Done With Fixing-We Hope

Today was another dreary, cool and damp day having gotten .6" of rain over night again.  Someday we will get to make hay but today wasn't the day.  The heifers in the lower pasture managed to change paddocks themselves, signs that there are problems with the fence.  The dilemma this time of year is there are areas that have high grass and when you add moisture you come up with a direct short.  Once that happens it seems like cattle have an ability to sense that they can do what they want.  Bruce spent the afternoon trimming fence with a trimmer with poly cut blades to handle the thick grass.  I was glad it was cool since he has done trimming in much hotter conditions than today.  According to Bruce, if he trimmed every fence on the cow side of the pasture there is about 2.5 miles.  Today he was pleased to complete a whole mile (the outside perimeter) and the fence isn't exactly fixed, but it is definitely improved.

Other than roaming cattle the news on that part of our world is good.  The freshest cow passed her drug test and is now being milked into the tank.  The twins cow was let out to pasture today, but not with the rest of the group since they are traveling to the far end. To limit the amount of walking she has to do on her sore foot, and minimize stress in general, she gets let into the first pasture across the road.   We were able to see her from the yards here and she did all the good cow things like eating, walking and resting so she is on the mend.

It is no secret that we have been breaking things all over the place this spring.  Not just general maintenance things, big frustrating things.  To this point we could live in denial with all the equipment again in working order but no bills arriving.  That has changed within the last couple days.  It was our hope that the tractor and skid steer wouldn't go over $10,000 in repairs.  I guess if you are going to break something you might as well do a good job because the shaft that broke in the tractor was $2,709!!!!!!!!!  When you start with that number it isn't pretty so those two repairs have cost us $12,500.  When you add the $1,100 for the harvestore unloader.....lets just say that enough is enough!  The cows broke a gate hook on the steer bunk tonight...$1.99...that's the kind of numbers I want to work with the rest of the summer : )