On the house roof

As a Christmas gift Donna gave me a roof rake for clearing snow.  It is very useful this year with all the snow we have received.  I used it to clear snow off of some roofs.

Daisy appreciates this as now she can get back upon the house roof to survey her kingdom.   This morning I found her on the house roof when she greeted me after I came back from a short bicycle ride.

First mouse of 2017

With this warmer weather Daisy is going outside more.   This morning I found a fat dead mouse on my front step and a proud kitty.  Her first mouse of 2017.

I think she got the mouse from the large hay bales.  Yesterday I moved two bales to the pasture for the cattle.  When taking the twine off the first bale a mouse dropped off the bottom of the bale and ran under the wooden pallet I was about to set the bale on.  Daisy wasn't with me to get the mouse.


Today when riding my bicycle I passed a woman with two kids and a dog.  And a very large pig.  They were all walking down the road.  The pig was not on a leash.  As I came up upon them the pig decided to go over to my side of the road to the ditch.  The woman ran over to stop the pig from going into the ditch as she was afraid it would sink in the deep snow and get stuck.

Snow

15 inches of snow fell overnight.  I had just started to shovel some of it from the driveway this afternoon when Daisy scratched at the door to come outside to join me.

Not many paths were shoveled yet so she didn't have many areas to explore.  Daisy wasn't interested in trying to jump through 15 inches of snow.

After exploring, chasing her tail around and around, batting some small snow clumps around, Daisy went back inside the house.  At 20-some degrees she started to shake her back legs as she walked as if they were getting cold.

The weather forecast is for the snow to continue.  Even picking up in intensity Sunday night into Monday.  The forecasters are predicting 1 to 2 feet more snow.  And 15-25 mph winds from Sunday night through Monday to create blizzard like conditions.  I'm glad the cattle have shelter to get out of the wind and snow.

Crooked neck

I spent three hours this afternoon shoveling more snow out of my back yard.  I still have more snow to shovel.

Daisy spent the afternoon inside the house sleeping.  Here is how I found her when I came back inside the house. She had opened her eyes when she heard me with the camera.   You'd think she would get a sore neck from sleeping like that.

More chair stretching

Daisy spends most of her time inside the house.  When she does go outside it usually is for only about five minutes.   The occasional exception is when I fall back asleep in less than five minutes.  Daisy spent an hour outside last night after she insisted on going outside and kept me awake until she got her way.  Yup, I laid down to wait for her and fell asleep within a minute since Daisy wasn't making noise to go outside.

It snowed a few inches last night.  I spent part of the day shoveling the snow.  I got three-fourths of the yard shoveled.  To do it all over again tomorrow as it started snowing again after dark.

Daisy is relaxing in my chair as I write this.  As you can tell I have the wood stove going and the house is warm.  Her eyes are open as she is thinking deep kitty thoughts.

Computer cat in a chair

Last night Daisy took the chair I use when I am on my computer.  I had to move Daisy and the chair to the side and then sit on an old wooden chair to use my computer.

Tonight Daisy is laying on my computer table as I type this.  She was on my chair earlier but I got it back when Daisy went over to get something to eat.

It is cold outside and getting colder.  Daisy insisted on going outside at 2:04 am last night.  I couldn't talk her out of it.  I intended to wait five minutes to let her back in the house but fell asleep.  I woke up after a half hour.  She was glad to get back into the house.  She has not been outside since, not even when I went out on the morning to check on the cattle.  Usually she goes out with me but this morning she stood at the door and sniffed at the cold air, wrinkled her nose and turned away from the door.

Computer Cat

These Winter days, when Daisy isn't laying near the wood stove, or laying with (or on) me and watching a movie on TV, she often lays on my computer desk when I am on the computer.  I finally wised up and cleared off part of the table for her.  Otherwise she would lay in front of my computer monitor or partially on my keyboard.

I don't have a photo of it but sometimes she lays the other way and peaks at me from under the computer monitor.

Playing with a rug

The morning after one of my favorite cows died I found Daisy laying near the wood stove in the same manner as I had found Rose.  Daisy often comes late morning to lay on the bed with me and she hadn't done so that morning.  I was afraid something had happened to Daisy and called out to her with no response.  When I petted her she raised her head to look at me.  She was fine.  Just a combination of being sleepy and bored.

That evening she decided to roll up and 'play' with the rug in front of the wood stove.

Another cold day

Today's temperature never got out of the single digits all day.  Tonight's low is predicted to be 0.

Cattle tended to hang out in the corral and loafing shed.  They wanted me to bring them hay rather than they walking out to the far end of the pasture to the large hay bale. I have a heater element in the water trough.  Otherwise the water freezes over.

Daisy and I spent the day inside.  The one time Daisy went outside she only stayed out about 15 minutes.   This evening she walked by the door after eating her supper.  That usually means she wants to go outside.  I opened the inside door.  She stood and looked and thought and then thought better of going outside.  At least she stopped complaining to me about the cold weather.

Earlier we laid by the wood stove for warmth.

Daisy got tired of me taking photos of her.  She rolled over and wouldn't look at me.

Warmth on a cold day

Daisy spends most of her time inside the house these past few days due to the cold.  Today she was outside only a few times, either to go to the bathroom or because I was outside whereby she would follow me around until I went back inside the house.  Other times when I went outside she would sit at the window to watch me.

I have it nice and toasty inside the house.  Daisy mostly lays near the wood stove when not looking out the window.

Since Daisy isn't running around outside as much these days she has gained back her Winter weight.  She doesn't complain as much now about the snow and cold, though at times I still get an earful when she comes back inside the house.

Laying in the sun

I forgot I had this unpublished post from last month.   Since I took these photos Daisy spends even more time inside the house - though mainly at night.  Rain or not she usually wants to spend the day outside. 


Now that the temperature is getting cooler Daisy spends a little more time with me inside the house.  Here is she is laying in the sun while I eat my breakfast.

Calves in the front yard

Today I let the calves out of the corral to roam in the front yard.  A couple calves were getting hay bellies and this way the calves can have green grass and I won't have much to cut for my final lawn mow of the year.

The calves were happy to have green grass.  So far they have behaved.  I did have to set up some corral panels around the bushes in front of the house and protect other trees and bushes.  I didn't put panels around the patio.  Well.... the calves were fascinated by the patio and the stuff in it.  They had to check everything out. Later half the herd decided to take their siesta in the patio.

Later afternoon Clyde was nosing around the patio again and then playing with the shrubs.  So I went and got more of my corral panels and put them around the patio.

I still plan to take most of the calves to the auction on Wednesday.  All this work for just over two days of eating.

Daisy wasn't too thrilled with the calves in the yard.  So far she is putting up with it.  The red heifer calf below didn't get a nose full of claws.  Clyde is the red steer on the right with white on his head.

Praying Mantis

This afternoon, to distract Daisy from asking me to come outside and be with her and do stuff in the yard, a praying mantis was on my front porch and caught Daisy's attention.  She wanted to sniff it but the praying mantis wasn't too keen on that.  Daisy eventually got around it lightly batting it before losing interest in it once I came outside.  The praying mantis walked off to live another day.

The praying mantis climbed up my bicycle tire in order to get away from Daisy trying to sniff it.

The bicycle frame was too smooth for it to climb any higher.

Daisy lightly patted the praying mantis and knocked it back to the ground.

Here is a 2 minute 31 second video of Daisy and the praying mantis: https://youtu.be/J3Ji08uxdTQ

Skeleton

Today was a rainy, cold and dreary day.  I stayed inside all day.  Partly because Daisy decided to either lay on me or strongly against me.  Until evening we both only got up once to eat and go to the bathroom.  By the end of the day I felt lazy as I hadn't accomplished anything.

Fortunately Buddy the bull didn't break down the fence again today.

Bat

Yesterday on my main Tall Pines Ranch blog I wrote about finding Daisy way over in a far away neighbor's field after I had hayed the field.

A few mornings ago I found in the driveway what I initially thought was a dead mouse.  No... it was a dead bat.  Daisy had found a bat to 'play' with.   Mice.  Birds.  Insects.  Turkeys.  Skunk.  And now a bat.   She is quite the hunter.  Thankfully she 'played' with the bat but did not eat it.

I'm glad I keep Daisy up to date vaccinated against rabies.

Rain and pocket gophers

This morning a cold front came through with rain.  Even though Daisy slept all night on the bed with me, after I moved some of the irrigation pipes before the rain started, Daisy came back in the house with me.  She had to wash off her wet legs and belly from the morning dew in the hay field.  We both laid down on the couch and fell back asleep for two more hours.

In the afternoon Daisy helped me set pocket gopher traps.  Once I dug and found their tunnel Daisy checked the hole out before I could place the trap.

Checking out the pocket gopher tunnel.

After we set the pocket gopher traps Daisy accompanied me when I went over to the neighbor's property to pick up apples from the ground.  I feed the apples to my cattle as a treat.  When I would pick up an apple laying near Daisy she would bat my hand with her paw - but not with her claws.

Daisy, fence, calves

Once the calves got bored looking at the new horses, and had checked out my fence tools, they turned their attention to Daisy.  Daisy knows I build good fences as she then walked through the fence a short distance to be away from the calves.

Big birds

A few times Daisy has accompanied me when I go to work on rebuilding the south pasture fence.  Usually from Daisy I hear several times, "Are we there yet?", as I walk along. Once we reach the fence some times she looks around; often she finds a low area near me and lays and relaxes.  Each time there were wild turkeys nearby but Daisy didn't see them, or didn't let on that she had seen them.  One time I disturbed a mouse but I couldn't get Daisy to come over as she was busy checking something else out.

The previous evening Daisy had come with me she was in a cranky mood as I stayed late working on he fence, then decided to take the long way home so I could check my pocket gophers traps in Wyatt's field.  Daisy walked in my pasture as Wyatt's field was rough having recently been cut for hay.  However Daisy had to eventually walk in Wyatt's field else get wet from my line of irrigation sprinklers.  At the next pocket gopher trap she plopped down next to me.  Unfortunately the twine holding the trap to the marker rod was between her back legs.  I gently tried to remove the twine and Daisy turned around and hooked one claw deep into my finger and was about to bite me until she realized what she was doing and stopped.

That was a few days ago and she hadn't joined me again until tonight when she saw me leaving and ran to join me.  So I didn't have my camera along for photos, which I regretted later.

No "Are we there yet?" calls to me this time.  Once we were at the fence Daisy relaxed and looked around.  Occasionally she would check out the fence post hole I was digging; other times she came over to rub against me and to be petted.

Later a large wild turkey came walking close by.  Man I wish I had my camera.  Each evening this turkey comes to roost in a tree nearby and each night I get closer as I move along the fence rebuild.  Tonight we were pretty close to its roosting tree.  The turkey came walking almost ten feet from Daisy.  That got Daisy's interest.  Soon she was stalking the turkey as it walked along.  The turkey was two to three times the size of Daisy.  She wanted to hunt the bird but the large size made her cautious.

The turkey started to walk up the leaning curved tree trunk but changed its mind and headed down the short hill next to the tree.  Daisy disappeared over the side too.  I had to walk over as if Daisy did decide to go for the bird I may have to rescue her.  Soon Daisy decided the bird was too big for her and she came over to me and hopped up and into my empty wheelbarrow where she laid down.

A short time later the turkey came back to the tree and walked up the trunk until the tree grew straight up.  Then with a hop and flap of its wings the turkey flew a short way up into the tree where it roosts for the night and watches the sun set.

When the turkey flew up in the tree Daisy's eyes got big and she did a double take before looking over my way as if to say, "Did you see that?!!".

Again on the way home I walked through Wyatt's field and checked my pocket gopher traps (three more gophers trapped in the evening).  Daisy was trailing behind me when an owl I had heard hooting earlier flew from my pasture out across Wyatt's field and away.  I turned around and Daisy was flat against the ground until the owl was in the distance.

Between the dew that was settling in, and threading our way through and around the irrigation sprinklers, Daisy's legs were very wet once we got home.  At least I didn't hear her complaining as we walked this evening.

Daisy and the calves

Monday Daisy accompanied me when I went out to fix the fence wire the bull had broken. 

Naturally since Daisy was in the same pasture as the calves they were interested in her.

Here is a 45 second video of Daisy and a calf:  https://youtu.be/1LwIwraFLDU


Also, from last week when we had a little rain, here are a few photos of Daisy drinking from the rain gutter downspout.

Resting kitty video

Today I found the video that goes with the photos of Daisy from yesterday's post.  The video is about 2 minutes long.

https://youtu.be/aW_Ta2n4kyg

Work cat

I think Daisy likes the hay field cut.  It is easier for her to hunt mice and to follow me around.  The day after I moved the hay bales to the north pasture I saw Daisy slowly stalking something near one line of bales.

Daisy likes to spend time at my neighbor Curtis's place.  He has lot of stuff in his yard for Daisy to investigate and look for mice.  Curtis has a motion detector security alarm covering part of his stuff near his building.  Apparently Daisy has visited and set off the alarm a few times at 4 am and other times during the night. Curtis said he doesn't mind.

Today it rained off-and-on, and around noon Daisy came inside the house and she was soaking wet.  First she had to do some kneading on her blanket and then she got down to washing herself and drying off her wet fur.  Then she went to sleep on my lap.

Here are some recent photos from a warm day after Daisy followed me around several pastures...