I am still feeding the cows

 Today was another weird weather day, it started snowing this am and by noon there was a couple of inches on the ground and it was only 36 F outside.  I had to feed both sets of cows large bales of hay.  I tried out a new plan for moving the bales, dragging instead of pushing.  I had some real trouble last time with popping the strings loose as I was moving the bale around.  This caused a lot of problems.  I decided today to wrap a chain around the bale and use another to chain it to the bucket so I could drag the bale by driving backwards.  This was actually faster than pushing the bale.  It is my new go to plan for moving the bales.  I did check on the old (rebuilt and running) tractor this week at the dealer and hopefully it will be out on the farm next week.  As soon as it shows up I will have to go out and do some work!  I will have to spend a few hours driving it around and playing with all the levers and gears to make sure I know how it runs.  This sounds incredibly boring and tedious… 

I am really looking forward to having it available and ready for use.  I will need to clean out a spot in the machine shop for it so it can be housed out of the weather.  

  

 We had another baby cow yesterday!.  I went out to feed the sheep and cows last night and when I tossed hay out of the barn for the cows I only saw three cows.  There are four currently residing in the barn lot.  The dogs and I walked up into the upper prime pasture looking for the lone cow.  She was nowhere to be seen so I started checking the fence.  I found a very loose section just before the gate that a cow could press on and jump through the upper wires then crawl under the lifted fence over the back creek therefore joining the cows and bull in the lower pasture.  This was my suspicion.  It would have been okay as her calf is almost a year old and can be weaned.  But no this was not the case, Mouse locked onto something in the barn lot, it was the missing cow with a brand new baby that she was licking dry.  Unfortunately, this is the crazy green tag cow.  She is truly crazy.  So we left her alone and just went back inside.  

 

So this morning Sarah and I went out to tag and band the new lambs from the last 6 weeks.  We walked into the barn and the new momma cow was in the barn and really pissed off we dared to get close to her or the baby.  She kept bum rushing the wooden divider whenever she thought we were too close.  So we opted to give up on the sheep project and I fed big bales of hay to the cows.  While I was working in the barn lot I spotted the sheep going into the barn and I thought the cow had moved out of the way.  So i went into the barn through the hay side door and as I reached over the inside gate to get into the sheep area, it has to be unlocked from the inside, I was met with a mooing angry cow blowing slobber all over me as I barely escaped behind the half door.  I decided that the sheep barn was a good spot for the cow and her baby.  

 

 

 

The mouse war is ongoing, I think I am winning.  This week on Tuesday, I killed one mouse in the chicken coop with 5 traps being triggered and the dogs killed one mouse in the barn.  On Wednesday, I killed three mice in the coop with 5 traps being triggered and one mouse was killed by two traps!  On Thursday, I killed one mouse in the coop with two traps triggered.  I only had traps on the ground activated.  On Friday, I killed one mouse in the coop with two traps triggered, again the only traps activated were on the ground.  On Saturday at noon, I killed one mouse in the coop with two traps triggered again only on the ground.  I decided to move several bags of chicken feed to allow me easier access to the area where the mice are getting their comeuppance.  I moved four bags the bottom bag was empty!! The mice have emptied a 50# bag of chicken food throughout the back coop area.  I spread traps all over the ground.  I am still not baiting the traps with anything.  The poison spread throughout the area is uneaten.  No self respecting mouse would eat that crap when there is free chicken food just laying around.  Tally: 11 mice killed in coop (Traps vs Dogs) 10 mice killed in barn.