So Many Prairie Dogs
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To start out the week I was sick so unfortunately, I did not go to work on Monday. However, the following day, I took a part, for the cabin, up on the mountain to Nate. He was going to work on the cabin because one of the other ranches had a rider up there for the summer. When I got back to the home ranch I got ready head out and treat against prairie dogs. Before I went out, I was able to ride with the swather for a bit. I had the chance to drive it around a bit because I had never done that before. After lunch, the majority of my afternoon was spent treating.
On Wednesday, David and I headed up to the Little Goose Corrals to make sure the scale was clean, and it was ready for the inspector to come look at it. We also got the monitor that shows the weights from the well house. While we were up there, we checked the cows and the bulls that we were on Sam’s Place Pasture. Everybody looked happy and healthy. There is a bull in the North Pasture that we left there when we gathered the cattle out of there last because he had a bad case of foot rot. We checked on him and put some fly medicine on him. He is still packing his leg pretty good. When we got back to the house I went and finished treating against prairie dogs, which I started the previous day. After lunch I started cleaning the scale at the home place. As I was cleaning, I lifted the lid that shows the scale underneath and found out that it was full of water. David and I tried just siphoning the water out to begin with. When I got done cleaning the scale I went up to the old shop to clean up glass from the broken windows.
The following day, David and I got the water pump out because the hose was not taking enough water out from under the scale. Once that was hooked up, I helped him hook up to the flatbed trailer and load the backhoe so he could take it out to Nate’s. I had to sit there and make sure that the water didn’t get below the water pump because it would burn up the motor if so. While that was going, I took glass out of the window on the scale house that had broken. After lunch, I headed up to the Weigand pasture to the corner where the heifers got out. I took all the wire off of the corner posts so that we could put a new one in when ready to. After that, I treated for prairie dogs in that area. Then I headed up to the Fred Cook pasture and continued treating for prairie dogs. Who knew there could be so many prairie dogs. When I got back to the house I went back to the water pump and started it up for a bit longer.
On Friday, I started out the morning by raking more twigs out of the yard so that I could get it done and ready to mow by the time it got hot. Once that was done, I picked more glass out of windows on the main house. I think they are going to be picking up glass until next year. Before lunch, I got the mower out and ready to mow. After lunch, I had to make a trip to town to get a new fuel tank lid and fuel filter for the Massey tractor. The ranch hand left the fuel tank lid off and got stuff in the fuel, so they had to drain the fuel tank while I ran to town. That took the majority of the afternoon. Then David and I went up to the pipelines that were on the 4X Storage Tank to figure out where there was a leak because the storage tank was still not catching up. We found a few problems but still didn’t fix the problem.
To round out the week, I got the truck with the bale bed on it to start gathering hay bales. I gathered all the ones that can’t be accessed by the tractor, so the ones close to the fence or the ones down in draws. That took the majority of the morning. After lunch, I went to one of the stack yards to take down panels and gather some more bales before calling it a day.
Submitted by: Josie Sackett
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
