the hood.

Yeah I went full screen and saw that it was a grab. Then edited my question out.

Checked out some of your other "documentary" vids. Reminds me of my time working summers for some ranchers that used to live across the street. Minus the freezing temps and snow mind you.😁👍

I'll post this again.

I have tagged my father, the years back, hauling water to cattle, and done a bit myself. You do what you have to do.

old truckers never die. They just get a new Peterbilt.

Guys in our neck of the woods lost a lot of cattle a couple years ago. Educated minds said it was the water after we had a long dry spell. I believe I heard what exactly was in the water, but I sure don't remember now. Along with dead stock, a lot more dry cows than normal.

It appears your windshield wiper is looking up to see if he's going to be needed anytime soon

No water table you can tap with a windmill or pump?

Sweet old Pete!

We might get the results in a day or two. I will make sure to post the results here.

That was my Dad's first nice truck. Before that he was using old IH's.

The big IH did not have what they call a "working fifth", where there is only like 250 rpm between 4th and 5th.

The Pete does have a working fifth. It was always a little dicey trying to figure out which was which. Plus the IH's 4th gear was over and up, where the Pete was over and down.

Those old gears are nice and polished now!

Yes, but it is pretty deep and expensive. Takes quite some time to get a well driller on site.

Part of the trouble is that we are grazing fields that are not usually grazed or are not grazed intensively.

That's some big country!

Let me know if you want to sell that old Chevy P/U!

Ha! I will keep you in mind!

C/20 4x4?

1972 three quarter ton 4x4. TH 350 with a 350 4bbl carb.

I think it has 57,000 miles on it now.

Bought it a couple years ago from my well driller for 1100 bucks.

Its as straight as any original 72 I have seen.

I've been helping a buddy rebuild one that came from Eastern Washington. I've always wanted one. Let me know if you run into another.

I loved cuzzin' Jimmy's trucking videos so much that I was inspired to copycat.


Couple hours ago...

My that silage corn looks low. Drought?

I've got a big GM straight six in the barn that I cut out of a 63 before scrapping. It had been rebuilt and then parked. I'm pretty sure it's the same engine behind the school busses that most of us rode.

Kingston, that corn is shorter than it should be. The edges are really short because the fertilizer guys ran a rotary machine and I think the edges didn't the full dose of nitro.

But the entire field is behind simply because we had to flood it to get it sprouted. Had it planted on time but the ground had been pre-worked and there wasn't enough moisture on top to get it all going. Waited around for a couple weeks hoping for a rain while we were flooding alfalfa but the rain never came. Sucked flooding a field with hardly anything growing on it but we had no other choice. Minimal plants growing makes the water run faster and you don't get a nice even spread. And we were worried about a big heat wave coming right after watering. That can create a hard crust on the surface and the corn has trouble breaking through.

In this country the old saying for corn is knee high by the Fourth of July. Most of that corn might have been 6" tall a month ago, most of it is must be 5-6' tall now. Hope we luck out and get a late freeze....


And normally we'd have that hay barley up and baled about 3-4 weeks ago as well. Screwed up year.

Sammo, thanks for the explanation. I'd never heard of flooding a field to get sprout, I wouldn't have imagined you'd have the infrastructure or water resource, petty cool. When so much of the industry has homogenized, the variety of farming practices, techniques, and processes that still exist is pretty amazing. That's why farming will always be farming. Around here, the old adage 'knee-high by the Fourth of July' is also the benchmark.

Has to be done, and one can disperse their utilization patterns. Is tough on equipment if one's roads are not up to snuff. Cuts into ones profit margin just a bit too.

Kingston, we flood irrigate about 270 acres every year. Pump water out of the Missouri River and run it up and into ditches. The fields are all leveled and have border dikes to control the water.

Normally we flood the alfalfa once and the corn twice. This year the alf with get 3x and the corn 3x. A lot of work(compared to center pivots) but that's just the way it is and we are fortunate that so far the river is holding up.



1minute, we've got an old 12E Cat road grader that comes in pretty handy on those roads!

Jim and Sam ....... keep the videos coming.

How many gallons of water does it take to flood 270 acres?

Fair Chase, it'll be the same old boring chit!

20 years ago(before smart phones and little video cameras) I thought it would be neat to record some of the 'wild' stuff we used to do.
(when we were all in our 20's)


From fun to work.

That is about when reality TV started. Now we are all too old and lazy and smart to be very entertaining. Mundane.






Aces, all it takes is 1/100th of one decent snow storm 400 miles away in the mountains.


It also depends on how dry the ground is when you water it, slope, area, etc..

Thanks Sam you guys have a tough way to make a living but a damned respectable one and I'm envious (at times) of a life on horseback in some beautiful country. I hope the agricultural gods smile on you guys and you have a great harvest.

The scenery sure doesn't suck.

Aces, I'm cherry pickin' the scenery man. Rarely on a horse and not enough days out in the big country.


Daily grind here most of the time on a little farm close to town. Hell I live in town and luckily my wife has a good job or I might have to start drinking cheap beer....grin

(but I do love the 'farm')

As long as a guy can afford Budweiser he's rich in many ways. 😉

Touche.




Where's Jim?



Out workin' on a field?



Took the afternoon off and chilled out with my wife.

Halfway drunk here....grin

Lets all do a shot and get Sam to 9/16.

Sam, That's pretty incredible. I had no idea. You'd love cranberry farming where we flood to harvest, flood to winter, and flood to kill pests. The rest of the time the bogs are dry with the water table held 6-12" below the vine (below the surface). Level is key. I just shuttered an operation that had a 60 acre piece that was 8' out of level and a river running through it!

You all can have a shot, I gotta pace myself!



Haul another couple fields tomorrow morning and start the pumps back up.


My dad in the tractor, mom in the truck('74 IH).

They were loading.

I shuttle both old trucks back and forth to the haystack.

Sam, do you like that grapple as well as you might a bale spear?

Richard, to be honest I've never speared a bale so can't say one way or the other.


That 7510 is however almost too light of a tractor to handle +1600lb bales. It has decent rear weights but could use more.


A low houred 7810 would be sweet.

What ever works Sam, I doubt if the cattle care much how the hay was handled.

I just hook onto my 6' shredder, then pick it up in the air...

Great rear ballast.

Handling bales with a grapple really depends on the size of bucket and grapple.

And the angle of the grapple forks.

Picking iced up hay barley or straw bales off a stack and trying to keep the net wrapped bale intact can be a bitch.

The wrap pulls off and sometimes the bales poof, mess.


The 741 loader is a good one. 280 is good.

You should try a machine like this Sam.

I could put tahat loader to work for awhile!

Rockin', hate to have a mower swingin' and bangin' around all the time while loading/stacking.


We bought that 7510 used last winter with 1700 hours and the 3-point had never been used.... Can you believe that?

It has about 1900 hours on it now and the transmission is growling.

Googled it and find JD didn't have enough spline length on a certain shaft for that model tractor.

$2-3k fix if it's done before it blows out and rips a bunch of wiring with it. Then it's $8-10k.

Richard, no PTO and can't pull anything! Almost as bad as buying a skid steer.....grin


Seriously though I'd love a loader like that for cleaning out feed pens.

Damn.

Sounds like it's going to the shop for a bit of the off season.

My 3 point on my 100hp hooks up tight. It has arm adjustment locks to limit the wobble. Don't even swing a little bit.

X2 on a wheel loader. If not a 544, JD 344 (Cat 908) sized machines are super handy. I've got a Case 321D and it's a beast of a machine. Picks up twice what the biggest skid steers will, don't dig everything all to hell, and have tons of visibility.

It's got two different tires on this side, it's not squat in the front. This P/U is nothing. I regularly pick up 7,000 forklifts, side loading them on a flatbed.

Sammo big pimpin

I cut, and pasted that Deere couse' I know Sam's a Deere lover. Our son bought the Cat IT 28 we had together. It has a quicktach, and you don't believe how much you use it till you have it. A loader mostly keeps one tractor tied up anyhow.

I completely agree, a wheel loader is more maneuverable, has faster cycling times, is more comfortable to operate, has better visibility, greatly out lifts a farm tractor with a loader attachment weighing the same, and has greater longevity.

Not to derail your thread...

But you can't pull a round baler with one....



I ran one years ago and they are indeed REALLY handy.


Tried to talk my dad into buying one but he always wants a PTO and puller type tractor.



MFWD tractors are tough to beat for all around hay field use.

Mower, ditcher, diker, baler, loader...

That's fine Kingsmen, that is a nice machine you posted a picture of.

That's fine Kingsmen, that is a nice machine you posted a picture of.

And just like pickups it's always a good idea to have at least 2-3 of them.


Cause they all break down sooner or later.

You can pull a baler, but it's not gonna bale hay!

That truck is on its way to the scrap yard—77k very hard miles and multiple frame repairs.

W-Big,
This is my second of these loaders. I sold the first after buying a CAT Telehandler. It turned out I couldn't live without the loader, so I bought another one and got rid of the Telehandler. I can justify both.

Great video Sam. I love old trucks. I have Grandpa's 56 Ford in the shed.

I use a 78 Ford Louisville, a 75 IH and an 85 IH.

Used to have a bunch of older GM trucks but they left after Grandpa died.


There are a couple IH's sitting over in Poplar that I want to buy. Hired man's dad has them. One is a cabover.....uuuuuuuugly!


I was out driving my combine around a lentil field. Once in a while Richard boy and I would find a lentil to cut. I think the place I am cutting is going to average 6 or 7 bushels.

A nice lentil crop is about 25.

Haha! I owe the cows an apology, but seeing as I still hate them....I think I will hold off a while.

The pond in the pasture from the videos is bad, bad, bad.

PH 8.05
TDS 11172!
Sulfate 7603
Hardness 142
Sodium+POT 3269
Magnesium 447

Gawddamn poison!



So we decided to have another pond tested. Of course in another field with no other water supply.

It pegged the local co-op's TDS meter..........sending it off to the lab.....not optimistic at this point.

No doubt that will be poison too.




Good damn thing I bought that tanker trailer this year......pretty much all my surface water is unsafe to drink. Well at least there is not much surface water.

Jim, what they use to call in the old westerns, "Alkaline water"? Will cattle avoid the bad water if they have a choice?

That sure could be, Alkaline Water.

Yes, the cows wont like the taste of it and avoid it.

Sometimes a poor taste is not a sure sign of the water being bad....just tastes funny to the cows. Especially if they came off a nice clean stock tank with well water. Sometimes they just need to get over being spoiled and drink!

But if a cow wont drink and looks ganted up, its a good sign that the water might be bad. At least you should have it tested.

The ponds in this dry country often go bad. Some producers have lost 20 to 30 head before they figure out the problem.

Even if the water is bad enough to kill them, they will drink it in desperation. Just like folks trapped at sea drinking salt water.

Jim,
What do those numbers mean. I understand ph and hardness (that water must have gravel in it) the others are Greek to me.
Around here there really isn't any bad water, except sulphur, and that is easy to smell.

Does the pond water straighten out with some rain, or does it take a while?
This thread is interesting to me, sorry that you have to deal with it.
This is what keeps me at the 'fire, the huge differences in knowledge and experiences.

The Oregon trail was littered with dead cattle and oxen from Alkaline water. That's too bad Jim, I hope you find good, easy water.

The rest of those numbers are in milligrams per liter.

The TDS stands for total dissolved solids. I think that is also a measure of hardness.

Each mineral has a scale associated with it. Like 25 mg/L of magnesium is good for cattle. Ours is 447 mg/L very very bad!

Is the contamination an unavoidable byproduct of the geology?

A good gully washer will freshen them up, or good run off in the spring from melting snow.

They can turn around quickly if you get enough moisture.

Typically, the ponds get a little crappy up here in the summer and fall, usually not to where they will kill cattle though.

Jim, ever have water founder? The cattle, not you.

Uhh....I think so? If byproduct of geology means the make up of the soil and rocks in and around a pond. Minerals from silt washed into a pond adds to the contamination and so does the bed rock and soil lining a pond.

Run off from saline seeps can cause trouble too.

I suppose other dry areas that dont have an excess of these minerals dont fight water trouble like we do up here.

Fairly common to hear of bad water.

Good man Jim for hauling water to those cows.


My theory is that all the bad chit builds up and stores itself in the ground.


Takes years and years and then you have a few big rain years and it pushes the funk down lower into the hills until it pushes out and either soaks in the low spot or it keeps flowing down the drainage and in this case into a stock dam.


We've had new saline/alkali spots show up in the last couple years. Took record amounts of rainfall to cause them.

They are drying up a little now but the ground only grows weeds and you do not want to drive anything heavy over it.


I've seen guys lose 50-100 acre chunks to alkali.

So far a couple dozen cattle in the county have been killed by blue-green algae.

Not as common as mineral hardness.

I guess the combination of a cold wet year last year and a cold dry spring....with a HOT dry summer has made blue green algae a problem.

We dont have that yet, but they are saying that you cant even let your dog swim in that water.

This thread might be subtitled, "Death Valley Days". Hang in there good men, better days must be coming.

Our saline seeps have been getting worse with chem fallow Sam.

When we were straight tillage, they were much fewer.


Thats part of the reason we have been seeding grass.

X2!

We were moving cows a couple weeks ago and one of my buddies found two calves down in a sinkhole, washout deal.

Mired in mud, said they were still alive but eye's were sunk in. His horse couldn't pull 'em out. I asked if he shot them and he didn't have a gun.

They went back with a 4-wheeler.


Not uncommon for older cows to get bogged in trying to get a drink.

Sam, the sad part of it all. Pulling them out with a chain by the neck is hard to do. most of the time it works. When it does not, you feel like crap.

That mud sticks like glue.

Around here they call that liquid rock.

The old house well would defoliate plants that you wanted to raise but it would not hurt the grass.

Sam, I killed a good steer a few years back, he was stuck over belly deep. Jake said the neck bones were cracking pretty good. The only other thing might have been to dig the steer out with a shovel, and shovel in sand. I hate losing living cattle.

Never take an easy drinkin' good waterhole for granted.

I had a cow fall into an old hand dug sewer.

It was about 8 feet deep.

Found her after about a week and she was skinny.


I was thinking about how I could dig her an escape ramp with the a back hoe, but the it was miles away.

Panicked, I ran over to the hole a hollered and waved my arms.

She jumped right out. We both looked at each other for a while and went our separate ways.


Found a cow in a sink hole in the creek one time. All that was showing was ears, eyes and a nose.


I grabbed her neck and held her head out of the water while my wife raced home for the loader tractor.


Old cow kept sinking and all I could keep out of the water was her nose, then that went under too and then just bubbles.

She never thrashed or anything with me laying out there in the water holding her head up. I think she knew we were trying to save her. Felt bad about that one.

Mom and Dad's well is like that.

Too much soda.

We will play that at a gig once in a while. Its a good one!

My good friend Dwayne, BC30cal, introduced me to that song.

Friend of mine is from an old place, like me.

We are have been playing together in a band for some time. From the first time we played his dad asked us to learn one song. Just one.

It took a couple years but we finally got around to learning it.

They all fire up and waltz when we play it.

Great song.

I found this little guy hanging out under the sliding barn door today.

we used to make them smoke a Black Cat.......

and make them fight......

Good reading here....

I have a few cows and calves. Looks like I'll have to sell all of them though. It's been an education for sure. I bought my first ones about 4 years ago. I had a 6 six week old bull calf turn up with a bad foot this spring/summer .Took him to the vet and they worked on him. He looks ok now ,but another abscess came up after the vet trip. I got him in a small pen thinking I'd have to catch his head , but the little fellow let me walk up to him, pick up his rear foot and cut it open. That surprised me.

I love salamanders! Not been one around here this year......maybe I smell funny or something.

Richard boy found one out in the yard a couple years ago. He was dried to a crisp. Richard boy goes up to his grandpa, also named Richard and says, " Grandpa! This lizard needs some sunscreen!"

Well, he actually pronounced it "skunscreen".

How come you are going to have to sell them?

May not be keeping the farm.....

Hilarious!!!

Smiling here!

Good lookin' boy! The boy is wise you should listen to him more.....

Mama must be gorgeous.

You're a lucky man Jim!


Wheat harvest is done here, took a day and a half.....

I didn't even bother going up to the hills to see how it was going. Stayed down in the river bottom all day.

Sorry about the wheat Sam. Good thing you have some in the bin. Hope you topped the market.


Wife found a couple dead cows today. No real reason for it.

Then hired man sees a couple big white dogs running the cows. Looked like great Pyrenees.

Looks like these dogs ran a couple to death the other day and were out for more fun today.

Flipping 2017!

Damn!

I'd cut your losses with those dogs asap.

I'd think that is a given Barry.

This is a great thread. Thanks boys for sharing with us!

Yes it is. Most people don't realize how interesting their lives are to other people. Unless they live and work in the city. Then the opposite applies.

I wish Photobucket hadn't turned to crap.

This is an amazing slice of life for us urban dwellers and much appreciated. Thanks guys.


mike r

We didn't sell a bushel and the market is dropping like a rock.....


Chit, starting to feel a little sick!



But whatever, damn dogs!



I'm a little surprised you have dog trouble out in the country where you're at. Hope you get it solved ASAP without any hard feelings.


We only have trouble here close to town where we winter and calve. Nothing out in the hills.

We have the problem half solved. But one got away.

I was not there so it is kind of second hand to me, but the hired man thought it was great Pyrenees dogs. Be funny for them to leave a flock of sheep somewhere and chase cows.

Could have been some other type of dog, but he did say they were white.

I have neighbors to the north of me about 5 miles, and we see their dogs once in a while, but other than that we are pretty dog free out here.

We are probably 7 miles from the rez, but anymore those dogs dont make it too far off before they get shot.

Dad said when he was a kid that there would be 10 or 15 in a pack that would come out of the rez or Harlem.

Those dogs would come through a farmstead and wipe out the chickens and cats. Kill sheep and kill your dogs. Tear up the hogs even.

Dad said they would catch a couple saddle horses and start running them down, killing when they could. Soon all the neighbors would be chasing dogs.

Have not been a problem for years.




New people move into the valley to the north and let their dogs run. A couple dogs get killed for chasing cows or killing lambs and I guess they get the message.

Jim, what make post pounder do you use? How's it setup?



What lick tubs are you buying?

How much a tub?


Around $120/tub here.



And I was thinking damn, I'd be running a swather over that 'pasture', looks pretty good from here!


Do you run a piece of expanded metal up and out of the tank for critters?


We always keep an old broken chunk of 2x8 or similar floating.

Funny, when I was in Texas for a hog hunt a few years ago, they call ponds "tanks". colokial I guess.

Jim, that hydrant has the look of an Iowa brand? Do you use gravel at the drain back, base of the hydrant?

We took the head off one a couple weeks ago.
(lasted less than 4 years)


Apparently they've cheapened up the pull/push rod and use substandard steel.....

Sam, the Iowa brand was sort of the standard years ago, The last we have put in are Merrill, made in Storm Lake, Iowa.

Why do you put in a 2x8 Sam?

I know that one Sam. I have a hydrant just twenty feet from me. Handle works great but the rod ain't doing chit.

Richard, we have a bunch of 'old' Iowa hydrants in use but the newest failed first.....



We throw an old board in for the birds, squirrels, gophers, etc..
(the dumb ones will fall in...


Hate to drown anything in a tank not too mention it fouls up the water a little.

W. Bill,

Ours broke right down at the bottom just above the top of the threads. Granted we have hard water but it was clearly way too thin steel.

Giving the critters an escape ramp is a kind thing to do. Have you guys gotten anymore rain? It sprinkled for a couple minutes just before football practice started. Enough that I had to use the wipers in the truck for the first time in months. Hope you get some rain guys.

Aces, it rained .1" here 3 days ago, caught a lucky 1/2" on one place a week-ten ago. Very limited.

Get the bad year behind you Sam, bad years happen every so often, and I sure do not want to sound hard about that, Hope for better next year.

As we have talked about, keep pluggin' away.

Wow a tenth of an inch ain't much. I'll have to do my famous Eskimo (in tribute to Jim) rain dance for you guys. I'm counting on your 90 precip/fog prediction to come true. 👍

We have a WheatHeart High and Heavy hitter Sam. Trailer type. Love that thing.

Yeah, that would have made a nice field of hay earlier but we were going to run out of grass so we decided to graze it. Hope it was a smart gamble.

On the tire tanks we set we had to run an expanded metal escape.....for an Equip project.

Normally we just have a board floating. The expanded metal ramps do work well though. Probably just float a board in these fiberglass tanks. First one we have set.

The tubs are a 20% protein with IGR for the flys. Wife says they are 126 a piece.

Richard, yes they are Iowa brand hydrants.

Used them for years and then went with the cheap farm store brands.

Part of the reason we switched is because the FSA made us bury pressure reducing valves on part of our last pipeline. Seeing how the pressure was only going to be 70 pounds, we went with the cheap-o's.

At different locations on that line where the pressures were low enough to use a hydrant with out a reducer we used Iowa.

Funny thing Sam mentioned one failing.......we had to replace the head on a new Iowa Hydrant this summer. The head was full of casting flaws and started to leak like a sieve. Never had any trouble with Iowa before that.

They ought to be twice as good as the farm store brands.....they are twice the money!

We only use 8ft bury hydrants out here anymore. Pipeline is always at least 6 feet, but with a 6 ft bury hydrant the handle is only a couple feet off the ground. I dont like to bend over to turn it on!

Always use a few yards of gravel at the base.

22% w/IGR are $134 so really close.



Curious on the pounder because we thought about buying a loader tractor version. A skid steer version would be really nice for corral work.



There's a 'deal' on water projects now but I heard the waiting list is long......



The worst water tank find is a dead calf....





Ace's when we got that tenth a day later parts of eastern ND and MN got 1-3". I heard it messed up their spring wheat harvest and will reduce quality

Engineer came out today to look at our new project. Part of an emergency water deal.

I want to put in another 12,000 feet of pipeline plus a 30,000 gallon cistern.

We would have to put a bigger pump in the well, like a 14 or so.

Only going to add a few more tanks on that line but the added flow would mean we could stop hauling water......and sort of drought proof our place.

The big wigs decided that I could not put in a cistern, only above ground storage. They want the pipeline at 6 feet.....but only seasonal storage!

Engineer said they would do the cistern....big wigs should stick to calculators and filing papers.

Maybe there is going to be some emergency cost share on it......but it does not look good.

We will go to the bank and borrow the money. Gotta have this done.

Nice thing is we do all the work ourselves.....I just have to set the breaks on the D8 for backfill.

We will find a dead calf in a tank in the corrals but not in the pastures. Probably jinxed myself there!


We love this little trailer mount pounder, but it does not fit everywhere. But I will tell you, there are damn few places I cant get it into.


If you buy a pounder for a tractor I would seriously look at one of the vibratory models. You need big hydraulics to run one but they look pretty sweet.

Probably cheaper than this Wheatheart.

I like the Wheatheart because you can run it by yourself.

Jim, good luck on getting the project done the right way. Hope it works out.




The vibe model pounders seem like the way to go.

Sam,me and the wife have been thinking of putting in a race track.

Seems like every weekend at tracks all around the country whenever they try to have a race it rains.

Doing it now at the track where the nascar trucks were supposed to race tonight.

Don't know if some kind of farmboy type of truck race or what type would work.
Wished we had a few more inches here.

I got a 18 horse v twin lawn mover that needs hot rodded.......

Wouldn't need too big a track.

That should work! Hope your Eskimo dance does not make it snow!



My mom writes down all the fogs on a calendar. Seems to work.

Posted elsewhere, but seems kind of fitting considering the title of the thread

Damn.

22,000 acres. Mostly south of Havre Montana and on the Rocky Boys Indian Reservation.

For quite a while there were about 50 of us in total. The crawlers had trouble because it was too steep.

Probably go back out today.

Cool videos Jim. I'm still praying for rain. For you guys and for all of us out west. Here in Chelan we're pinched in between several fires that are up in the Okanogan and a couple down south of us. The smoke is very thick from the Okanogan fires here.

Be careful Jim and I'll continue my Eskimo dance for rain even though I ain't much of a dancer. 😁

Just got asked to be an emergency oilfield worker.

I can't go to the fire tonight anyway.

When one tank gets full I have to switch to the other tank.

Should be okay.

It might be a good day to get terribly drunk.

They were calling for 4! inches of rain a couple days ago. Now we are going to be lucky to get a couple tenths.

Its all going south of us.......but angling up towards Sam. Hope you get some rain Sam.

Oh, well. I did not want to haul water to the cows in the mud!


On some positive notes, the organic wheat made nearly 15 bushels. High protein and decent test weight.

My conventional grain made 30! Again, high protein and good test weight. Sadly that was only on some bottom land and it was only 90 acres.

The chaff buncher worked well though. Should provide some good extra winter feed.

The other conventional grain went 2. Low protein and high test weight.

I am right in the dark brown in the picture above.

Fitting really. What else is brown..............I am in it!

Just got done preg testing our bred heifers.

Tested at 4.5% dry.

75% were bred in the first month, so a cycle and a half.

Very pleased with the results.

Those are good numbers for a good grass year. Great numbers for a deeeeeeezaster year like this one.


50 are leaving on the truck in an hour.


Only real worry now is our older cows. We moved our calving date from the first of March to the middle of May. Picked a damn dry year to experiment.

Be interesting to see if they bred up. Test them in the middle of October.

Very cool, love your posts and videos

Maybe I should have put this in Sam's Drought thread.

I guess it works here.

Sold the last of the bred heifers too.

Wife advertised them on a rancher to rancher website and some cat called from South Dakota within an hour of posting the ad.

No commission baby!

Jim, great breed up #'s on those heifers!

We test ours on Oct 10th.




We had roughly 200-300 acres that just now sprouted.

Looks like early June out in the fields except the trees are turning yellow real quick......

They are calling for 24 for the low in a couple days. Snow and rain maybe.

I have been feverishly getting ready for winter.

Good luck on preg testing.

Good evening Jim, and Sam. When you run out of $100,00 bills to light your cigars, do you write checks to each other for $1,000?

Winterized the two old Spra Coupes here today.

Blew out a couple hoses.


Tried to bale hay about 3 PM this afternoon. 30-40%, no go.

The very last hay of the year. 30 acres, maybe 50 ton, found a couple blue tongue deer out in it when I swathed it.

I wrote a check one time at the Cleveland Bar south of Chinook for 11 billion dollars.

Glad the old woman tending bar did not try and cash it.

I emptied the big tanker into a pond yesterday evening. Today I emptied another trailer into the dry pond next to the house that feeds the shallow well.

Going to park my fire truck inside and blow out the sprayer tomorrow.


As seen in the video I went south of Malta today.

See some guys trying for a third cutting along the way. Tough to get hay to dry this time of year!


I wonder if a person should maybe wrap those late bales and be done with it.


Those would be the first blue tongue deer I have heard about Sam.

Eleven billion you say? That sounds like a lot, even for a Montana rancher. Good thing you did not make the check for, say, One hundred thousand. By the way, just what did you buy at that bar?

Well, it was more like what I was "trying" to buy...........

Long time ago in my misspent youth!

The old woman was kind of the gate keeper....not trying to purchase from her directly.


That check was taped to the back bar for years, until they tore the place down I guess.

Jim, they tore down a bar they turned down $11,000,000,000 for?? That just sounds like poor business to me.

Must have figured it would bounce!

Bounce? I had not thought about that.

Just a little fun Jim.

Always liked that one.

Good thing she didn't. That much money would have ruined her life!!!

Selling the last of the bred heifers. Rancher in South Dakota bought them.

To go across state lines the last four digits of the bangs tag need to be written down.

I am sure they read them again and charge again......

Couple friends came out and we got it done.


Tail end of em....

Those look like rain clouds Jim. 👍

Shipped calves yesterday.

Big steers weighed 599, sold at 620.

Split load of small steers and small heifers were 470 and 450.

They were sold too light because my wife forgot to adjust the weights for the drought! She came down on the big steers but forgot to come down on the split load. Oh well.

We got to keep 110 big heifers and of course all the dinks and ones with nuts.

The buyers are not tolerating any short tails or frozen ears this year. Of course they did not say that when we sold them.


Piss on em.....we got to keep all the big heifers and they are worth quite a bit more now than when we sold the steers.



We preg tested the cows today. Actually worked pretty well. They were still stupid enough with grief that they went right to the corrals.

They tested at 4 percent dry. Very happy with that. Especially since we moved our calving date ahead to May first instead of March first.

They would have been breeding during the hottest, driest time of the hottest and driest year we have had in a while.

We did work our asses off hauling them water and electric fencing off small pastures for intensive grazing. I guess it worked out.

We did have about 60 breed to the end of February. Balls!

Bulls got out for a couple days.....and got right to work apparently.


We sorted off the drys and culls and might sell them Friday. A couple old bulls too. Wife is going to sell my favorite polled Hereford.

What did they weigh and what did they bring?

The concrete retaining wall makes one helluva nice crowding tub!


Those calves loaded up nice.



We tested heifers last week and came in about 6-7% open. 5% late. Which is fine with us.

Good news Sam. Nice to have a bright spot this year.

Big steers were 599 at a 1.52 a pound.

Light steers were 476 at 1.56 a pound.

Light heifers were 460 at 1.46 a pound.

What are you guys going to do this year on the late ones?

We had some culls and drys that we sorted off today. Kinda makes me wish we did not sell the bred heifers so early.


My instinct is to cull hard this year. Fairly decent price.

We got caught in 2010 with a bunch of old cows and damn low prices. Had schitty hay that year too.

We ended up loosing like 50 head to the bad winter and hay that was full of nitrates. I still drive into the potholes of those mass graves once in a while during the winter.....

There was no hay for sale locally so we got some out of Billings for 150 delivered. Most of that hay was junk......[bleep] hay brokers. Never trust those guys.


Finally found some local 2nd cutting that was great hay. Stopped loosing cows after that.



Those old bred cows were selling for 250 bucks a piece that winter. Just a perfect storm!



Anymore I get really weary of old cows on the place. Especially when the market is not terrible.

Jim, we kept them and just marked them on the middle of the back as late.

The opens got dropped off at town on the way home from pasture.

Aren't they going to be pretty light if you have calving season in May?

Seems like MT would be pretty expensive to bring a calve up in size between "hay" and loss due to severe conditions.

Yes, if we sell them at this time of year.


Recently, light calves have been brings the same money as heavy calves. That is not always the case however. For years everyone worked hard to have the heaviest calves possible.

Early calving and late weaning.

If a person can get decent money for a lighter calf, it makes sense to sell them at a lighter weight.

We might sell them in the fall still, just be a bit lighter, or we can wean them and winter them to be ready for the markets in the first of the year.

Could sell them as yearlings or maybe sell them as grass fats.


This will be the first year so we will see.



Honestly though, a few neighbors have moved to May and even June calving and have not seen much of a weight penalty.

Our winters can be tough up here and a calf born in March has a lot of winter left to live through to make green grass. It takes a lot of feed for the cow when it is cold as well, especially if she is 8 months or has just calved.

Folks have found that calves born a month or a month and a half later while on green grass actually weigh about the same as the calves born in winter.

Jim,

not sure if I ever asked you. Anyone up in your area do fall calves? This is my first full fall up here (extreme NE CA) and I've been noticing some of the ranches have some little critters running around now. Seems like I saw some brand new ones about a month ago.

I don't know a damn thing about raising beef, I just have a fondness for fall calves as they are "cuter" than the spring ones.

I figure the cute ones will taste better on the plate.

I did inquire where I used to live in E WA about the falls, one person told me it was to be able to sell market weight beef earlier if the market was high. Winters up there are not nice, but usually not brutal either. Perhaps fall calving won't work in your area?

Anywhooo,

I hope the rest of your fall goes well before the snow flies for good.

Geno

Sorry, Geno!

No, no one really does the fall calving thing yet. Probably going to be a thing in the coming years though.

Got the cows moved out today.

Its a weird feeling.....moving them further from the homestead when its winter time.


With our switch to May calving, we are going to try to graze all winter...or at least as much as we can.


Moving out to the place where I made the straw bunches this fall. 10 miles out and 10 miles back. I would be lying if I said it was a pleasant day.



One neat thing today was we got to see an aerial refueling mission.

First plane to get fueled was a B52. That plane was followed by three B1B bombers. I think thats what they were anyway.


They flew in a great big circle until the whole lot was fueled.

Pretty cool.

Jim, is there less feed value in the winter grass? I'd guess it is dead.

I like that pic Jim.

And your highway sure beats ours regarding traffic....


You guys ultrasound when preg testing?

What is the start and cutoff date for your bred cows?


We'll be starting about the 3rd week of March and anything after early June or so gets marked open.


Just got back from running out to the grazing association to pick up another 3 pair. Still missing 5 pair but hopefully they will show up whenever we fly for strays.

Oh, sure, but not as little as you might think.


If we save grass for winter out here, and have good weather, we can graze all winter and not feed hay, or put out cake.


The fellows at the feed store will tell you that is impossible.....but we do it all the time.


We might keep a protein tub out in front of them...but that would be it.



Now that we are calving a lot later, the cows wont need as much nutrition as they would during Dec through March.

Winter grazing should work even better this year.

It was a different year for us Sam. We had never turned out the bulls so late, about the end of July.

When we preg tested anything that was late would have been marked dry. If they were bred, it was too early to tell.


Our start date will be the first of May, and anything bred to calve after the end of July would have been marked open.

Everything that was bred did breed up for the 6 week window we wanted, very few critters were bred for after about the middle of June.


Ideally we try for 6 weeks..no mark on those. Usually keep them up till 9 weeks marked late.

My buddy just asked us if we would fly him looking for strays too. Dad said he would....but try and find a nice day!

Oh, as far as the highway goes.....that is a state road going south to the Bear Paws from Chinook.


You could not beat me hard enough to trail down Highway 2!

Jim, I was wondering if the vet(or whoever tested) had any trouble checking for a fetus(development) given the much later bull turn out date.



The way this Fall is going you might have open range all Winter!

We should get another couple weeks of grazing down on the river bottom(where all of our cows are). Spread out a pallet of lick tubs last week but the cows aren't very interested.



It got too damn warm last week!

We had two sick calves up until that warm spell. Treated 8 in the last couple days....

Sam, our vet is young. It seems that the young folks coming out of vet school that started with a ultrasound machine are much better at it than the older guys that have been palpating since they started.

So far, he has been very accurate.

We will see how accurate he was next May, but I bet he will be right on the money.



Thats a good sign when the cows wont eat the tubs or any supplement.


What are you treating the sick ones with?

We turned our calves out on pasture here a few weeks ago. I have having calves pened up this time of year.

Jim, the old vets have it figured out over here. Anything open they check by hand and 99% of the time they call it open again.

LA 300, doctored a few more today. Luckily it's gonna cool off and they should do better.


Market was down the limit today!


Godddamn here we go....grin

Here it is Draxxin, $20 or more a pop. Dead caves are not worth much.

The old tank site before.....

Well, I had drug an old rotten steel tank out.

The after.

Got to build an enclosure and relocate the power yet, but the hard work is done.

Messed up the D8.




Old Cat mechanic says to put it back together and weld the everlovingpiss out of it.

That looks good so far Jim. I tell people, once the crop is out, then we go to work.

WTF.... no barbacoa???

What, are you just gonna throw away the head?

That is both racist and wasteful and I am offended on both counts.

Jim;
Good evening to you sir, I hope all is well with you and yours.

I wanted to say thanks for posting the videos and photos - like Sam's often do, it brings back a lot of fond memories for me of my formative years in Saskatchewan.

That is one mellow beef which the young lady is perched upon too Jim - trophy photo that.

Thanks again and all the best to you and your fine family this Christmas Season.

Dwayne

Thanks very much Dwayne.

My daughter bucket fed that calf from day one, it was a twin calf that the cow would not take. She named him Ethan.

Rides him all over creation.

Consider yourself lucky because that right there is as good as life gets my friend...drought be damned.

That’s so cool! 👍

That pic of the young lady on the co cracks me up/ warms my heart.

Good to ya'll

Always wanted to do that, never had the nerve to try. I thought it would be hilarious to ride into town on a cow.

An old family story was, there was a milk cow's calf I rode as a tike. One time my older brother was on top a walkin hog feeder, and thought he'd slide off the roof onto the steer's back. Wrong steer, predictable result.

had a buddy that had a big Bahama bull you could ride like that, just pull his ears like reins to turn him.

Too much winter. Takes a lot of energy to feed a milking cow and deal with cold stress and keep her milking to raise a calf. Purebred guys will have some fall calvers, but they can better afford to feed milking cows through the winter. In some areas where a guy can raise a lot of feed and has good protection, you might find a commercial guy fall calving.

Damn. As a guy that has fair, at best, mechanicking ability, that would spook the crap out of me. Thinking about trying to fix that????

What is that going to? The blade?

Great pics and videos guys. Keep them coming. Fun to see how other parts of the US works.

I like that tank. How did you seal the middle?

Jim Conrad is a true media star on You Tube. Subscribe today and enjoy life in the real lane. Let's make Jim go viral and maybe make him some $. I was in Malta, Mt. when he posted a great vid on starting his generator in the dark during an early season snowstorm so he could make coffee and flush the schidter.

JC is the funniest guy and has a great family. Keep posting please.


mike r

Farmers , the original engineers!

Jim, Sam, and wabigoon;

Thank you for what you do and for sharing your life with us. Jim, I think you found a real treasure when you met your wife! Not seeing pics of Sam and wabigoon's wives, I can only imagine they are right in the thick of things, too.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread and am a subscriber to Jim's YouTube videos.

Merry Christmas, guys!

Ed

Probably with that wet concrete curing in the photo...

Just guessing,

Oh! Concrete! Thanks, I couldn't tell WTH that was!

Around there here parts, I'd be told to bring the water pipe up through a sleeve pipe, not touching, the air insulates. However, Jim's a big boy. I think he is doing it well.

You gotta remember, Jim lives down south of you, in the "banana belt" and has no need for such tomfoolery.

Ed

That's funny.

I used to have a beer there when I hunted out of the lodge across the road.
Outfitter lost his lease on the lodge so now we stay in Chinook at the Motor Lodge.

Daniel Boy's favorite chicken.

Jim you appear to have one of those Norman Rockwell salt of the earth kinda families. 👍

Definately a proud poppa based on the pics and videos you put up.

is he choking his chicken...... forgive me Jim.

Can ya blame him?

She's a real looker.

the kid knows how to pick 'em.....

Jim, those kids are livin' it up, great pics!


You're a lucky man.

Handsome, happy boy!!

That's a great picture Jim!

This is one of the better threads I've seen in awhile. Thanks for posting it!

Damn coyotes in the farmstead.....

Trying to get my pups to follow....

A good coyote!

What's the rifle?

Ed

Its one of those CDL SF limited edition rifles from a few years ago.

260 Remington. 3x9 Redfield on it.


Shooting the 95 grain V max.

Nice! That's a nice looking rifle.

You gonna pour a pad out on the lake to put that new fish house down on?

It dont rain all year.....until I leave a couple sacks of quick crete in the bed!


Works better than leaving your windows rolled down, or getting your pickup washed.

Jim, it appears as though you could use some diversity in the deer herd. Stop down here some time and pick up about 100 head of whitetails.

Those damn things are chewin' the hell outta the alfalfa bales. Hell they're hitting the haystacks and corn pile around noon! Not very wild.

This Winter came in like a sonuvabitch.

Once in a while those guys in the valley would pull a couple bales and set em out for the deer.

Never worked. The deer liked stacked hay better! At least we dont live in elk country.


Yeah, winter is here all right.


Calling for another foot of dry snow over the next couple days. Lows from 20 to 30 below. Little less wind though.....nice change!


Wife went to town to get protein tubs.....CoOp was out and had no idea when they would be getting more. Didnt seem like they were too worried about it.

I was gonna ask if you were feeding yet.

Range cows are on alfalfa, cake and straw. Hell, with these cold nights they're licking up most of the straw.

Yeah, it supposed to get even colder. High of -15F on Saturday and Sunday.

We are feeding the bulls and keeping straw in front of them, worried about freezing nuts.


The heifer calves are not being fed yet, and are doing a good job grazing so far. Keeping tubs in front of them.

The field in the video was safflower that we did not cut, and so far have been doing well on it. They have a good coulee and some piss poor cover crops they are grazing too.


The range cows are on pretty good tame grass and straw piles, along with tubs. No hay yet.......

They are searching out those straw piles and slicking them up good, even under the snow.

It has been a big worry for us. Moving our calving date to the middle of May is supposed to mean that you dont have to start feeding so soon, if you have decent grazing at least. There are about 2 months less pregnant this year than last year.

So far they have done well with the new program. They kind of shuffle along until they find a straw pile and then they slick it up. When you drive by them it looks like there is not a damn thing to eat out there.



Its not normal to not be feeding right now...especially with the cold and snow! Having a hard time getting used to it! They still look good and dont have sore feet. They are spread out and not bunched up.



Gonna watch them really close the rest of the week. If things look bad I will start taking them 10-15 pounds of alfalfa. If I have to I will make two trips and get them to 30 pounds. If winter does not let up and I have to start on full feed I will bring them home. No sense in having cattle on full feed 8 miles away.


We did cull a bit this fall and there are no old cows out there, so I guess that helps.

I hate the phrase "wintering them tough".

I guess thats what we are kind of doing though, but only because they are bred much later and have good winter grazing.

We have not lost any condition yet and will work hard to keep it that way.

When a lot of those guys talk about wintering them tough they admit that they look like hell in the spring, but then do well once the grass starts growing.....breed on the gain and all that.


We are not going to do that....keep em in good shape with good grazing...as long as we can anyway.

I think a lot of those guys dont have any hay or any winter grazing....so they abuse the cows a bit.

Then a nice early green up saves their ass.

Might not get an early green up in 2018!




Yes, I am rambling.......I think because I am worried schitless about it!

I'm no expert Jim but it sounds like you have a good handle on it.

My dad can rattle off feed and nutrient requirements and factor in feed increases for temperature drops, last trimester... I am not so precise but always tend to haul them an extra bale(or two).

I like happy cows!


Healthier calves hitting the ground, breed back better, the usual positive returns.


Some guys have no windbreak, scrimp on feed and IMO should not be raising cattle. Grrrr......



I'm feeding 25-30lbs of alfalfa, and 3-4lbs of cake along with some straw. We have all the bred heifers and coming 3 year olds in a big feed pen and my dad is feeding them. Not sure of the ration but it is healthy.

The 2 year olds often look pretty run down in the Fall so we try and put weight back on them ASAP and they do a lot better away from the big old pigs.

Haha! Normally I have a good handle on it.

Doesnt feel like it this year, with all the changes we are making.


I dont know much about nutritional requirements and what not....I do have an old feeding book though.

I usually just go by whether the cows look good, and happy.

Probably spend too much money that way, but I dont trust the feed salesman!

So much romance in the cattle business, and that's good ,some years, that's the only pay.