We use straight #1 Richard. But I did have a blended tank in one tractor and it gelled up on Christmas. Should have ran the #2 out of it but we don't use that tractor quite as often and it got parked with half a tank of summer fuel. Thought I had mixed enough #1 in it....wrong.
Got it going this afternoon. I also added some additive to the last bulk tank of fuel.
I rewired my downrigger to the new style Scotty plug and same thing with the skiff. I waterproofed a couple pairs of hip boots and organized my duck hunting gear and decoys. Mid season sees crap gets distributed everywhere. Thank god my wife is as cool and understanding as she is....I got lucky. She quietly deals with my gear year round, half the year it’s fishing gear and the rest it’s hunting gear. I’ll go drop the crab pots in the morning with the carcasses of some waterfowl and then I’ll take Kenai my lab for an afternoon duck and goose hunt.
I didn’t come close to answering your question Sam but our chickens and dogs are the only livestock I wrangle, not counting teenagers and they get fed and water daily. The whole process takes from about breakfast time until just after bedtime. 😉
Two hours? You guys are making me look like I am goofing off. More time involved when you are scrapping the feeding floor and loafing shed and hauling manure out onto the fields. Plus, breaking up fodder bales for roughage and bedding, just saying.
Didn't know we was counting working on tractors, fixing fence, looking for cows, cleaning and scooping and all the other things you do in your spare time .It's an easy life
Didn't know we was counting working on tractors, fixing fence, looking for cows, cleaning and scooping and all the other things you do in your spare time .It's an easy life
Blanket, I'm just talking about feeding the damn cows/calves!
Been thinking about this and got to wondering if we are just slow pokes....
Should add that I've been moving a generator back and forth to a well and that is becoming a time drain but so far it's keeping the cows off the river(which has just iced up).
Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to you Sam. Will be eating a ribeye on you folks tomorrow. Anyone that has never had the pleasure of raising meat will wonder how easy it is
Just think it will soon be calving time and you will think feeding will be easy
Oh yeah, this is an easy time of year but it gets dark so damn early!
There is one and a half 30 packs of Coors Light in the fridge and 3 bottles of whiskey in the cupboard. Well actually 3 half full bottles.
I do not drink and operate machinery at the same time though. Booze after work. Unless it is 'working after work', then it is okay.
I heard tell of a guy who needed to talk to an old boy who was working ground. He walked up to the tractor and the farmer opens the door to the cab and smoke rolls out like a Cheech and Chong epic. Turns out he's not only smoking it up, but he's usin' a damned water bong the size of a Dillon 650. Gives a new meaning to the term "impaired".
You guys with livestock, how long does it take you to feed, check water, etc.?
Not factoring in breakdowns, froze pipes or maybe of course that never happens to you.......
When I was the feeder at the dairy I started at 4:15 am and was lucky to be done by 8:30 am.. But that was for only 500+ cows.. They're milking around 1200+ now, and the guy feeding now usually does not get done until between 1-3 pm. That doesn't count the young stock or calves; those are fed by two others and I really don't know how long that takes..
This time of year my momma cows are out on stalks and have a creek that will stay open nearly all the time. Only have to worry about feeding them after they've picked the field clean or we get at least 6"-8" of snow cover that stays.
Last spring's crop of calves, who are pushing 800lbs, are in my little feed lot and they take minimal time to deal with. They are each eating about 24lbs of a blended feed along with whatever hay they want off of a big round bale. Automatic waterer takes care of them, I turn the heater on full-time in November and off for good usually in late March.
So not much time on a day to day basis. No complaints.
My main income is from row crops. The cows stay around because I like 'em. They pay their way and provide the best beef out there. And there is not much of anything more enjoyable to me than watching a bunch of month old black calves racing around a green pasture about sundown, tails up and....., well you know what I mean.
Sam, I've seen pictures of your cows and your facilities, always impressive pictures you post.
Tough country you live in, it breeds tough men. It's not an easy way to make a living, but it's a good way to do it.
Just received a snap from son, they are butchering on the compound[his inlaws] today. As of 9 am they had 5 steer quartered with 5 more to go. I participated last year[because I owned one] but is was a balmy 20 degrees at the first shot. Not so lucky this year....for them. You farmers have my undying respect!
Probably a dumb question but I'm still going to ask.
When I bird hunt out in eastern Montana I can't help but wonder how do the range cattle stay warm in the winter when it's -20 with no protection from the wind.
Do they naturally huddle up and figure it out or do you have to bring them in to a stock yard or something. They don't seem like they'd handle cold as well as a deer or coyote but maybe they do.
Sorry for my ignorance but I'm from Wisconsin where cattle spend the day side by side in a barn.
Someone who is capable should post the Far Side cartoon with the cattle standing around on their hind legs visiting and one of them yells, "Car!" and they all drop and start to graze.
Well gentlemen, it was indeed a rather brisk day. The cows were all bunched up in their favorite dry riverbed this morning. I fed one bale out in a field just to get them to a spot were I could cake them afterwards.
That first bale was gone by the time I got back with the cake.
We even got about 60 ton of alfalfa ground up in between rolling out straw. Just walked in the door and made myself a Hot JD shot. Hot Damn and JD for you infidels......
You guys had more wind than us. We had maybe 15mph, which was bad enough, but nothing crazy. Those old cows shaking their heads though when they came running out of the trees and that is a tell-tale sign it it not pleasant.
Santa cheeks, it was nippy on the skin!
And I swear to God I have to shake it 5-6 extra times after taking a piss. My wiener does not like the cold!
It is hard to steer, run the loader and take stupid videos all at the same time......grin
Please everyone, try to contain yourselves......
laughin
We have had our annual physical inventory the last three days and I'm in charge of it all. It sucks ASS! Every time I watch your guys's? videos, I think "damn, that is what I was meant to do"
It does not look fun when it's this cold out but it has to be better than sitting at a desk and then once a year directing a group of a 150 people to count correctly and then go fix all their damn mistakes on a Saturday. I'm getting plenty sick of this BS.
I help my uncle and cousin with their cows. They raise corn and chop silage. They fill a silo for the feeder calves and a bunk for the cows. Do you guys do silage?
That's not a dumb question. It was -21* here at 3:00 pm. I stopped on a gravel road on the way home from work to take a leak and thought the same thing! lol
Rooster, well, if you have been around cows and still want to do that kind of work(full-time) you are sick in the head......grin
Try and grow 40 acres of silage corn every year. Silage mixes in well with the ground alfalfa, really helps to cut down on the dust and the cattle eat the hell out of it.
Jim, what the hell? Must have been a Chevy.......?
Richard boy is a smart man! He was thinking about that, damn right......too funny!
Rooster, well, if you have been around cows and still want to do that kind of work(full-time) you are sick in the head......grin
Try and grow 40 acres of silage corn every year. Silage mixes in well with the ground alfalfa, really helps to cut down on the dust and the cattle eat the hell out of it.
They filled the silo with "haylage" once. God what an awful, dusty mess when that comes down the shoot! They probably do at least 500 acres of corn. The rest is wheat/beans/barley/oats.
The oats get mixed with corn in a feed grinder and get poured over the top of the silage with a wheel barrow in the concrete bunk twice a day inside the feeder cattle barn.
Those farms back in the midwest are something else. Sounds like a diversified outfit.
Sam,
That is nothin! Around here, there is sections upon sections of corn. Some fields meet other farmers fields that are all corn and they all stretch as far as the eye can see.
Sam, We’ve got that same Danuser post hole digger. I spent a lot of time standing on top of it as the auger bounced through football sized stones in gravelly ground.
Sam, We’ve got that same Danuser post hole digger. I spent a lot of time standing on top of it as the auger bounced through football sized stones in gravelly ground.
Can be expensive to feed but a high energy source.
You can cake cows solo if the pickup idles through the snow on flat ground.
I hang a short piece of 5/16's chain on the bottom of the steering wheel to keep the pickup going straight.
Roll the windows down in case the dog locks me out, pull it in gear(auto) jump on back when the cows get close(they come running) and start shoveling. Trick is getting them spread out evenly so they all get a fair share.
I cracked out on vids today.....
Rooster, I was just thinking how much work it would be to irrigate that many acres!
-17°F! Our cows have it made, they get locked in the barn when it gets anywhere near 0°F. We only keep a small fraction of what you have. Thanks for the videos! I always enjoy them.
The cake we always fed was cotton seed based. Cows love it. Back when we fed it, our cows would flat run over your ass if you shook it out of the sack while on the ground. Was fun to turn a city boy loose with a sack full in the middle of our herd of black angus. Of course, we fed it from a feeder mounted on the back of one of our old Dually one ton pickups.
Sam, We’ve got that same Danuser post hole digger. I spent a lot of time standing on top of it as the auger bounced through football sized stones in gravelly ground.
After buying a Danuser bucket mounted auger, I won't go back to a 3pt. You can add all the downforce you can wish for and when you hit a big rock, just lift up on the bucket, reverse the direction, and back right out. You can also drill hole at a 45 degree angle for setting heavy brace posts.
Ed, that would be the cat’s ass. I’ve considered converting it to hydraulic drive and fabricating a mount. At this point I haven’t been sufficiently motivated to get beyond the daydreaming phase.
Rooster, we don't have that problem out here in the desert!
Kings, the old angus cows are born and bred to handle this. Keep em' fed up and out of the wind!
C, oh yeah, once cows are cake broke them come running. We have a cake feeder but I don't like it. Works fine but it lays the cake out the side(in the snow), I try to throw it in the rut....
And it takes up too much room on the bed to I can only haul one bale. Pain using two pickups to feed.
AP, I'd love an auger on a skid steer for corral work. Looking at buying a loader mounted pounder.
Sam, we feed cake to our cows too. Dad would usually buy 3 or 4 tons of it. Before we fed it, we would empty a sack into a sifter box, and sift any powder out of it and sack it up in flour sacks. He used this to feed sick cows and calves. Dad didn't like the truck mounted feeders either, so we would load sacks in the truck the walk with the sack, spreading the cake.
Feeding cake is also what ended my father's cattle ranching. His cows were like pets and like being hand fed. While hand feeding some cake, a young heifer cut the line to get a hand out, and one of the matron cows objected pushing the heifer right over the top of Dad, breaking his hip. He was 76 yrs old, and decided it was time to retire. I sure don't miss shifting the cake though.
We had a old neighbor Rancher that made the mistake of feeding two of his two Bulls in the lot one day with a sack of cow cake. He was nearly 80 and one of the Bulls knocked him down and trampled him. He damn near died. Spent the next 5 years in a wheel chair before he passed away.
Sam’s 5/16 chain auto pilot setup trailed by a herd of 1800lb. cake junkies immediately had me daydreaming up a better way.
I feed into the herd bro. Roll bales out in strategic positions in hopes up evening out the incoming cows.
The older cows that don't move and eat quite as fast are always at the tail end. I throw them a couple extra scoops before quickly driving back up to the lead cows and distract them long enough to let the oldies finish.
You got any old irrigation pipe that you can split to make bunks? I bisect aluminum irrigation pipe with a non ferrous blade in a circular saw. It cuts like butter. Just be sure to deburr the edge and cut it somewhere the cows won’t ingest the chips left on the ground.
Sam, we feed cake to our cows too. Dad would usually buy 3 or 4 tons of it. Before we fed it, we would empty a sack into a sifter box, and sift any powder out of it and sack it up in flour sacks. He used this to feed sick cows and calves. .
Oh yeah, save the dust and crumbs!
We mix in 3/16"s pellets for the feed yard ration.
Ed, is your house solid rock all the way through? I mean, not stick and veneer? If so, do you think the same thing would have enough insulation value in Idaho? I'm assuming that's your Hill Country digs.
The Texas Hill Country house pictured is 2x6 walls for all of the exterior (either stone or stucco or both) and any interior wall that has plumbing. It's 4600 square feet with about 500 on the second level as a game room. Ceilings run from 12 to 15 ft. It is now all LED and we use about 500 gallons a year in propane (house heat, water heat, drier heat and cooking heat) and about 1/2 - 1 cord of oak a year in the insert.
Just caught the Idaho question. It, too, is of 2x6 construction with a formed foam/concrete foundation/basement with a 4 foot crawlspace. There we have a 60 kbtu Quadrafire gas fireplace, a 60 kbtu Jotul wood stove and a vintage Monarch cooking stove. The bedrooms and bathrooms also have electric base board heat that we rarely use. The Monarch in action prior to Thanksgiving this year...
My house is all brick with 2x6's and full basement. Ceilings are standard 8'. Not as big as yours and probably use twice that amount of propane. Full insert fireplace with blowers will heat the whole house but if you want it comfortable in the back rooms you have to supplement with propane-and you could wear yourself out cutting wood and probably never vary by more than 100 gallons. Built in 1980. Mine is very well built but needs about 100 grand in renovations.
I'd like to build a native stone house in the Hill Country style.
Just caught the Idaho question. It, too, is of 2x6 construction with a formed foam/concrete foundation/basement with a 4 foot crawlspace. There we have a 60 kbtu Quadrafire gas fireplace, a 60 kbtu Jotul wood stove and a vintage Monarch cooking stove. The bedrooms and bathrooms also have electric base board heat that we rarely use. The Monarch in action prior to Thanksgiving this year...
Sweet, the one time in forever that you had friends.
Sam, did I hear you say 'choke' when you were starting that 656? It's a gas tractor? I used to manage a farm down in southeastern Pa. that had a diesel 656. I swear that was the coldest blooded engine ever made. Even in July you had to lean on the glow plug switch for a couple of minutes or it wouldn't start.
Sam, did I hear you say 'choke' when you were starting that 656? It's a gas tractor? I used to manage a farm down in southeastern Pa. that had a diesel 656. I swear that was the coldest blooded engine ever made. Even in July you had to lean on the glow plug switch for a couple of minutes or it wouldn't start.
Stay warm,
Dale
Dale, yep an old gas engine tractor. It's a beasty little machine!
We use a JD 7510 for winter loader work and it has been a great starting tractor. Popped right off yesterday.
Speaking of yesterday, this was the coldest spot I found.
Sam, did I hear you say 'choke' when you were starting that 656? It's a gas tractor? I used to manage a farm down in southeastern Pa. that had a diesel 656. I swear that was the coldest blooded engine ever made. Even in July you had to lean on the glow plug switch for a couple of minutes or it wouldn't start.
Stay warm,
Dale
Dale, yep an old gas engine tractor. It's a beasty little machine!
We use a JD 7510 for winter loader work and it has been a great starting tractor. Popped right off yesterday.
Speaking of yesterday, this was the coldest spot I found.
-34F ambient right now.
-55F windchill.
Wow. Prayers sincerely sent...for both folks and their critters.
I just went out and started the pickup. The breeze is a bitch this morning!
Cracked a hydraulic line on the bale bed yesterday and am praying it holds in there through today. Always something to worry about!
Extreme temps just make everything harder and are harder on everything. I went over and talked to my cousin yesterday...he's got about 2,000 acres. I don't know how big his cow herd is. He said he'd be feeding 'til 1pm. That would take me a half bottle of WT...and I buy it in the half-gallon jug.
Cuz and another kid got in the instructor's truck back when we were all in Vo-ag. Something is trying to [bleep] cuz in the ass and he pulls out a pint of Old Crow from under some [bleep] in the seat.
"What's this?"
Ag instructor grabs the bottle and says, "That's calf medicine. I go out to the pasture, take a swig and say, 'get well calf'."
The frozen waterer will have to wait until tomorrow. Of course it was the element that goes down into the ground and in order to change it out you have to remove the top of the waterer... Pain in the ass and it might be dark by the time I got done so I called da boss and he said to just let the calves water out of another pen. Pain feeding them that way but I made it home in time to watch the Rose Bowl....
Downloading some super-whiny vids. I can really cry when chit breaks down......grin
Richard, it is Ritchie waterer. There are 3 separate elements. One rigid element beneath the tank. A flexible heat tape/cord for the water line and float. And a 2-3' pencil sized element that goes down in the 'ground'.
We had electrical trouble and the 110 feed was getting double and it must have fried the element that goes in the ground.
Barry, it's been one helluva year but rumor has it the warm-up is coming. Only calling for -20F tonight.....grin
And yeah, water trouble is the number one problem when it gets cold like this.
[quote=Steelhead]I'm a little confused on this whole time thing. How many beers it takes to complete, I understand.[/quote
Partially understand. Does it take 1/2 pint, pint or 5th to achieve objective. Just ate ribs that were grillin for 4 hours. In S-E Michigan its a balmy 12deg.
You guys are pulling a trailer and just flake off the squares?
We want to try that with big squares of straw. These new combines thrash things so hard it's literally impossible to roll out a bale. They just explode in big pile.
Barry, we didn't really get a storm, just a big ass cold front that has been here for 7-8 days now.
But those old cows know what to do when the snow and wind start blowing. Head into the brush and hunker down. We're lucky that we have a pretty good place to winter....
Sam, did I hear you say 'choke' when you were starting that 656? It's a gas tractor? I used to manage a farm down in southeastern Pa. that had a diesel 656. I swear that was the coldest blooded engine ever made. Even in July you had to lean on the glow plug switch for a couple of minutes or it wouldn't start.
Stay warm,
Dale
Dale, yep an old gas engine tractor. It's a beasty little machine!
We use a JD 7510 for winter loader work and it has been a great starting tractor. Popped right off yesterday.
We had a 7410, it was an easy starter too. It got used pretty regular over the winter, the 656 not so much. Of course it never got all that cold where I was, I remember the weather guy on the Philly TV saying that -10 was the all time record low in Philly. That's almost balmy compared to what you're dealing with. We had Ritchie waterers too, sucks big time when the electric goes down.
So far, I haven't had to break ice. I have heaters in the horses water troughs, and the cows are getting their water out of the branch. But, that's about to change as I noticed it is pretty much frozen over now. I could put a heater back in the cattle water trough, but that's water I have to buy, and I like free water. Had to haul out a few rolls of hay today, and had the NH plugged in all morning. It started faster than it does in hot weather. I really don't mind cold weather, if it weren't for the animals. There is no easy way to take care of them when it's this cold. I've got a problem in my well house, and have never had it happen before as it's doing now. It's froze somewhere, despite having heat in it. I'm not needing it now, but I don't like it not working.
Oh well, come August in Kentucky with the humidity and high temps making me feel miserable, I'll look back on this cold snap and it won't seem so bad.
We took extra hay out today. Went out this morning with a couple more tubs and salt blocks, just to see if I would need to plow out there again.
Roads were okay so we got started.
My other feed pickup is a bit sad at the moment, so all we had was the old 1980 dually.
We needed to get 8 bales out there so I got dad to haul one with his pickup, I hauled one with mine and the wife took two in the feed pickup.
That way we only had to make two trips apiece.
Just hooked a chain on the bale and pulled them out once we got there.
We might be out of luck this winter. We always graze as long as possible, but this snow is getting too damn hard. Cant hardly feed on it with a pickup.
On the bright side it did warm up some today........all the way to 22 below zero. The wind did quit though.
Supposed to be above zero tomorrow with a big wind. Still below zero with the wind chill.
If misery loves company, the Cat loader had a flat on the left front. Jake put the Westendorf loader on a tractor, but the bucket was frozen down rather firmly. The calves got fed once today. The were eager eaters though.
Been colder than we’re used to down here the last 10 days or so, not below 0 but in the single digits anyway. Takes about a half hour to feed our cake babies, pull up to the troughs and they come running every time. Cake them and while they’re busy with that fire up the tractor and go roll out a couple of bales for them. Haven’t had to chop ice, wind has been blowing and putting up enough chop to keep the tank from completely freezing over.
Of course sure as chit as soon as the north wind hit last week the old gals started dropping calves like crazy. Miraculously not a single frozen ear or tail so far but what a world to be brought into. Go from nice and warm and curled up to plopped out in the biting wind on top of the frosty ground while you’re sopping wet. Thank goodness in my whole life we’ve had to pull exactly one calf and he came during the spring in good weather.
Strangely, last week had one steer about #300 or so come down and get caked with the rest of them and then just suddenly die, like right then and there. He was slick and healthy looking, no running nose or puss in his eyes or anything. Came down to the trough and then headed to the hay with the rest of the herd and just fell over and croaked. Grandad theorizes that he got kicked in the chest by an old cow and stopped his heart or collapsed a lung but who knows. Win some and lose some I guess.
Jim we move our cattle to the summer pasture about April every year and we’ll sort out anything between #350 to #600 or so and drop them off at the sale on the last load. We’ll do the same again in October or November when we move them back for the winter. We’ll keep back good looking heifers as needed to replace old momma cows that die or don’t breed back.
We only have about 80 head of good mommas so it’s just a side job as we all have other jobs. Raise about 80 acres of wheat pasture they graze in the winter and cut about 120 acres of grass hay every year for winter feed and sell the surplus. All of our places have good water on them that runs year round so we don’t have to worry with that aside from keeping the well pump going, old Sears pump Grandad put in in 69 is still chugging along. Fuel for the tractors and trucks and buying feeder cubes is the biggest expense. We don’t vaccinate, just band and ear tag as they hit the ground or when we get them up. Pretty easygoing operation compared to you guys’ bigger outfits and luckily we normally don’t have the crappy weather to contend with.
Yeah Sam we just leave them together and let them do their thing. Not having the cows come into season all at once allows us to get by with one bull which we replace about every 3 years or so. And due to our generally mild climate and having the second largest cattle auction in the state right here in our hometown it really doesn’t matter that the calves come at all times of the year.
Used to work for a guy who raised registered bulls and had a few hundred mommas that calved at the same time. And of course we worked calves all at the same time too, usually when it was about 100 degrees out. Too much working cattle for me. I don’t mind feeding in the winter but I don’t miss the hot dusty 12 or 15 hour days of cutting steers, ear tagging, giving shots, branding, and dehorning, coming home dog tired covered in sweat, blood, dirt, and chit.
My son and I worked our azzes off doing the front end alignment on my 73 Mach 1. A modern coil over suspension installed on a vintage car left the local shops lost regarding alignment, which was no surprise. The wrenching was a PITA due access but my 19 year old knows what an alignment means and how do do it. A great day, one that allowed the garage doors to be open for most of the duration.
Feeding the wood stove and checking traps.....other than that it's about the same as summer cept it takes a little longer to put on enough clothes before going out side.
I helped some friends clean up the inside of their barn last week and it was cold. They have a Warrior Wellness program with therapy horses for vets and now after several other folks checked their place out it looks like first responders will be included if they so desire. I helped cut some hiking trails last Spring and Summer on their property. When I found out what they were doing I wanted to give back to vets in High Brass' memory. Chad, "High Brass", was a volunteer fireman so the first responders is icing on the cake.
The DewEze bed has sure made feeding round bales better. When I was a kid everyone had either a spike bed or a spike trailer they fed with. Some guys used bale rings to put over the bales and others just dumped them and left them but either way they cattle eat them up a lot better when they’re rolled out. Not near as much hay gets trampled and schit on and not eaten either it seems like. Plus you couldn’t get two bales on a flatbed with a spike. I bet I made 100 bale rings out of tubing in high school Ag shop for the FFA to sell, dang things would rust out in about 2 years, the ones everyone around here uses now if they use one at all are the PVC ones, things are near indestructible it seems.
MAN - have I seen that in the mirror - a bunch! Also learned that when a bale doesn't want to unroll - catch 2nd and hit about 40 - it'll spit hay everywhere! (But, you'd better know your pasture - washed out cow trails SUCK at 40! )
When we first started to get pigs coming in around here we had an old farmer see some in his pasture and chase them to try to run them over since he didn’t have a rifle with him. He said “them damn things must be able to run 50 mph, never could catch them”. He then said he spent about an hour picking up all his “stuff” that had flown off the flatbed while he was barreling across the rutted out pasture at breakneck speed, had a yardsale of stuff scattered out for 1/2 a mile!
I went back the next day and caught one rooting in the hay pile, 270 catches them easier than the Ford 1 ton.
ha i get a kick out of hearing your and Sam's accents
They have accents??
Yeah man, what the hell is Roger talkin' about?
Originally Posted by Jim_Conrad
I envy you valley guys in winter. Good cover.....but you guys sure stay cold longer in the mornings than we do a little higher.
Jim, we live up on the 'hill' above town and it is always around 5 degrees warmer here than on the river bottom. Every morning I can watch the thermometer drop as I drive down the hill.
This time of year the bottom is great but every spring when the frost goes out I wish we were up in the hills. Gumbo and flat ground is a pain in the ass, hard to find a dry spot anywhere!
Roger, for the last 15-20 years our local rodeo has had the same announcer. He does a helluva job and has the smoothest accent of all time. Claims to be from Texas.
Funny. Talk about accents. I was in Mitchell, SD one time for work. The next morning I went down to the continental breakfast at the hotel and there were some couples in there with Harley gear on. It was Sturgis time so I said to one lady "heading to Sturgis huh?"
She said "wuuut"
I said "heading to Sturgis?"
She said "I'm sawyyyy darlinnn, I'm frim albama. I canet unnerstan a wird u say"
We're smack dab in the middle of a blizzard. Tried going to work today and found that decision was just plain foolish. I had to turn around because I couldn't see past the front of my truck hood.
We were fighting fire out South in the hills this fall and a oldtimer friend of mine stopped by to chat.
He pointed out that the buffalo berry bushes were loaded down with fruit. He said that was a sign that the birds got the hell out if Dodge while the getting was good, before a tough winter
Normally the birds stick around to eat the buffalo berry and Russian olive and then head south. This year they just high tailed it.
Thinking about it later he was right. We had a fairly bird free fall. They were gone before our first bad storm in October.
My wife is not from these parts and for the life of me I still have one helluva time understanding her turbo west coast dialect. Slow down woman and enunciate!
Jim, same deal here with the buffalo berries. We noticed last summer that they were loaded up like never before. The bushes were literally red.
Good luck with that 3 point unroller. If you have fairly loose and or dry bales it should work great.
I'm having trouble getting the last half of some alfalfa bales to unroll with the pickup. Tight core balers, just a little too much moisture and they are sticky. Great feed but somewhat difficult to get rolled out. Of course the snow doesn't help either. Some of them are going to have to get run through a processor.
About all I can do is auger it out on the ground and see if they will clean it up. I dont mind being wasteful with it, no one wants to buy the stuff and I have 8000 bushels in the bins.
Figure to try and get them up to 5 pounds.
Hopefully we can ease off on the hay a bit if they take to eating it well.
Safflower makes great grazing and hay.....so I hope they will eat the seeds!
Yep, about the only way you can tell if you fed in a spot the next day is that there is schit on the ground and packed snow. Maybe just a tinge of green.
Cant seem to get these cows filled up this winter. If they were closer I would be putting out straw.
We were feeding 40 pounds of hay, and they were not leaving any of it.
Back down to 30 pounds now since some of the snow is bared off and they can get to the straw and chaff piles again.
I bet they are loving that chopped hay Sam. Any of that wetter dense stuff tobacco cure?
Jim, I've never seen safflower seed, is it fairly digestible for a cow?
Major tobacco cure on some of the egg shaped bales that I've been chopping. Cows love it but I've heard that too much 'curing' and you lose feed value.
Safflower looks like a 2/3'rds size sunflower seed, but its all white.
Yes, it is supposed to be very digestible, in fact the old feed book I have did not suggest cracking or rolling it. It has good protein...about as much as cake. Plus good energy and fat.
I was going to send it to Malta and have it made into cake but they would not do it. Too much oil in it.....was supposed to gum up the mill.
We would have liked to graze or hay the safflower crop we had in 2016, but we combined it instead.
Reason we did that was because of all the rain. It was just dry enough to combine at the time, and more rain was coming.
We sent a sample to the lab in Great Falls, but the specialty seed grader was out for two weeks for training. We had no idea of the quality.
So we gambled and combined it, not knowing if it was good quality or not.
It was not good quality! 32 pounds per bushel instead of 38 or 40.
Would have been valuable to us as grazing or hay.......not as loose seed.
Yeah, I have had a tobacco cure go from brown to black. I suppose the real dark stuff is not quite as good feed, but it never seemed to make a difference to the cows.
They would trample the green stuff to get to the tobacco cure.
As long as it was not moldy we never worried about it.
If it was moldy, I would run it through the processor and then the cows ate the hell out of it. Not sure if that was the right thing to do or not, but never seemed to hurt anything.
We sent a sample off to the feed lab Richard. The report came back that it was going to make excellent feed. The local feed Rep said it was good to go.
Well, as long as we did not go over 6 pounds or so with it. I guess the high fat content can mess up the digestion, if you feed too much.
Just thinkin', am I dangerous when I think. Think we all should throw together, and form a cattle company? "The 24hourcampfirelandand cattlecompany". Has a nice ring to it, no?
Just thinkin', am I dangerous when I think. Think we all should throw together, and form a cattle company? "The 24hourcampfirelandand cattlecompany". Has a nice ring to it, no?
Who all want to buy in?
Haha! We will see how 2018 goes and I will get back to you.
Don't give up on the cattlecompany Jim, we can give a Stenson to each new buyer. We all draw a salary, and if there is any cash left over, we pay a divided.
does the safflower shells provide the scratch for the cows to absorb like cob? Don't think I would like to get involved in a cattle company, the old saying of how to make a little money ranching is to start out with a lot of money comes to mind
Cattle can use rough feed that other livestock, other than sheep, and goats can not. The ways they raise cattle all over the world are interesting to me. Beet pulp, cotton seed hulls, cull potatoes, beet tops, citrus pulp, and many others can be good feed for cattle.
We were fighting fire out South in the hills this fall and a oldtimer friend of mine stopped by to chat.
He pointed out that the buffalo berry bushes were loaded down with fruit. He said that was a sign that the birds got the hell out if Dodge while the getting was good, before a tough winter
Normally the birds stick around to eat the buffalo berry and Russian olive and then head south. This year they just high tailed it.
Thinking about it later he was right. We had a fairly bird free fall. They were gone before our first bad storm in October.
Had the opposite here. The birds never ate any berries from my mountain ash before this year. They picked it clean along with all the grapes off my vines
This afternoon we hauled the 'lawn' deer their very own round bale. Picked a good one and set it a 1/4 mile from my parent's yard. All kind of deer and the dingo raises a ruckus, barks, keeps my folks up at night....
Whitetail feeding out in the open all day, getting pretty tame.
This afternoon we hauled the 'lawn' deer their very own round bale. Picked a good one and set it a 1/4 mile from my parent's yard. All kind of deer and the dingo raises a ruckus, barks, keeps my folks up at night....
Whitetail feeding out in the open all day, getting pretty tame.
Meanwhile in unrelated news....
good for you Sam, had about 25 whitetails in the front yard tonight coming in to pick up apples from the trees, Cur dog is raising heck
Those guys in the valley used to set hay out for the deer in tough winters.
Not so much for the benefit of the deer, more so for the benefit of the hay stack. Sometimes it worked and the deer would leave the stack alone. Most times not.
Those guys in the valley used to set hay out for the deer in tough winters.
Not so much for the benefit of the deer, more so for the benefit of the hay stack. Sometimes it worked and the deer would leave the stack alone. Most times not.
Will coyotes eat cow schit?
here in Iowa the coyotes go on cow chit about at the end of the year. Have seen them following cows around eating a hot lunch as soon as it hits the ground, later it is calves. We run them with trucks and always check the lots first
Those guys in the valley used to set hay out for the deer in tough winters.
Not so much for the benefit of the deer, more so for the benefit of the hay stack. Sometimes it worked and the deer would leave the stack alone. Most times not.
Will coyotes eat cow schit?
here in Iowa the coyotes go on cow chit about at the end of the year. Have seen them following cows around eating a hot lunch as soon as it hits the ground, later it is calves. We run them with trucks and always check the lots first
I have not seen that. I have watched a 100 pheasants descend into a brushy area when the cows come out to feed. Like vultures.
When you say that you run the coyotes, do you mean with dogs?
In the winter when I take a load of manure out to the fields it is like ringing a dinner bell for the turkeys. In the summer the turkeys hit every cow pie in the pasture.
We have had a hard winter this year. I have actually enjoyed it other than the propane bill. I wouldn't enjoy the power going out on one of the below zero days though.
We figure they would go 600-650 pounds or so. Offered 1.45.
Not sure what we will do.
Haha! No fire, except for the fire in the torpedo heater.
The pipe into that first tank is actually black plastic, we dont use that hydrant anymore. The barrel at the base of it was a hot house for a torch back in the day.
I got spoiled the last few years. No water trouble once we got that new system going.
Prior to that I was a frozen water fighter of the highest class. Fortunately, I had not forgotten all my former skills.
We figure they would go 600-650 pounds or so. Offered 1.45.
Not sure what we will do.
Yeah Jim, hauling them over to Glasgow tomorrow. They always have a good feeder special the first week of February.
I imagine your buyer is fairly close on price. You know by the time you factor in sales commission, trucking, etc., he's not too far off. But the market has perked a little....
Where do you guys weigh?
It was dead calm and 20F this morning at 6AM, around 8 I see a big ass cloud coming from the west. About an hour later the wind, a little rain and 40F showed up.... Felt like summer!
Just looked at the weather history and we went from 20F up to 47F in an hour. If you can believe that....
Did I tell you boys the story of when my brother, and grandfather rode wet with a local cattle buyer, and feeder? Fred , and rancher agreed on a price for the man's cattle, Fred looked for his checkbook, mus.t have left it at home. Fred took a plain piece of paper, it may have been a brown paper bag. Fred wrote it all out, bank name, ect. The rancher looked at the check, smiled, they shook hands. done deal. Fred, by the way was Fred Stanzel, grandfather of Scott Stanzel, the younger Bush's press sectary.
Wet soil and 30 below for a couple weeks will freeze to 6 feet. Its pretty dry up here normally, so we are usually safe at 6 feet, 7 feet under a road.....but I have seen it freeze to that depth a few times. The freeze up Saturday was not nearly that deep. Maybe only a foot once the water stopped flowing.
Yeah, frost line in Anchorage is ~ 12 feet, but I've seen it freeze 15 feet down and rupture water mains and sewer mains.
Here, in NE Texas, I think the frost line is ~ 2 inches.
Some were out with bulls and tested open and the rest were old grannies we kept in a little pasture close to home where they raised their last calf without a bull.
3-4 cows in that bunch that were characters. Big old girls all fattened up. Curious to see what they weigh.
I just try and stock up a little per stop. And it is a kind of a pain in the ass going into the liquor store. Worst time is 1st of the month, that or when 'checks' come out. Never any trouble if you know them. Luckily our local drunks are a mellow bunch. Tourists are freaked out though.....grin
Gonna try and cut down on the liquor myself and get back on a straight beer diet.
One of the truckers did have engine trouble though and didn't make it all the way to Glasgow. He had to pull into a guys yard and off loaded the steers onto a little straight deck. I guess they got the trailer emptied but it took two trip with the smaller trailer.
Local kid(older Kenworth..) who we are trying to support.... But I don't like the idea of a load of calves sitting dead in the water!
Anyway the other trucker we had hired made 3 trips instead of two. It all worked out.
I see the market is up the limit today....... Probably make another run up now that we've sold....grin
One of the truckers did have engine trouble though and didn't make it all the way to Glasgow. He had to pull into a guys yard and off loaded the steers onto a little straight deck. I guess they got the trailer emptied but it took two trip with the smaller trailer.
Local kid(older Kenworth..) who we are trying to support.... But I don't like the idea of a load of calves sitting dead in the water!
Anyway the other trucker we had hired made 3 trips instead of two. It all worked out.
I see the market is up the limit today....... Probably make another run up now that we've sold....grin
Hardway, no, just local guys from the Wolf Point area.
We've thought about buying our own truck and trailer but I'm busy enough and really don't want to drive a semi. We'd have to hire another guy but decent help is hard to find.
10-4.....I know they have a couple trucks.....think they just hauled their own untill the drought , now I think they are doing more haulin for other guys.
Wife broke a cable on the old pickup. Cable operates the squeeze.
She also had been riding the clutch......and informed me that it now pops out of 2nd gear.
Clutch linkage is worn out, and out of adjustment. Going to take most of the linkage to town to the NAPA store. Guy that owns it had a huge obsolete inventory.
Never feed pickup has a dual mass clutch just waiting to explode. Also has no engine fan.
Last summer the wonkey clutch pissed me off and I pegged the throttle and dumped the clutch. Older Ford frames are pretty flexible and it put the fan through the radiator.
Had done that once before so I decided to go with an electric fan. Have not been able to find one to fit so I am going back to an engine driven fan.
Somewhere in between I have lost the spacer that moves the fan forward to clear the belt.
Its okay as long as you keep it moving!
Bought a 2001 Chevy 2500 HD with the auto and a 6.0 engine from Dad today. Its in great shape.
I have an newer Cortney Berg hydra dec that I was going to fix up and put on something with a 6.0 liter. Never got that done, but I still have the pump and mounting bracket.
I figure I will sell that Hydra Dec and buy a brand new Hydra Bed. With the pump and kit I already own, and doing the install myself I can save a lot of money.
If I sell that other bed and apply it to the new one I figure it will only cost me 5000 bucks. They are 10,400 installed new!
A newer, solid pickup with a new bullet proof bed will make me sleep better....I hope.
Hate to hear of all the pickup trouble, hope you get it worked out.
Those Hyrdabeds are pretty much bullet proof. The actual beds anyway, the belt, pulleys and tensioners can go out. Pumps/fittings can leak a little here and there but no big deal.
Pretty much all the locally sold cab/chassis pickups get a Hydrabed, by far the most popular brand around here.
Hell, you've got the dealer right down the road!
Looks like the snow is gonna miss us, calling for just a couple inches. Enjoy your storm!
I always get a kick out of your co-pilot as well......grin
We actually got a little bit of snow, nothing crazy but maybe a whopping 3-4". And this year we'll take anything we can get!
Started early and chopped up around 50 ton of alfalfa for the feed yard and by the time we got done it was pretty blustery.
I went over and fed the cows and here is about 25-30 whitetail all bunched up and not moving. Get down the trail about a 1/4 miles and spy 3 coyotes. Of course my rifle was back in the pickup....
Pretty sure the coyotes ran across the river because I hadn't noticed but maybe 1-2 all Fall.
Time for some refreshing mountain spring water, and trust me, the mountains are blue!
Johnny, it's actually pretty smooth sailing here until the frost goes out of the ground. That's when the real fun starts!
This has been a somewhat cold year but that actually makes things easier. No mud or ice yet, everything has been froze up since about the middle of December.
Johnny, it's actually pretty smooth sailing here until the frost goes out of the ground. That's when the real fun starts!
This has been a somewhat cold year but that actually makes things easier. No mud or ice yet, everything has been froze up since about the middle of December.
Sam,
That was one of the few good things about our Nebraska Sandhills...you didn't have to fight mud too often.
Johnny, our hills are a little sandier but we winter on the river bottom and it is gumbo central down there. Great protection from the wind and weather but it's a muddy sonuvabitch when things thaw out!
Dave, we started out at 7F and it's currently 5F. Would be pretty nice if it weren't for the breeze.
We've been roasting over here for the last month. Craving a hard freeze. So here it comes and I'm being careful what I wished for. My blood has thinned out a little.
Aw, Wyoming gets real winter, too. I've been in the Rawlins country plenty of times when it's RAW. But the only time or two I've actually been scared for my life by weather has been on Montana's Hi Line. It can be vicious.
Things got a good start on freezing last night. A little drifting, so I'll have to spot plow tonight (easier to spot traffic and see work). The slush is now rock hard ice with some sun-slick on top. The snowpack, probably down to ten inches average on the flats, immediately went to a firm, walkable crust. Excellent for me. Lost a tree last night, tho, and it shattered when it hit. Another mess for spring. Still not quite firm enough to haul logs, maybe tomorrow hopefully.
It was breezy here but not insane cold. Loaded the cows up with about as much as they can possibly eat and they looked full when I went over to shut off the water about an hour ago.
Looks like we're in the banana belt tonight, only supposed to get down to -25F with wind chills in the -45F range, a repeat of last night....
Good luck with that snow, drifted a little here but no too bad.
Dave, if you need some cold air we have plenty enough to get chit froze up!
Ethan, sun tan weather!
Ed, I just looked at the weather history and the 'mean' temperature for the last 55 days is around 5F.
Acclimation is a wonderful thing!
Topped out at a balmy -5F today.
Bred heifer trying out a little cow makeup this afternoon.
Eight feet Sam, I think it is a three yard bucket Snow, and packing silage, it would take larger bucket. When you have the room, a loader is never big enough. Often, you need to be nimble.
Moving snow is so much fun. Cracked the power steering line on the tractor and dumped 2 gallon of oil. Jury rigged a soft line to get finished. Fun and games
Sam, Richard boy is the only person I have ever seen who looks right and steers left! Once he gets that figured out he will be good to go!
Blanket, a neighbor blew a hose on his back hoe and parked it in one of my fields. I suspect it will be there till spring.
I was tooling down the road with my 1086 IH 2wd pulling my hay processor one year and developed a leak in a hydraulic cooler line.
The leak was low pressure, and I did not see it.
Right before I was going to head down a real steep long grade in road gear, I noticed that I had lost steering, and brakes.
The grade had a 100 foot drop on either side, and was curved.
I armstronged it into the ditch with about 10 feet to spare. Neighbor asked why I had bombed through the borrow pit and through her fence instead of using the gate.......
Not sure why I was able to steer it ever so slightly to get off the road. Steering wheel is connected to an orbit motor.
Must have had just enough low pressure oil in it to move the front tires an inch.
them cabs look inviting. Was out for about 3 hours on an open station
I spent a winter moving snow with an older D8H tractor.
It had a reverse able fan that would blow "warm" air on you. In theory.
We only reversed it once. The snow coming over the top of the blade would get sucked through the radiator and be accelerated towards your face at roughly 10,000 mph.
You just brought canvases and card board and make a little survival shelter.
Wyo, I'm never more than a few hundred feet from a pickup or tractor. No weather to be out solo in the boonies unless someone knows where you'll be.
Jim, there is not a single doubt in my mind that Richard Boy will not get it figured out. Hell, he's already got a 10 year head start on most town kids........
And get rid of that 1086 and get another green one....grin
Blanket, moving around in the cold is easy but sitting still is the worst!
I'll be the first to admit that I'm spoiled compared to my dad and grandpas.
The heaters in those JD's will cook you right out of the cab.
Oh now Don, donja know I play da poka mixtape on Mundays and Thursdays.......
Seriously though I really do enjoy that Grass Roots Gold radio show. Every Saturday morning right after Montana Outdoors.
MT Outdoors is equally great, some funny fuuckers on that one.
Oh yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only Grass Roots Gold fan... Nash gets so bored listening to their storys, but that is his loss. I heard the other day that Dave Wilson passed away which really bummed me out.
88.5 out of Fort Belknap plays a good variety of good modern country like Cody Jinks and Ryan Bingham, plus you get powwow music every hour...win/win
I've been dinking around reloading some AR fodder, we are socked in with snow and havent got plowed out yet. Cabin fever has set in big time..laffin
I actually don't rake leaves either, the ol' Toro sucks them right up!
Ben, that's too bad about Dave Wilson, I was not aware. GRG really is an interesting show, I look forward to it.
No cabin fever here although if we get much more snow getting around in a pickup is going to be a trouble.
Got this guy about an hour ago....
Jim, it was a cold sonuvabitch this morning before the sun came out. My legs and face were burning and I was only outside for less than half an hour. And my wife always wonders why my face is so red!
Always nervous wondering what is gonna break or freeze when it's like this. Hope you don't have any more trouble this afternoon.
We had -35F this morning but all 3 tractors started up and only one waterer was froze. It's still froze up as the heating elements went out but luckily we were able to use another waterer in a different (empty) pen.
Glad the calves are sold and gone!
Zero wind here which was a blessing.
Simon, thank God for the ol' Fire or I'd be getting cabin fever like Ben. Good way to pass the time bull chitting inside the house after work!
Was minus 8 when I left the house this morning. On a business trip, picked up the rental car and drove 450 miles south 40 degrees. By the way the rental was a Hemi Charger, the trip went real smooth
I'll tell you what, about 8PM the wind started blowing like a sonuvabitch!
Thank God we didn't get any snow, some chit still blew around and the drifts are hard.
I saw the state headed out this morning with the big snow blower loaded up and I guess there were bad roads all over.
Evidently I got a bad load of fuel. Spent 2 hours this afternoon blowing out an iced up fuel line. Tractor ran fine at -30 a few days ago, filled it up with fuel and wouldn't even hold an idle.
I feel for you guys, Sam, Ben, and Jim. I’m fairly certain I’ve shoveled my last flake of the white stuff after the move south a while back. Schitty winter weather is exactly what it sounds like and I ain’t missing it much.
Been cold for us down here lately, 5deg the other morning and highs in tbe teens a few days last couple weeks. But yesterday it came a chinook and it was 72, today it was 84. Tomorrow the high is 40 or so, who knows what it’ll do. Got the little fella out fishing today, let him play hooky from daycare and he landed 19 bass and one huge bluegill.
When you're stuck at home and can't get to town for 14 days, you get creative... Got about 4 miles passable today, only maybe 8 or 10 to go... Dig a hundred yards, plow through til you can't anymore, then dig another hundred..
You’re going to look like the Incredible Hulk after shoveling 15 miles of snow! You guys need to hit a county auction for an old worn out grader or backhoe or something. Holy schit man.
You’re going to look like the Incredible Hulk after shoveling 15 miles of snow! You guys need to hit a county auction for an old worn out grader or backhoe or something. Holy schit man.
sdgunslinger, you are so correct about those piles on both sides making it worse. They are the result of a new county road boss being turned loose with the grader. Our whole county is screwed like this this year. we been trapped here for 14 days because of this. County says they hope to plow us out net Tuesday with the Vplow to knock that berm down. Hope tht will give us a bit of relief.
Roger, lemme know what happens. I'll warn my wife.....grin
IB, that's what I used to trickle in the fuel line, pour in a little until the line was full and then hit it with a little air. Repeat about a dozen times, finally we had fuel flowing. Didn't want to douche my gloves with that chit and my hands still smell. It was weird though, initially we hit the line with air and had easy air flow but fuel would not not flow back. The bottom of the tank has a sump clean-out and that was clean so WTF?
Kid, things are easy here on the river bottom(knock on wood....). The guys out in the hills are having all the real fun!
Ben, if you want it to never snow again, buy a snowmobile.....
Seriously though, wish we were closer I'd drive over in a tractor. That is an insane amount of digging and as SD mentioned it'll blow right back in during the next windy day.
Downstream, I hope they get to you guys sooner than later. This coming weekend looks to be another windy/snowy blast so I guess it's good that they show up afterwards.
Hanco, speaking of yard work, I might snow blow a new trail for my couch hounds in the backyard. One of the little bastards has taken to pissin' on the patio!
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".
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.
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.
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.
Jim, that eagle was probably thinking about taking off with both Daniel boy and the rabbit.......
Until he looked up and noticed Sasquatch Man lumbering over his way!
grin
Everyday we spend a couple extra hours and work on tearing down the straw mound.
I believe it was Wednesday when I had gotten out of the old 4450 and was picking up some loose twine while my dad grabbed a bale for the road with the processor tractor.
As he was pulling the bale off the stack I happened to notice movement in some loose straw about 30' feet away. A second later a big ass bushy cat the size of a small wolverine came smokin' out of the straw and was headed right at me! I was thinking WTF and started backing up towards the pickup(where the heeler was sitting going absolutely nuts BTW...). All of a sudden the sonuvabitchin' cat stopped, looked right at me and does a 180 before bounding across the snow in the other direction.
He must have been temporarily snowblind or something...
Of course my dad saw the 'charge' and had to give me chit.
Ethan, my dad's dog. He is a (welcome)pain in the ass.
Simon, technically speaking.... given that we are on the Fort Peck Indian reservation... there is a bit of a grey area regarding game laws(for anyone, native or not...).
We try to get locals to shoot some does but all anyone wants to do is snoop around for a buck.
Ethan, my dad's dog. He is a (welcome)pain in the ass.
Simon, technically speaking.... given that we are on the Fort Peck Indian reservation... there is a bit of a grey area regarding game laws(for anyone, native or not...).
We try to get locals to shoot some does but all anyone wants to do is snoop around for a buck.
I'm no different. Shoot about one deer per year.
Sam, not to get to specific here, but how far are you from Nashua?
Ethan, my dad's dog. He is a (welcome)pain in the ass.
Simon, technically speaking.... given that we are on the Fort Peck Indian reservation... there is a bit of a grey area regarding game laws(for anyone, native or not...).
We try to get locals to shoot some does but all anyone wants to do is snoop around for a buck.
I'm no different. Shoot about one deer per year.
Love your dad's dog. Ours is a Blue Tick Hound. Daughter's boyfriend has a Great Pyranees and he loves the snow and ultra-cold weather. Hound will get out in it, but the GP thrives in that sort of thing. lol
Don, well he's not quite that spoiled but my dad and mom cover him up with his Carhartt blankets(wore out coats) on his therapeutic dog bed in the porch...
Charlie, those dogs have it better than our little house dogs..... Dog lotto right there!
I got the dozer welded up yesterday and plowed a trail out so hired man can haul hay. Will start working on the road.....if I can come up with fuel money. Damn tractor is thirsty!
I need to order a starter for it today....not looking forward to that.
Took a fat beef to Saco and stocked up on bacon and such. Even bought some ham hocks and a little chunk of head cheese.
Now I got up to piss and all the lights were on.....Richard boy just barely gets out of bed to piss......
Daniel boy is sick....but he was breeathing okay.
I can hear Lynley snoring so everything is okay there!
Wife is in Billings for ranching for profit so it's just the four of us. Two dogs in the crate.
It's been Texas cold here so we fired up the ol' Versatile on Wednesday. No block heater on that one so we wait for a nice sunny afternoon....
It started right up and then the search began for the spacer and pin that sets the blade at an angle. Hour later we're standing in the yard scratching our heads when I look down towards the 12E grader.
Hmmm, we were using that next to the feed bunk when I was dozing chit last Fall. Sure enough I left the spacer and pin on the floor. Great relief considering we'd never find it anywhere outside under the snow.
Made a nest for the heifers.
Hope your boy starts feeling better. I bet it's even worse not having momma around to help make it better!
Ethan, get ready for some wind today!
Supposed to start in this morning around here. Luckily our snow is crusted enough that it shouldn't move much but they are calling for 4-8" over the weekend.
Needless to say we'll probably not move any more snow until this next storm passes.
Hanco, I'm gonna have to google your tropical plants!
Just when you think you're getting by a new $urprise pops up.
You going with new or gonna roll the dice on a reman? I guess we've had decent luck with remans on tractors but sometimes not so good.
I just ordered a backup generator for the well, no guns here either......
Went with another Honda(of course...) but this one is a little bigger, EG 5000 CL. Paid a little more than the internet price but our local parts store is open on Sundays and I'd like to keep it that way!
Got fancy with the processor this afternoon and added a 7' length of hallway runner to the deflector in hopes of cutting down on dust.
We shall see how it works tomorrow morning.
And today was the first time all Winter that I spied the illusive Montana thunder chickens out feeding!
The wind was blowing like hell out of the east today, so I went to town to pick up the kids.
Left Young Daniel up at the folks.
By the time I got back the road had blowed shut. I asked the hired man to make a trail with the loader....but it was too hard.
Went home and got the 8 running. I had no choice to have the kids follow me with the pickup. Lynley....aged 9 drove. She was to wait at the cattle guard until I made it to my folk's.
Made it to Dad's and he took Daniel home. Lynley drove behind him and I took the D8 back home.
Sam- What happens to the net in that haybuster? Is it small enough that the cattle can eat it or does the machine separate it?
I was about to post that question, too.
Ed
That is a good question.
I do not like the idea of plastic build-up in the herd cow's bellies so I actually remove the wrap before chopping the bales. 95% of the time anyway....
It takes a little longer but is actually pretty easy to do, especially during a year like this when there is very little ice on the bales.
Tomorrow I will slice the wrap on the loaded bale, rotate the bale and remove the wrap. The bale on the platform is even easier, slice the wrap and just pull it off.
Cows don't see any plastic, fields don't see any plastic and I don't have to clean the rotor near as often!
Jim, I was watching the first vid with headphones on and swore I heard angels or something singing in the background. You had some spiritual music playing?
Seriously, I'm gonna have to listen to that again, maybe it was just the old Cat singing!
Warm 23F here this morning with a mist in the air. Looks kinda weird outside.
I think the world's largest Eskimo needs a sled and enough dogs to haul hay. Then you could add picking up dog schidt to your wintertime chores.
I was in Malta when you posted your Starting the generator so we can flush the toilet vid on You Tube and became a fan. Give me a holler if you have a coyote problem.....when it is warmer.
SD gunslinger, a friend's dad has a Ranger with tracks and loves the hell out of it. Of course he has the Cab with heat as well. Probably a good option.
The oil field next to me had a set up like that too, but they kept throwing tracks while pumping the field.
StorminNorman, I dont think I am ever going to be tough enough to run snow shoes. I doubt they come big enough anyway!
Mike R, it has about come to that! I imagine it would take a fleet of dogs to pull me around!
In case youse guys have been wondering why I take my new .44 magnum and walk outside to shoot at snow banks......my wife just informed me that it has been averaging 2000 buck a month for propane this winter.
In case youse guys have been wondering why I take my new .44 magnum and walk outside to shoot at snow banks......my wife just informed me that it has been averaging 2000 buck a month for propane this winter.
Thats why I shoot at snowbanks!
Yikes Jim, 2k a month is crazy! I feel bad about whining about burning 5 cords of wood instead of the usual 4 cords this winter.
They are more of the ag type, not the industrial type.
Interesting though...I might shop around some next time.
Starter was 650 with a 700 dollar core.
Shipping was a bit stiff though.....55,000 dollars!
We might wait a bit before we pay that.
Our local colony is Ag as well but they have a little shop at the colony that re-mans that stuff for people and I assume for themselves. They also had a little meat locker that you could buy the best damn fryer chickens and chicken pot pies but the state shut that down for too many violations. Fricken govt.
In case youse guys have been wondering why I take my new .44 magnum and walk outside to shoot at snow banks......my wife just informed me that it has been averaging 2000 buck a month for propane this winter.
Heating the house, a little shop.....just big enough for a pickup, and the bigger shop.
I was grumbling about the $1500 I spent since November heating the house I just built. 3700’ of 10’ ceilings including the garage. $2k a month is serious beer money.
Took 30 minuets of rocking back and forth to get the tractor unstuck this morning....in the hay lot.
I will have to move more snow with the D8 before we can get to the other stack.
This little warm up has been a bitch! 3 to 4 feet of snow in places that is now slippery and starting to settle.
Awful glad you have some better weather for calving heifers right now Sam!
Snowmobile update.......
After I got the tractor unstuck I decided to take the sled for a little spin down the road. No sense having the tractor unavailable while I get the snowmobile stuck you know.....
Nice little ride down the road, 20 to 25 MPH.......pleasant. Decided to goose the throttle a bit and flipping near fell off the damn thing! In a straight line.
So I decided to come home and sit in the corner a while. Thought I might take a short cut across the little field in front of the house.
I have to pick a spot through the dozer piles so I reverse a bit. Accidentally pinned the throttle and cranked the handle bars to full lock.
Promptly flipped the machine on its side and fell off. Banged my knee off something on the way down.
Richard boy yells out and starts running down the road to help me. He was watching the whole thing.
Thinks I am on fire because of all the smoke. I was worried a bit too.
Got the machine right side up and drove it home...skipping the short cut.
It turns out that riding a Polaris Colt 250 back in high school in no way shape or form qualifies you to ride a Artic Cat 1050cc machine twenty years later. Things a frigging death trap!
No way in hell do I ever want to be around a "mountain" or hot rod sled.
A few years ago I had my Rancher ATV in the shop for maintenance. Was looking at a few snow machines on the showroom floor with analog speedo's... They read 140 to 160 MPH!
Jim, I might be slightly jealous of your new lunker doobie sled but I'm not jealous of all that snow, makes even the most remedial jobs a pain in the ass!
Like Barry said, be careful on that thing...
I wonder how bad the Milk is gonna flood this Spring? Guess it depends on how quick it warms up but sure as hell sounds like the potential for some (major)flooding.
Originally Posted by Jim_Conrad
This little warm up has been a bitch! 3 to 4 feet of snow in places that is now slippery and starting to settle.
Awful glad you have some better weather for calving heifers right now Sam!
I was pretty nervous a week ten days ago but fingers crossed that this gradual warm up is here to stay. Just about perfect now, 15-20F at night, highs in the 30's, uber temps.....
8 heifers have calved so far and we haven't had to pull one yet. Perfect sized calves and the heifers have all been great mothers...knocking on wood as we just started...
But my dad has those heifers lookin' prime, they are in about ideal shape and that makes life easier all the way around. Happy cows make good momma's....
Not nearly as exciting as a new snowmobile but management appears to be happy with the upgrade.
I named it Lil Sweet(after the mini Dr Pepper man)...
It turns out that riding a Polaris Colt 250 back in high school in no way shape or form qualifies you to ride a Artic Cat 1050cc machine twenty years later. Things a frigging death trap!
LOL I thought the same exact thing when I bought a 700 RMK. Fricken thing hauled some serious ass! But once I got used to it, it was FUN as hell!
So far I would just have footage of being stuck, hooking up a tow rope, falling off, smoke, and general nonsense.
Which would all be quite entertaining!
Ed, you must have taken those pics last Fall.....
Seriously though, looks like a good hunt was enjoyed by all!
Seeing that mud on the Ranger reminds that I need to take a pickup in next week and have a new set of tires put on. Mud season is right around the corner here....
Yesterday.
Unlike Jim's vids my narration leaves much to be desired.
I like to watch foxes hunt, plus they keep the mice and squirrel population down. We usually have a family in the area, I try and hammer the yotes to help them out.
No way in hell do I ever want to be around a "mountain" or hot rod sled.
Your sled reminds me of my first car many moons ago. A plain looking 4 door Oldsmobile sedan but it was pushed along by a 455 Rocket. Hang on to that thing bud, keep the windshield side up
We don't have too many around anymore. The dang coyotes are thick but my God Son, who is laid off in the winter, did take 16 'yotes off our hunting land the last couple of months so hopefully that helps.
Things are just starting to thaw here and a few brown spots are showing up in the hills. The river bottom is basically a foot of heavy snow everywhere, 'warm' but cloudy so very little actual melting. Hopefully most of the moisture in the hills has a chance to soak in.
Pumping out mud puddles is fairly low on the list but I didn't have any thing else to do!
I think the snow will be shrunk down enough by the weekend that a guy will be able to get around the river bottom 'off road' on a sxs or 4 wheeler.
Then it's time to get some gates shut and start fixing fence in hopes of keeping the cows contained. They get cocky and wander off when the weather warms up. We like them to be in a 'known' area when they start having calves.
With as much snow as there is on the highline, could get interesting down stream this spring. Starting to get sloppy around here, and we are just starting to melt.
I finally got the garden all planted yesterday. I hate that part!
Rub it in, will you. I usually have some garden planted by now, but it's been cold and too wet. Wanted to get some peas and potatoes out early, and hope to if it doesn't rain again, which it's supposed to tomorrow. On the flip side, I do have strawberries in the high tunnel, along with some green beans I planted last week. I sell the beans at the local produce auction, and hoped to hit the early market.
After chores I drove home and got my wife for a 'snow safari' in the wheeler. I needed to go around the calving pasture and close about a dozen gates.
Didn't quite get there in time as the cows had already spread out post feeding and were all over the place. Needless to say there is still a little snow in places, got STUCK twice...
After chores I drove home and got my wife for a 'snow safari' in the wheeler. I needed to go around the calving pasture and close about a dozen gates.
Didn't quite get there in time as the cows had already spread out post feeding and were all over the place. Needless to say there is still a little snow in places, got STUCK twice...
After chores I drove home and got my wife for a 'snow safari' in the wheeler. I needed to go around the calving pasture and close about a dozen gates.
Didn't quite get there in time as the cows had already spread out post feeding and were all over the place. Needless to say there is still a little snow in places, got STUCK twice...
I thought about tracks but we don't use the wheelers enough in the snow to justify buying a set of tracks. They are $$$!
Creeks are running around here, you and Nashman should have made a ice chunk shooting vid.... Post it!
Travis bro Flavious, da snow is a melting!
Part of the farm program requires that women do something. Here honey, hold the camera honey while I show you how to get a Ranger (un)stuck in da snow....
Ed, nice socks.
Kings, winter is OVER, celebrating again today!
Charlie, camera woman was ALREADY holding the camera, no way in hell could she have held my beer!
I wanna get a drone and make some actual bad ass vids....
I thought about tracks but we don't use the wheelers enough in the snow to justify buying a set of tracks. They are $$$!
Creeks are running around here, you and Nashman should have made a ice chunk shooting vid.... Post it!
Travis bro Flavious, da snow is a melting!
Part of the farm program requires that women do something. Here honey, hold the camera honey while I show you how to get a Ranger (un)stuck in da snow....
Ed, nice socks.
Kings, winter is OVER, celebrating again today!
Charlie, camera woman was ALREADY holding the camera, no way in hell could she have held my beer!
I wanna get a drone and make some actual bad ass vids....
Right before we stopped for church this morning.
Brian noted my photo and did not like my slippers so brought me some a couple of weeks ago handmade in Bulgaria....
That side by side has a nice comfy rumble to it Sam looks like good rig. I bought a quad last year now I've got s x s envy a lil..
Ya tracks for these toys they're $$ all right. And guys around here that run them including a guy with a YJ jeep, which is pretty cool, say take your fuel consumption before and triple it as an estimate with tracks. Pretty hard on drive lines too. They say they're great on packed or semi hard snow, both the jeep guy and guys with them on quads and side x sides, but they ain't no snowmobile in soft powder. And when they DO get suck it makes for quite the cluster.. as chances are the only thing you'll get near it with to try and pull it is .. wait for it.. another crazy with tracks on and atv! Evidently once such performance required the use of about half a day rental on an excavator on day 3 to get to and pull both track machines. Makes for some good stories tho
Salty, it's a stock '16 Ranger 900XP, full cab/heater, wiper, leaky floor, etc.. Bad part is the dealer who I ordered it from neglected to do the cab seal kit. First SxS and I didn't even know about a seal kit.
Until you hit a dry dusty rode or a big swampy spot you really don't think about it, that or cold air. Drafty around the steering column.
It's a kind of a dog in the snow though and we were bottoming out. Lose momentum and you are in trouble. Lots of branches and fallen cottonwoods otherwise I wouldn't have driven into the drifts.
I would hate to get one stuck up in the hills with no tree to tie onto with the winch!
Huh, didn't know about any seal kits either. Now you've got something to add to your list of stuff to do some day if you ever get some spare time. haha
I bought a 2009 Yamaha Grizzly 700 off of a fellow up country. He was the original owner and she was a garage princess I guess, only about 800 miles on it And it came with a factory winch and snow plow which has been a big hit this winter. We had one dump of a couple feet and a few more around half of that. Scored some pretty good neighbour points and generally avoided shovels as much as possible all winter.
This things my first atv of any sort bought it for hunting mainly lots of roads in the hills here that get half washed out or buried by slides and generally neglected enough that you can't get a pick up in to. I'm getting smoother and more comfortable with it now, plowing was a good way to learn the bike actually. I wouldn't want any much more power that big single's got some serious grunt! Looking forward to snorting around in the hills once the snows gone up there..
Huh, didn't know about any seal kits either. Now you've got something to add to your list of stuff to do some day if you ever get some spare time. haha
I bought a 2009 Yamaha Grizzly 700 off of a fellow up country.
Dan
Dan, one hot afternoon I tried to Gorilla tape every spot where I could find daylight in the cab. They are not put together very well in regards to gaps.....
The 700 Grizzly is the all-time best wheeler ever!
Seriously, they are by far the most common utility 4-wheeler around here. Fricken awesome machines and yes they will rip!
Huh, didn't know about any seal kits either. Now you've got something to add to your list of stuff to do some day if you ever get some spare time. haha
I bought a 2009 Yamaha Grizzly 700 off of a fellow up country.
Dan
Dan, one hot afternoon I tried to Gorilla tape every spot where I could find daylight in the cab. They are not put together very well in regards to gaps.....
The 700 Grizzly is the all-time best wheeler ever!
Seriously, they are by far the most common utility 4-wheeler around here. Fricken awesome machines and yes they will rip!
Summer chores...
I like the custom water bottle rack on the wheeler...
Jim, I snow blowed out the crowding tub and alley about two weeks ago. Before the snow got hard and more recently slushy. It is melting fast now, standing water all over the place.
Glad to hear you're getting some fun outa that new sled good times. You'll be set up nice for next year if you have the time. Some guys I know have been going hard on some out of control wolf areas up here this year they're at 45 last I heard. Snaring mostly.
Yeah I SAF wouldn't try it but these guys know what they're doing. The little I know is its a semi stiff cable with a lead that looks a bit like a log choker in the pics I've seen. They work very well I'm told and critters die pretty quickly.
When ID's first Wolf trapping season opened an old trapper across the river set out on a quest to snare a Wolf. A couple of weeks in he actually had two Wolves in his snares at one trap check. ID requires you to bring them in so they can look them over and pull a tooth for aging or something so he stopped by my place on his way to town to check in his catch. I don't know much about Wolves but I can tell you that two grown adults flat fill up the bed of a little S10 pick up. Holy crap.....you need to see those things to really appreciate the size...they're huge.
Ed, it sure as hell feels like it lately but the the weatherman says hold on...
Low of 0F and wind and snow for tomorrow(night). Could be an all-time record low....
Not at all what we need given that calving is just taking off with the main herd. Nothing we can do about it but put out a bunch of straw and hope for the best. We've got great wind protection but you can never escape the cold air.
Jim, worms and lice is something that I need to get a better understanding of, sounds like you have a good handle on it which is good.
I've kinda been thinking we should try a different backpour just to mix it up a little.
This morning I was out ear tagging calves while my dad was chopping bales in the tractor. All of a sudden about 20 head threw their head ups and ran off the chow line..... Hmmmm...
Finished tagging the calf and went to do a little investigation.
Spied this bastid lurking a couple hundred yards away.
We don't seem to really get a spring, it's winter, in between, and summer. I'm not a big fan of in between.
Snowblower don't do much good on ice. The good part of a sloped lot is snow melt off runs down hill. The bad part is unless your'e on the apex of the hill, the neighbors runoff turns your driveway into a skating rink.
We don't seem to really get a spring, it's winter, in between, and summer. I'm not a big fan of in between.
Snowblower don't do much good on ice. The good part of a sloped lot is snow melt off runs down hill. The bad part is unless your'e on the apex of the hill, the neighbors runoff turns your driveway into a skating rink.
Had to pull the first calf of the year last night, leg back but luckily the calf is/was fine. Always worried when you find one like that.
It was a straight up blizzard yesterday afternoon(about 2 hours after I took the vid...). Not much a guy can do, mess around too much and the paranoid old cows will wander off to have a calf. Chopped straw and left.
Jim, Daniel boy is quite the character when he wants to be.........grin
Neighbor's bull?
But at the same time it's almost April so you gotta expect an early one.
Wicked wind blowing here and it's cold(for calving).
Right off the bat this morning I found a day old calf hung up in a box elder tree. Still in the hot box(60F), worried about it's feet.......
Later on in another bunch noticed a little heifer calf mooching off of whoever was standing still. Assuming a twin that nursed once and then was rejected.
Around 60-70 calves so far.
And at this rate it'll be another month before there's much green grass.
It was down in the teens last night, woke up to some fresh snow this morning in the flathead. It might be a rough spring on calves, good luck. On the bright side, in another month you should be able to get a full nights sleep :-)
Heifers are 2/3rds done, all good. Should clarify that every morning the calves stay in the pens while the heifers go out to eat. Thus the note cards so I know who goes back into what pen....
Pretty sure I have the shakey thing down! (and is it just me or is that cow givin' the stink eye?!)
Sam I notice that your ear tags are smaller than the ones that I saw near here the other day. Those were damn near the size of the baby calves heads. I guess the owner can't see very well. I am afraid that a good wind will pull them out. miles
Sam I'll take yours and big Jim's farmin vids over politics and bickering 10 times out of 10 Hope you guys catch a wiff of spring in the air before long out there and the calving keeps going well, calves getting warmed up by the truck heater n all. lol
We don't seem to really get a spring, it's winter, in between, and summer. I'm not a big fan of in between.
Snowblower don't do much good on ice. The good part of a sloped lot is snow melt off runs down hill. The bad part is unless your'e on the apex of the hill, the neighbors runoff turns your driveway into a skating rink.
Add about 15* of gradient to that, & that's what I had to back the snow machine trailer into all weekend !!
Okay, thanks for the positive feedback. Maybe when something new comes ups I'll make another vid. Kinda wish I had a Go-Pro because there would be some mean momma footage!
Couple of them the last few days down in the old cows. And a couple I am NOT even going to mess with, but at least they have heifer calves so a late banding won't be an issue, we'll just ear-tag them at branding.
Miles, we use the smaller calf tags and then will replace with a bigger cow tag if a heifer makes the grade. The 2 year olds in the vid will all get new 'big' tags here in a month before they go out to pasture. They were born on 2016 so they will get a 600 series tag, the calves are already tagged with the number that their mother will get.
Ed and Roger, the hair dryer comment was an attempt at humor! I will admit it's been a few years since we've used a timing light but c'mon man, give me a little credit.....grin
Salty, yeah, no cut/paste regurgitated posts around here, heifer reports and hopefully some Spring mud again soon!
Jim, anymore calves?
We had 5 heifers that were close yesterday and by late evening 3 had calves. Full house in the calving shed....
Kings, that must be #632 and yeah, so far they are all doing well.
Paul, I am officially jealous of your chores!
Not to mention some of the finest eating to be had on the planet.....
Yeah calving is in full gear up here too Sam. We live about 100 miles inland near the border in BC, so we're in the mountains. This weekend we decided to head over the pass and into the dry open country in the interior, clear the winter cobwebs and get some of the moss loose from behind the ears We took backroads and did like a 200 mile loop, the wife and I and the dogs we had a good time.
Probably saw 200 brand new calves along the way it was a nice day around 50 degrees. These outfits had them outside with lots of fresh bedding, decent looking nurseries and an easy go this day. We were zipping along drinkin it all in and I glanced up the road at a cow working her front end back and forth, there was just a glimpse through the brush as we passed and I could see she was actually chest deep in mud. My wife says that cows stuck! I think so too I said. I got stopped did a 3 point cop turn on the two lane highway looking around at hundreds of cattle in every direction wondering WTF anyone to do with the outfit might be. No sign of any buildings and I couldn't remember where the hell the last was. Thinking this could be a chit show here... pulled along side the cow a couple minutes later and just as we got there she kind of rolled and got a front hoof on the dry and pulled herself a bit, bit more scrambling and out she came. The boss said good karma fixed that one, maybe she's right.
Did another back road that ends up a mile high plus on a huge plateau. I think I'd taken it once eons ago, I was a kid. Anyways I didn't know but there's wild horses up there. There's a big mine up there, they're attracted to all the grass from the reclamation work. Signs say the mine opened in the 60s but the horses were there long before. Saw about 8 of them right off the road was pretty cool.
Anyways looks like the ranches are having an easier go than you guys, snows completely gone in the valley bottoms and that's where all the stock are right now. Hopefully you guys catch some nice sunny days like the other day soon.
Salty, good on you for turning around and checking up on that ol' cow. Glad you didn't have to wallow out in the mud with her........grin
We calve alongside the Missouri river for a mile or two and there are some backwaters that can get pretty mucky when things thaw out. Knock on wood I've only had to pull a calf out, never had a cow get bogged down in that stuff.
We have roughly 80 on the ground, about 1/4 of the way done. Looks like more chilly temps this week and then hopefully it's time for spring.
I guess it's been a nightmare over in Phillips county which is about 100 miles west of here. They have more snow and have also been colder(-14F last week), not good. Every time I feel sorry for the situation here I think about those guys and all the froze up calves....
On a more positive note Ed, that looks pretty sharp! I might have missed it but how many HP's does that badboy produce?
And when you get it hooked up it will certainly require a vid!
No doubt Sam. The final build, serpentine and all. It'll be on my truck tomorrow. Just dumbazz retirement fun.
Nice looking motor, but that’s some funny looking fuel injection :-)
Originally Posted by SamOlson
Salty, good on you for turning around and checking up on that ol' cow. Glad you didn't have to wallow out in the mud with her........grin
We calve alongside the Missouri river for a mile or two and there are some backwaters that can get pretty mucky when things thaw out. Knock on wood I've only had to pull a calf out, never had a cow get bogged down in that stuff.
We have roughly 80 on the ground, about 1/4 of the way done. Looks like more chilly temps this week and then hopefully it's time for spring.
I guess it's been a nightmare over in Phillips county which is about 100 miles west of here. They have more snow and have also been colder(-14F last week), not good. Every time I feel sorry for the situation here I think about those guys and all the froze up calves....
On a more positive note Ed, that looks pretty sharp! I might have missed it but how many HP's does that badboy produce?
And when you get it hooked up it will certainly require a vid!
We are supposed to get 2”-4” snow then rain equal to 1.25 of water in the valley this weekend. It’s going to get even more messy for the folks calving. I hope it warms up and drys up soon.
Stormin', that same front is rumored to hit us Saturday night. Calling for wind snow, just like last weekend only warmer....
But after last year you won't hear me bitching about the moisture!
Speaking of last year, during the first week of April we hit 81F and by May I was watering down our branding corral in hopes of cutting down on the dust.
The calves were actually hunting shade.......
As crazy as it sounds I'll take a spring like this over a hot and dry one.
Ouch 80 plus degrees beating down on a new black calve is not good at all. Most of the cattle country up here went through a terrible drought last year too but it didn't come early in fact the spring was quite wet and there was a bumper crop of grass and browse. Then someone shut the taps and cranked the heat and by July we were in to the worst forest fire season on recorded history here. All that lovely new growth of the spring... dead, and laying around like kindling in the hot winds. How's a guy supposed to win?
Anyways every year can't totally suck and this one doesn't have much suck in it yet sept for some extra plowin and such I guess when you think of the big picture. The Peace river country the better part of a thousand miles north of here, about as far north as anyone should be cattle ranching, and they do, just got a for real winter storm and a road closing class dump of snow over the weekend I'm told. So they'll have enough to do right about now. They say you need the farmin gene to do this. Looks like to me a bit of the gambling gene too. Ha
It was kind of a double whammy around here as well.
Worst drought on record followed by one of the coldest winters most people can remember. Not to mention some areas really got slammed by snow.
The hay chopper man stopped by this afternoon to do one last grind for the replacement heifers. He said he's still really busy and my dad joked that he would probably be out of work soon as there can't be much hay left in the country to chop. The guy said he knew of one person in NE MT(talking like a 20,000 sq mile area) that still had hay for sale.
$200/ton.
I did the math and at that rate it would cost us $35,000 per month to keep the cattle fed. Feed 5-6 months and that's a chunk of change....
Hopefully the weather straightens out and you guys have a nice summer.
Hay around here is barely worth anything this year. Been taking some to the auctions pretty regularly all winter. Seems like it's been <$100/ton for nice 1st cutting and <$125 for decent second. Both were stored inside as well.
You always hear people say by the time you factor in your time and your equipment it's cheaper to buy hay. Which might be true some of the time, but when it's not, you can go broke fast.
It's always good to have a surplus, never know when you'll need it.
If you guys have a good growing season how hard is it to put enough extra to build back your surplus?
Ben, most of our hay is raised on flood irrigated ground so that is how we survived without having to buy much.
We buy hay almost every year but if there are good spring rains and a cool June/July we hay up in the hills on dry land fields.
You can make a lot of (easy)hay if the conditions are right.
That's the only way we ever build up a stash.
Last summer we irrigated as much as we did in the 3 previous years combined.
Thank God for a good supply of water in a jumbo reservoir about 50 miles upstream.
Speaking of runoff, this next snow could be a stock dam filler which would be nice. Warming up so slow that most of our snow has soaked in and the creek here locally has hardly ran. Good for da grass but bad for the water holes.
Wet snow on froze ground followed by a warm-up means running water!
My phone is showing -7 and -22 with the wind chill been an absolute miserable calving season checking the herd every hour and a half day and night. Cows puckered Um tight and didn’t have any babies last night. Have about 110 on the ground closing in on half done. We are 65 head short of last year after selling a bunch of Breds in February because of the drought. Looks like going be a damn late start to seeding.
Not as cold down in the tropics, drove through town early this morning and the bank clock said 4F.... No calves out of the heifers last night which was fine with me.
You are correct on the fieldwork. Hell yesterday's market report said that the traders were taking notice of the frozen ground(late seeding) and spring wheat made a little jump.
Holy crud, Jim! That's not APRIL! I suppose that tractor is all shiny from being buffed by snow all winter? Went over to Spokane, saw just ONE emerald patch of grass. Upper 40s here today, can really feel it.
Sonuvabitch Jim, you poor bastards are still covered up in snow!
It is 95% gone around here.
Hell it's 56F right now, I actually broke a sweat this afternoon climbing up a few grains bins while checking for bugs. Reach down in that grain about 5" and it was cold....
Ralphie, that is a NICE bunch of yearlings and a good lookin' horse as well!
Do you ever sell broke ranch horses?
I need to get another one. Don't ride that much anymore but when we do it's a 2-3 day affair and it's nice to have a fresh horse each morning.
Richard, that's how it looked around here last weekend, melting fast now!
I think we might officially be out of the woods so to speak regarding cold temps.
There are a few peeling noses on the calves and some puffy ears. We didn't even bother ear tagging calves for a few days.
One poor little guy crawled a fence about 10 days ago(during a blizzard) and got hung up in a 'tree'. It was 0F the next morning when we found him. I thought he was dead. Hanging in the branches, totally exposed.
Hot boxed him for 24 hours, jug of colostrum.
You know it can't be good and sure enough he is limping around now and I might have to put him down, skin him and try to stick a bum twin on the cow. That's ranchin' and it ain't always exactly fun.
But at the same time if that's the worst of it we're doin' good.
Green up is anytime now. In fact there is some already. Cattle and horses are trying to inhale it out of the ground. We need rain and wet snow now. But I'm glad we don't have Jim's kind of April snow.
Thank you about the horse. She's 5 out of a percheron mare that I've since sold and the ranch's stud.
I don't really sell any horses. A buddy of mine did, but he's got a few kids now and they keep them pretty busy.
'Bomb proof' is relatively subjective terminology now Jim.....grin
Speaking of 'bombs', damn we had quite a few 'grouchy' cows lately. Either it's the cold or they are all hopped up on too much alfalfa.
There are 3-4 cows that I will not even bother to mess with and another 5-6 where dad has had to grab a 5-6' stick and give them a whack or two across the head while I'm trying to give the calf a tag.
Jim, we have a 'list' and keep notes on the grouchies!
An overly aggressive/protective mother can be hard to deal with but at the same time they will show no fear to coyotes. Nice to have a few 'crazy' cows in the herd.
A co worker is calving, his son was going to work one of the calves in the pen. JB says 'take a stick, that cow can be mean' Junior (a teenager) says "I got it". JB said OK and stood back to watch the rodeo.
Momma cow came after the teenager, JB yells Watch Out! and the teenager turns around and just has time to put his hands on the bridge of the cows nose. She promptly tossed his ass right over the pen wall.
Everybody is OK, but I thought you all might like to hear another story of how dumb the old man is and how smart the teenage son is!
Walleye should be running in the river now but I'm not sure where a guy could even find minnows. Da creeks are all still iced over!
Our turnout date is May 1st but I'm skeptical. We have enough hay to get us into mid May.....
My buddy live about 25 miles north and they still have snow. He stopped by yesterday and I asked how things were going. He said they had a good start on digging the air drills out of the snowbank.....
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You're getting pretty close to pegging the needle on that!![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/kaf4SxW.jpg)
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wrap? Cut off the buster, it looks like this.![[Linked Image]](https://i.imgur.com/i5nCdYD.jpg)
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I was sore, and hurt all over! Damn!![[Linked Image]](http://s37.photobucket.com/user/montanasam/media/A%202018/IMG_3858.jpg.html)
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