9-September to 15-September, 2007
| Saturday, September 15, 2007: More mowing today. I cleaned up a last section from the old bulldozing work. What I haven't mowed in the last few months is not likely to be mowed this year. The reasons are that they are the two pastures I am counting on to move the cattle to when the grass in their current pasture is expended, which looks like it will be earlier than I expected this year because of the dry conditions, and also because I have pretty much worn my present mower out. I either need to replace a number of parts on it, or buy a new one. I could use one with a wider swath anyway. I was up far later last night than has been usual for me in the recent past. I got started working on AniMax bugs, and stayed at it until I had all the known ones swatted. I shipped the binaries off to Erica for further testing, and today played around with further documentation. |
| Friday, September 14, 2007: I piddled around with stuff here in the house for the most part today. Yesterday, I had gotten a summons for jury duty to start on Monday 9/24, right in the middle of my Mother's planned visit. I had no legal reason to avoid service, and other than the date I wouldn't mind. I called the County office, and got referred to the Judge's office, and after calling back later on the clerk, Judy, told me the judge had excused me. I also fixed the problem Erica found in my CRES joint importer tool. I had been reading a length byte even when the loop counter was zero. It worked as long as there was a non-zero loop count, but when the count was zero it caused an extra byte to be read, throwing the entire synchronization off. It is good I have a lot of error checks in my code, because even though the error message was misleading, the program performed rationally, instead of crashing. Another old-fashioned idea, now all the hot shots use exceptions instead of good design and defensive programming. I should get started on fixing the rest of the AniMax bugs, but I seem to have spent all the bug stomping energy I have for the day. |
| Thursday, September 13, 2007: I used the tractor and the mower/shredder attachment in the morning to push down and chop up brush in the portion of the back West pasture that weren't mowed in the last few days. I was able to rid the pasture of a lot of small saplings and juniper trees, as well as the dead mesquite trees from my prior spraying work there. While it is far from finished, the areas between clumps of brush are much wider and the whole pasture is more open. I hope that there will be enough days in the fall when the temperatures are moderate for me to get out there with a chainsaw and fell the larger juniper trees and get them burned. Around lunchtime I went to the feed store and bought a ton of cattle cubes. Buying the cubes is not much of a chore, although my hand always tries to cramp up when I go to write the check, but the real chore is unloading forty sacks weighing fifty pounds each and stacking them in the tack room. This is just not as easy as it was years ago, when I had a more youthful set of muscles. While they are called cubes, they look like broken pieces of chalk, but about the diameter of a cigar. The type I feed this time of year are 20% protein, in the winter months when the cattle have only hay for food, I switch to a 41% cottonseed-based cube. While a feed supplement helps keep cattle growing, and especially helps out the nursing mothers, instead of licks or other feeding arrangements we use cattle cubes as a part of our ranch management program. One of my neighbors described them as "cattle crack" and for some cows, that is an apt description. The cattle are used to our routine, in the late afternoon they come in from further out in the pasture and get water or graze the closer-in portions of their current pasture waiting for me to appear with their cubes. This gives me a chance to appraise and count the cattle. Thus, any day I wish to round up any cattle, I just start all the activity to get the herd in close, and wait until the ones I want are in the pens, or urge them into the pens and close the gates. I can then sort out any that I do not want in there and afterwards I can run then through the squeeze chute or get the trailer set up and load some on my cattle trailer for a trip somewhere (usually to the sale barn). |
| Wednesday, September 12, 2007: There was no entry made for yesterday. I went to a meeting of the local groundwater board to make my opinion known about an issue. Apparently, it is a big issue because the applicant corporation had paid to have a video recording of the meeting made. However, it was all just a dry run, because not enough board members showed up to have a quorum. I was told after the meeting that they will probably try to put up notice and have the meeting next Wednesday evening (19). At least I got my research done early. Yesterday saw no ranch work of note done, except the daily feeding. I fiddled around inside, including research for the meeting that never happened last night, and waited for the bug control people to show up. I was pretty disappointed in the bug situation, especially the scorpions, earlier this year, but repeated spraying seems to be getting things into better conditions. Today, I mowed another part of the second "lost" pasture that I started on Monday. I got the entire open area that was bulldozed completed, and it really does look like a pasture instead of a disaster area this year. There is burn pile cleanup needed there yet, as in the other "lost" pasture. While I was trimming up around one of the burn piles I spotted a copperhead snake. I think I killed it with the loader bucket, but I am not sure. One thing is certain, I am not going to go into the pile looking for him. So that completes another successful day in the ranching business. One thing I don't have to worry about is being unemployed because of lack of work. There is plenty of work to be done here. |
| Monday, September 10, 2007: Juliette reported she has made good progress figuring out how to modify facial parameters. This is good stuff, although it has been a long time coming. I have some bug fixes left to do, including a new one on the CRES joint importer plug-in. This will all get done in-between all the other "need to" stuff. I went this morning to the Co-op to get some ryegrass seed, but it isn't in stock yet. I probably should have called first, but that would be too practical and too much like asking for directions. So I came back home and decided to mow some on another lost pasture. This one was also bulldozed two years ago. I was impressed at how well the grass had grown back this year. This pasture has a small amount of coastal Bermuda grass in it, but the dominant grass is a native of this area that is called needle grass. The cattle seem to like it, it is very drought tolerant, but doesn't seem to have as great a yield as coastal, and may not bale into hay so readily. But I can disk that pasture and get it planted some other time, when the rest of the ranch is in top condition. |
| Sunday, September 9, 2007: I got some more correspondence from Erica and Juliette about the animation projects. I didn't get a thing done on it today, but that might change this evening. regardless, I am pleased that the overall concept works, it is just a matter now of staying focused and following through on the details. I started the day at church. Kay didn't go today, but that didn't stop me. While this aspect of my life may not be important to many others, you would only have to have been through the experiences I have to realize that I am on a mission, I just have not been given detailed instructions yet. Kay and I went out back looking at the cattle. The latest calf, which I determined today is a heifer (female) is doing well. The next oldest one has developed some sort of knot, or growth, on his left shoulder, and it does not look like it is a good thing for him. I will have to get him penned and in the squeeze chute to inspect closer, perhaps he will have to be got rid of. Today being Sunday, for no reason other than I deserve some downtime, I worked at nothing very hard. I have plenty that needs done during the week this week. Feed and seed needs bought and hauled, it is time for my annual eye examination and there is still a lot of cleanup work needed around the pole barn. It's good I like this stuff. |