Dustin'em In

On the basis of a strong forecast for rain, Lawrence and I spent the last couple of days plowing the oat field and planting oats.  Here are a few shots of that intrepid tractor driver.









 Plowing (actually, taking a selfie I think)...

These 2 are plowing...

 And planting...











Life is good.  Come on down and drive a tractor.

The Voyage Of The Falcon

Or, The Trip When Not Much Went Right

We wanted to take a shakedown sail back in June but, ironically after 3 years of such bad drouth that the area launch ramps were all closed because the lakes didn't reach the ramps, the area launch ramps were all closed because they were under water.  So I took the sailboat to Galveston this week as much intending to work on it as to sail, and that's about what happened.  Some of you are interested in the work I did, so here's a little list.

Scotty, we NEED more power!

Motor
After our trip to Port Aransas where the 4 hp Suzuki outboard proved extremely unreliable, I had it overhauled and tuned up and then put it in the garage for 2 years while I had consecutive shoulder surgeries.  I know this is the kiss of death for a motor, so imagine my surprise when it started easily and ran for 10 minutes in my makeshift motor stand.  Then I shut it off, and it never started again.  I wore blisters on 4 fingers, and never so much as a pop.  So I took it along, hoping to get it into a motor shop, but planning to spend some money on an electric which I've wanted to try for years.  Paul Wilke uses a 80-pound thrust Minn Kota on my old Siren and says he'd get bigger if he ever sailed anywhere else than Winfield Lake, but it uses a 24-volt battery system.  Minn Kota and West Marine were having a pretty big sale on 55-pound thrust salt water models, the largest that uses 12 volts.  Half expecting it to be too small, I bought it and a marine battery on price rather than on performance and it met expectations--it will get me in and out of the slip at Galveston Yacht Basin, but isn't sufficient to rely on for backup power or motoring around looking for dolphins.  But at least I had a motor.  The Suzuki shop never quite got around to looking at mine so I'll have to find a shop around here.

Sail Modifications
Ultimately I want to make the boat easier to sail single-handed.  After dropping off the motor, I went to a nearby sail loft and had the main converted from a bolt rope to slugs, and had them add some telltales.  I'm happy with this change.  It worked great.  I might send it back to put a reef point in someday.  I had them  add telltales to the small jib and left the big jib to be converted to roller furling.  West Marine doesn't stock the roller furling hardware and there are some dimensional issues to be resolved, but I'll order it and have it shipped to the sail loft and we'll be in business.  I jury rigged a downhaul on the small jib to make it easier to get down, and this worked fine.  I had the rigging shop at West Marine replace the funky mainsheet hardware on the boom with a stainless bail, and put an eye bolt at the end of the boom in the hole where the old hardware was.  The bail works great, and the eye can be used to snap to the topping lift.  I took the old spotlight off the cabin roof, which leaves some screw holes to mount a little cleat.  I'll use the cleat for the furling line or the jib downhaul, depending on which I'm using.  Long term, I hope to put some deck-mounted blocks up forward to route the downhaul/furling line.

The Voyage

Apres Sail

With all this new stuff and lots of help from Amy, I got the boat put together and launched Tuesday evening.  I noticed that the tabernacle, which I thought was wrong-sized and allows the mast to contact the cabin roof, chewing up the fiberglas, is simply installed backward.  I'll reverse that sometime soon but I still need to do some fiberglas work on the cabin roof. We motored (silently) to our slip, rigged dock lines, bumpers and battery charger, and went to eat dinner.  Wednesday morning Kathy, Amy and I reported for an early sail.  Motored out, main up, jib up...and couldn't lower the centerboard.  The latch that releases the winch ratchet is entirely missing.  Now we're motoring around with sails up, dodging and being dodged by traffic in the Galveston Ship Channel, Amy steering while I lie in the bilge with a flashlight in my mouth looking at the winch.  So I exercised the jib downhaul (single handed) and mainsail slugs (need some Teflon spray), stowed the sails and motored back to the slip.  Kathy wanted to motor back out to look for dolphins but, now with a crisp breeze, I realized we were underpowered and turned back.  So we sat on the dock looking at mullet and talking over what had worked and what hadn't.

Conclusion
I stopped to pick up the motor on the way out of town.  It was near West Marine so I stopped, and found winches for 30% off.  I also got a new stern light, to replace the aged non-functioning one I have now.  This will give me a full set of nav lights, though no masthead light.  I'd been soliciting suggestions for a name for the boat and, along with several rude ones, Amy thought of Falcon which I like.  I'll see if I can find a cool USAFA logo and get a graphic made of it.  If I can replace the winch and stern light and do a little tweaking on the sails, we can be ready to sail in a lake on Amy's birthday.  Maybe even have the roller-furled genoa by then.

Life is good.  Come on down and go sailing.  If you dare.

Garden

There will be some fruits of her labor as well.

The first tree's peaches are getting close to ripe.  I check them every day.  The other tree, a later-ripening variety, will be ready in July or August.

Zucchini and tomatoes in progress.  We've already eaten the first few Zukes.  They say if you go visit someone in the country in Texas, you better lock your car door or when you leave you'll find they've stuck Zucchini in your car.

Flowers

 If you ever wonder what Kathy does while I'm doing all the stuff I blog about, you should come sit on our back porch some morning and drink a cup of coffee.  She has a wild cacophony of colorful flowers and a menagerie of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.  It's a cool, fragrant, beautiful, peaceful place to sit and think.

Life is good.  Come on down and smell the roses.

End Shoulder Work

After the rock-loading phase of the barn project mentioned previously, I consider both shoulders fully repaired and back in action.  I had a time in early April when I thought I had re-injured one, but it's turned out to be fine and I'm happy with the results.  Thanks to everyone who did my chores, cut my meat, and prayed for my full recovery.

Now it's time to get back in the gym and begin the process of rebuilding the physique I had back in...my dreams.

Barn Project

It started out as a simple chore to muck the barn stall after moving Angel back outside.  It seemed to grow and grow until it took 3 days and both tractors, but I'm almost finished.  I did muck the stall, moved almost everything outside so I could rake and sweep, and added this gate to the end nearest the runaround so I can have the doors open for breezes when there are livestock in the runaround.  You can see from the lawn chair I took an occasional break and stayed well hydrated despite the 90+ degree heat.

 It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, just never got around to it.  It's pretty simple actually and although it's still just wired in place it will be easy to weld up. The hinge will be to the right in the lower shot, and the gate will swing all the way back to be against the barn door when it's closed.  

I've wanted to make better use of the runaround and plan to move the round pen out to the pasture across the lane.  It's not completely accurate but if you envision it as a square, then divide the square into 4 smaller squares, the barn is in the lower RH quadrant, the round pen in the upper RH quadrant, and this scene looks out onto the lower LH quadrant.  It's been so rocky I had to be very careful with the lawn mower, and there were several individual rocks and a mound or pile that were too high to use even the shredder. So I started picking up rocks...

After 8 loads like this I'm almost finished.  I'm sure the big pile was the remains of the old rock granary that burned when I was a little kid.  Many of them have straight and square edges, like they've been worked.  They must have just dug a hole and thrown most of it in there after the fire.  This will make the lower LH and upper RH quadrants pretty smooth and grazeable.  The upper LH is a rocky, mesquite-filled jungle that will be a project for another day.

Life is good.  Come on down and carry rocks with me.

Busted Handle, Early June

The flood waters have receded and we switched back from mud boots to regular boots on Monday.  Before the rain Angel and Cowtown had both sustained the same injury, bad cuts just above the back of the hoof.  I treated Cowtown but took Angel to the vet and she has a bandage that has to stay dry, so she's been in the stall in the barn for quite a while.  With sunshine and gentle breezes, one pen has finally dried out enough for her to go outside.

Amy elected not to delay her trip to Kansas to stay and muck the stall ("I shoveled my share of it.  It ain't hurt me none." comes to mind) so I started that today and, before I could begin--you guessed it--I had to repair the handle of the rake.  This is the good rake too, the one I didn't run over with the tractor.  Things just don't last like they used to...

My new water works has been useful for giving Cowtown hydrotherapy and watering Angel.  We had placed a hydrant by the diesel tank to get water across the lane for the horses' trough.  I added the hydrant on the left for use around the barn.  Someday Kathy's going to miss all the hose I borrowed...

As we've worked outside lately, Amy and I have debated whether we were hearing quail or just mockingbirds imitating quail.  Today all doubt was removed, as this pair came to the shade right next to the horses' trough.  I can't remember when I last saw quail--it has to have been in the 70's. The male is on the tree branch, the female on the ground to the left.

Life is good.  Come work outside and listen to the birds.

Wet Weather

At the end of the wettest May I've ever seen, here are views of the pecan orchard under the Leon River bridge (we could see fish swimming in it), the field on the other side, and the river itself. On our little hilltop we didn't have any flooding, but there were creeks in the pastures, the tank is full and we had mud everywhere.

Duke

In case you haven't met Duke, the Angus bull.  He's an October 2012 model, sire of this year's calf crop which looks good, and in the process of creating next year's...

Spring Update 2

Cattle, continued
Completing the previous status, I got them sorted into breeding pastures and put the Angus bull in with his girls yesterday.  He had a big smile on his face today.  Lambert still has to wait on the result of one test, but speaks lovingly to the cows (and heifers--his daughters!) who come up to visit.  He probably has another week to wait.

Austin's and Travis's cows are 2 of the old ones I need to sell, so here are the 2014 heifers that now wear the green and orange.






Weather

Over the weekend there were 2 nights where strong storm fronts lined up all the way from south Texas into Oklahoma or Kansas, moved through threateningly, and we got nearly no rain.  Last night, for a change, a relatively small storm system (left) had us squarely in its sights (right) and we got 2.7" in a heavy 2-hour downpour.

The tanks are nearly full, Sycamore creek roared for a while, and people are walking around smiling.  It's not a drouth-buster but it's a welcome prelude to summer.








Chickens

The chickens continue to thrive and their winter-diminished egg production is ramping back up.  We originally ordered 10 Rhode Island Red hens as day-old chicks in April 2013, figuring we'd surely have some loss to disease, dogs, varmints and mysterious causes.  I celebrated their 2-year birthday today by feeding them--all 10 of them!--their favorite snack, a big bunch of grapes.

We could undoubtedly go to the store and buy eggs for less money and less effort than these birds cost us, but their urgent clucks when I let their feeder run low and their joyful noise and excitement when chasing grasshoppers (or grapes) are priceless.

The eggs are just a bonus.

Life is good.  Come on down and we'll have steak and eggs for breakfast.

Spring Update

When I let enough time go by between posts, it's a daunting job to consider an update.  Just about the time I was considering abandoning the blog, possibly in favor of Facebook, Pete complained that he missed the blog posts and motivated me to write a Spring status.  There's a lot to write so I'll do reports from the various farm enterprises, starting off with...

Cattle

Spring calving is complete.  We had 21 of 22 planned 2015 calves, all in a 60-day calving period except for one outlier (by 3 weeks) and one very old cow who tested open.  The bulls were our Polled Hereford from Kansas, Lambert, and a new Angus bull we bought last year in Meridian.  Both did their jobs and the calf crop looks good.  One heifer required assistance, probably due to being a little bit small and a little bit young.  I should have held her back, but she and the calf are fine.  Considering the number of heifers we're keeping we're doing very well.  We sold Lambert in November since this Spring his first daughters are of breeding age.  It was a year too soon, actually, and since I hadn't found a replacement and his new owner's cows are all bred, we borrowed him back for one more season.  In the next couple of days we'll separate the cows and put them in their breeding pastures, get the bulls' Breeding Soundness Evaluation results, and let the romance begin.

Lambert

 We have some old cows to sell at weaning this summer so, since I was replacing both bulls, we kept nine 2014 heifers to replace them.  A couple of them might still be a little small so I'm toying with the idea of breeding them for Fall 2016 calving, possibly using Artificial Insemination since I've learned the new vet will help us get it done.  Our number of cows to calve should start creeping back up toward 30 if pasture conditions stay good.  If it starts to dry up, we can sell a couple of the bred heifers and just slow down our buildup.

They look good, lying in grass tall enough to hide the calves.  These shots are taken in the grass above the oat field.  The oats started to head out at a pretty short height and we have lots of hay left, so we decided to graze them.  All the cows have been here at the house, rotating themselves daily between the oats and the grass pastures, since we vaccinated calves on March 28.  The grass in the big pasture is enjoying the rest, and we'll move the Baldie herd down there this week.

We have 4 young (14 months) bulls for sale.  People would like to have them 18 months when they put them out to breed, which is one of the reasons I'm considering Fall calving a few cows, but I'm confident they'll sell eventually.  We're shopping for a Polled Hereford bull ourselves, to replace Lambert and sire some more replacement females.  Good bulls in general are at a premium and ones with the genetics we want are pretty scarce.

I'll report on the other activities soon.  Life is good.  Come on down and cowboy with us.

A Good Lie

As far as Kathy knew, Holly and Lawrence were coming home just in time for Holly's mission trip to Guatemala on the 14th.  In truth, with help from Amy and just a few white lies, they arrived the evening of the 2nd in time to help celebrate her LXVII birthday (Super Bowl ain't got nothing on her) Tuesday the 3rd.

We kidnapped her from work and went to George's for lunch and a drink, and then home to catch up on the past few months.  It was a good lie.