Bleh

I've got a touch of a summer cold and it's not enjoyable. I'm not that sick, just kinda run down and lacking energy.

So bleh.

I had a great workout Friday. Haven't done a lot of formal working out since the great fencing challenge began, but on Friday I felt the need to push some iron and flip some tires. My improvement in strength and endurance was a bit of a surprise. When I first started the tire flips a couple of months ago three sets of six reps nearly did me in. Friday I did six sets of 10 and still had plenty in the tank. So there's that.

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There seems to be a big uptick in activity in the missile fields lately. Quite a few more convoys on the road and escorting helos in the air. I didn't really pay the activity any mind. I like watching the helos and more flying means more opportunity for watching. That's as far as my analysis went.

Mom mentioned the increased activity the other day. I was chatting with her as she hung sheets out on the clothesline and she asked me what I thought about it. I opined that it was likely routine maintenance. As we talked a pair of November Hueys were rat racing at low level, which put a grin on my face as I remember days of yore when I used to get paid (!) for rat racing and other fun activities. It was all training, and good training to boot. Even landing behind the Burger Barn to pick up a big, greasy bag of burgers and fries. Sure, it was fun and exciting and delicious and at least a little bit non-standard, but it was great training. So I watched the Hueys having fun and smiled and hoped that no candy@$$ed civilians would be triggered enough to speed dial Warren and announce their victimization.

Mom said she thought the increased activity had to do with kim dong yum's posturing.

Hmmm. Hadn't thought of that, and here I am the acknowledged military and geopolitical expert of the family.

My mind flashed back to some of the recentish missile field problems which featured large across the interwebs. Cheating on tests, old equipment breaking down, hints of delayed and even gundecked maintenance.

"I wonder," I said, "if any of the missiles even work?"

"Me too," said Mom. "They've been having a lot of problems, haven't they?"

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Speaking of missiles...

I think I've mentioned before that we've got a former Atlas-E site bang in the middle of the ranch.

The EJE Atlas site, circa 2017

The SM-65 program was a huge national priority as the 1950's came to a close and and a new decade began. It was the first successful ICBM developed and fielded by the U.S., and more than 100 launch complexes were built and became operational between 1960 and 1965. IIRC, the site on our ranch went operational in 1964.

But the Atlas wasn't the only ICBM project. There were also the liquid fueled SM-68 and SM-68B -- Titan I and Titan I -- as well as the solid fueled LGM-30 Minuteman series. By 1965 the Titan II and Minuteman missiles, which had gone into operational service concurrently with Atlas but were more capable, had made the SM-65 ICBM system obsolete. The Atlas sites were all decommissioned by 1965.

Well.

There were exactly zero Titan sites in this part of the world, however, this is where dozens of Minuteman sites went in. The influx of missile field construction crews made Kimball boom, sending the population soaring from less than 3,000 to nearly 10,000. It were good times in many ways. Kimball declared herself Missile Center USA and somehow arranged for an Air Force loan of a Titan I missile as a static display. The big missile was installed in Gotte Park sometime in the mid-60's as an emblem of Kimball's big player status on the ICBM stage. The missile was a constant as I grew up. It was kept shiny and well maintained, and it stayed that way long after the missile boom ebbed and the town began to decline.

Sometime in the mid-2000's the Air Force was required by law to either take back the missile or strip it of the heavy metal structural components. Someone told kongrass that heavy metals had radiation cooties and as everyone knows, radiation is bad. Kimball opted to keep the missile, and the Air Force removed the structural and highly racist metals.

Here's the way I remember the missile. Except it wasn't all blurry back then. To the best of my recollection.

Here you can see the missile as a backdrop to the county fair, circa 1975.

The Titan was re-erected in the park by local volunteers. A couple of days later the top stage fell off in a relatively light wind storm. Nobody saw that coming!

And here's what it looks like today.

The "not-so-100-foot" Titan I, August 11, 2017.

I have a cousin who got his head stuck between those bars. "Go get Aunt Helen!"

Missile motor stuff. The Titan I was fueled by LOX and RP-1(basically JP-4). The deuce used hypergolic fuel.

Yep, that's switch grass growing on the corroded missile.

Bet kim dong yum is shaking in his gold lamé shorts.

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And speaking of the county fair, it's fallen on hard times.

Warshin' sheeps.

Pig collision.

Sno-cones!

Love to see the kids at fair, but where before there were hundreds, today there are perhaps 50.

Things fall apart.

Not a good sign

Nature abounds with wonders.

I don't always completely embrace those wonders.

In checking some pasture I haven't looked at for more than a month I was shocked to discover three active prairie dog burrows.

We've never had prairie dogs before.

From the grass farmer/rancher perspective, this is not a good thing. Prairie dogs can ruin grass production and grazing across a lot of acres.

For the moment there are three burrows. We really need to get that down to zero burrows.

Time to plan a strategy.

Nature's wonder abounds

You don't have to travel to Antarctica or virgin rain forest or the Siberian Taiga to experience nature's pageantry. Her wonders are on display everywhere you look.

Across the prairies of the High Plains, Yucca (Yucca glauca) is ubiquitous.

It’s just one of about 50 species of the Agave family. Altogether the Yucca family is distributed across north and central America, from the Baja Peninsula in the southwest, north through the central United States and into Alberta in Canada, east across the Gulf Coast and South Atlantic states, and south throughout Mexico and into Central America.

Deeply taprooted, Yucca are easily identified by their  rosettes of evergreen, tough, sword-shaped leaves and large terminal panicles of white to greenish-white flowers. The leaves are seldom grazed by wildlife or livestock, but the flowers, which bloom in June and July, appear to be a tasty treat for herbivores.

Native Americans used the plant in a myriad of ways. The root can be pounded with water to produce a thick, soapy lather, which is where the term soapweed comes from. Once the flowers have set into fruit pods, the pods can be roasted and eaten while still tender.

The sharp tips and tough, linear fibers of the leaves can be used for sewing, and the leaves were often worked into baskets.

One of the most interesting aspects of Yucca is that the plant is mutually codependent on the Yucca Moth (Prodoxidae tegeticula and P. parategeticula).

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This means that Yucca Moths are obligate pollinators and herbivores of the plant. The female moth has specialized mouth parts which she uses to collect pollen from the stamens of one Yucca plant. She then relocates to another Yucca, where she deposits an egg deep in the flower’s stigma, then covers the freshly deposited egg with tightly packed pollen.

When the egg hatches, the tiny larva feeds first upon the pollen, then upon the developing seeds. The moth larvae only feed on a few seeds, allowing the rest to mature and eventually disperse to produce new plants.

The moth larvae only grow in and feed on Yucca seeds, and the Yucca is pollinated exclusively by the Yucca Moth. Moth and plant are entirely dependent upon each other, and have been for many millions of years. This relationship is so intimate that over the eons, Yucca flowers stopped producing nectar, which other flowers use to attract non-specific pollinators.

Cool, eh?

Hitting the wall

Yesterday I was pretty much worthless. Fatigued and sore and mentally very slow.

It was pretty clear that my body and mind needed a bit of a break, so I took the day off. Really didn't do anything but check cows.

I fought it. I didn't want to take the day off, I wanted to be out working on my fencing project.

Even though I fought it, I also listened. I took the day off. It wasn't really pleasurable time off, but it was therapeutic. By evening I was feeling somewhat better, and by this morning I was feeling a lot better.

I've got one of those clever fitness watches, and looking back over the data for the past couple of weeks I kind of understand why I hit the wall. I averaged about 22,000 steps per day over that period, by gps about 10 miles per day. The watch does an automatic workout thing where it detects and tracks activity consistent with whatever it thinks is a workout. According to that, I averaged about 3.5 hours of "workout" per day, or 3.5 hours with my heart rate above 120.

All of that is to the good, but it's also true that I'm not 25 years old anymore and I'm still rebuilding after the infection/surgery/slothfulness of the fall/winter/spring. So I hit the wall.

As I said, it wasn't fun or enjoyable. However, I think it's pretty cool that my body has snapped back so well after 24 hours of rest.

I hate this movie, but to introduce the Hawaiian good luck sign...





Last August.

This August.

We interrupt this plan...

This morning I had a plan. It was a good plan. Perhaps unsurprisingly it had to do with fixing fence.

That plan was superseded by a different plan.

As I drove along CR24 on my way to check cows I could see from the road that some of our cows and calves and at least one bull were on the wrong side of the fence. That side of the fence belongs to the neighbor, who has his own cows, calves and bulls.

I turned into the pasture and followed the fenceline to see what I could see. Before I arrived the sound of bulls bellowing gave me a good idea of what to expect.



Sure enough, our bulls and their bulls had got into a shoving contest along the fence, and the fence came out second best.

It was pretty easy to get the cows and calves separated and back where they belonged. Our cows wanted to go home and their cows wanted to stay home and the calves were happy to stick with mama.

The bulls were another matter. They ended up in our pasture and went right on shoving each other around.

I took a couple of hours to get the fence fixed. It was pretty wrecked! But eventually I got it repaired.

Then I cut out the neighbor bulls and sent them home. That's a bit of a tricky job, but I've been around long enough to do it and do it right.

One of the challenges

There are a lot of challenges when it comes to building fence.

At a glance, a barbed wire pasture fence might appear to be a relatively permanent structure, something that, once installed, is a finished project requiring little if any upkeep and maintenance.

Those of you who've visited this blog over the years probably understand that there's a good bit of maintenance and upkeep required to keep the cows in.

What it comes down to is this, most ranch fences are dynamic structures living in a dynamic world.

We could certainly build more permanent (ish) fences, like big, tall chain link structures. We don't, though, and for a couple of reasons. One is expense -- such a fence would bankrupt the operation. We're a pretty small ranch, and even we have many, many miles of fence.

As it turns out, the typical post and multiple strand barbed wire fence is considerably less expensive.

Another reason is that nature's dynamism is always worrying at fences and trying to bring them down. Big, tall, permanent (ish) fences are no exception, and in many ways are more vulnerable. A pile of tumbleweeds and 60 mph winds will lay a chain link  fence down in short order. It'll happen to barbed wire, too, but a barbed wire fence is quicker, easier, and less expensive to repair.

Yesterday I rebuilt a short stretch of perimeter fence on the east side of the south unit along County Road 39. This is a tricky stretch. Can you guess why?

It doesn't happen often, perhaps every five years, but when heavy rain falls to the southwest the draw that runs through this pasture fills with water. At least initially, and often for a dozen hours or more, rainfall runoff flows through the pasture like a raging torrent. It usually washes out the road. And the fence? Lasts about 30 seconds.

I have some video of the draw running but I can't find it this morning. So here are a couple of stills from a while back. 2013 I think.

Ever since the last draw flow I've been patching. It works for a while, but eventually you have to tear it out and rebuild, which is what I did yesterday.

It was a good bit of work but the weather was cool and overcast. Only took about eight hours.





I'm a little pi$$ed at yewtoobe for changing up the embed interface. Don't have time this morning to sort it out. Maybe later. In the mean time you can full screen the videos. If you want to.

The soil down in the draw is clingy, clayey, silt, and it's a real pain to work with. It's either hard like concrete or shovel-clinging sticky. It was probably the best combination you could hope for yesterday, not too dry and not too wet, but still a challenge. Ah well, that's life in the real world.

Okay, off to work.

As the season wanes

It's cool and lovely this morning with a solid overcast. It doesn't yet feel autumnal -- and little wonder, it's only August 3! No, it feels more like a cool summer day, and those are anything but unknown in these parts.

We are well past summer solstice, with days growing shorter and nights longer. It's still summer and there will be plenty of hot weather to come, but those days are numbered. It'll be county fair soon, which usually means hot days, but sometimes means cool weather as well.

And that little train of thought dredged up an amusing memory...

Would have been nearly 50 years ago. It was county fair time, and the day of the Beef Show. Very sunny and very hot, and we beef showing youths were decked out in our finest non-faded blue jeans and short-sleeved, white, button-up shirts. I think everyone wore cowboy boots, and I know that everyone had their contestant number (printed on light, white cardboard) safety pinned to the back of their shirt. IIRC, most of the boys sported straw cowboy hats while most of the girls did without a hat. Other than the hats, the girls wore the same uniform.

Yes, those are sheeps, but I wanted to show the Titan I missile in the background.

Regarding the girls, their white shirts were rather thinnish, and a young lad couldn't help but notice that the girls all wore that mysterious brassiere contraption underneath. Well, I couldn't help but notice, being of an age to notice such things.

As the beef show came to a close a thunderstorm blew up unexpectedly and pounded the venue with cold, stinging rain. The temperature dropped from mid-90's to mid-60's almost instantaneously. It was pandemonius for a bit as the youngsters dragged their beeves to shelter.

Once my calf was safely tied up in the barn, I took a look around, and noticed with some satisfaction (and more than a little yearning) that for the girls, the combination of thin white cotton and their physiological reaction to cold and wet had made the view generally, er, delightful.

Well, on with the show.

I mentioned yesterday that my military background doesn't often come up in my day-to-day life.





But sometimes it does!







There was an Air Force convoy moving north on Highway 71. In this part of the world that means Minuteman III support. They may or may not have been moving a crowd pleaser.

I remember flying in Hueys on lovely summer days, looking down at the poor mortals toiling while I soared above, nearer to god, as it were. Now I look up and I remember.

The past pops up in unexpected places sometimes

My eye was drawn to a packet of mail on the kitchen island at the ranch house this evening.

It was a catalog, just a catalog, but the cover art was the thing that caught my eye.

The cover was just another example of the humorous images Duluth Trading likes to use. Humorous but with a point -- the company has a full line of clothing for working men. I suspect they sell a lot of wares to other folks as well.

To most eyes the image was just advertising. Most of the folks I know would have a hard time identifying what was going on. Some nekkid dude, some flying thingie.

I got to shoot under instruction a couple of times. That means I was the Shooter's puppet. I went through all the motions and I knew what I was doing, but every move was under the DIRECT control of the Shooter. It was a lot of fun and I learned a hell of a lot (lots of study and a 100 percent on the written were required) but the Shooter had all the responsibility. Which was as it should be.

There are some interesting anomalies in the image which make it stand out. Chief among them an old jet (F9F Panther, Grumman Iron BTW) (and of course it's a Cougar, innit?) on a new deck. There are others. I think it's a great image and the anomalies make it exceedingly interesting to look at. I may have to buy some of those air conditioned drawers.

Oh wait, I already did!

A brief internet prowl turned up this cover image from a few years back.

A bunch of cool anomalies there, too. Interesting.

This is pretty much the only place I share my military background. Most folks don't have a frame of reference, and once you get past "noisy, cool, scary, fast, and drunk" you might as well be talking about band camp.

Hardly anything I do as I go about my life is in any way connected with my service or with the military. Every once in a while the past pops up unexpectedly though, and when it does it's kind of cool.

Another great day of fencing in the books.

The greatest good fortune

Missed a couple of days there. Blast!

My 'scuse?

I'm hitting stride on the great south unit cross-fencing project.

Hitting stride is the real key. I'm actually able to turn in full days of useful work. I'm not exactly as fit as I'd like to be yet, but I'm getting there. And the work is going great.

Oh, don't misunderstand. The miserable aspects of fencing are still plenty miserable. But the trade balance is great. I'm getting more fit and the fence is getting more done. I'm weary, achy, sore and wobbly by 5 p.m., but I have accomplishments behind me and a great night's sleep to look forward to.

In a goofy way this fence work is a passion. Yeah, there's misery, but I get to be outside with boots on the ground. Every day I spend out there increases my knowledge and understanding of the ecosystem and allows me to be better at what I do. I get to see and do things that most people don't get to do. I am blessed.

Speaking of blessed...