This has been the most unusual of years!
Terry is planting the pinto beans right now. He is taking his time — only planting one field, watching how the water is acting and assessing if he wants to get several more acres planted , if there isn’t enough water that would be foolish on our part.
He has left the 20 acres of alfalfa for later on in the year…hoping for more water. When the sweet corn and the wheat starts to come off, those farmers stop watering that field and the field sets until next year.
(Since we do NOT irrigate from an underground aquifer, but from reservoirs, all the water that is used on a farm passes on down to the next farm below it. This is how all farms from Montrose, Colorado, to Grand Junction, Colorado, are irrigated. Nothing is wasted and all is put back into the canals so that eventually the water ends up in Arizona, Nevada and California. That is where our water comes from….we get our water from Blue Mesa Reservoir and the Ridgeway Reservoir….people on the Surface Creek Bench get theirs from Grand Mesa)
The water from the sweet corn and wheat fields should allow us to have enough water to plant the alfalfa. We just might not get the acres we had hoped for into pinto beans, we will just have to wait and see. The decision to plant the rest of the pinto beans will be made by June 1st. after that it will be too late to plant the seed.
The other strange part of the farming this year is the heat…we build heat up until we are smothering around 90* during the day –with 20-25 m.p.h. hot winds ( the heat is very early for this time of year) and then cooling down in the high 30s or low 40s at night, making the corn turn purple. The purple color is leaf injury, although it doesn’t kill the plant.
The last two nights we were warm enough (48*) that this morning we saw the crown of the plant starting to green up, which is a welcome sign.
Well, hope I didn’t bore you…farming is a huge part of our every day (and sometimes worry at night). Often times people get to thinking it would be easy to be a farmer…just get some land, plant some seed, harvest the crop and make money.
I wish it were so easy.
Still those people are right in lots of ways—it is a good way of life. At 68 and 63 years of age Terry and I can’t think of anything else we would have liked to do (although we both worked in town in really fun jobs to support this way of life) and we can’t imagine doing anything different for the rest of our lives.
Thanks for stopping by….
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 
Never boring. I love hearing about your lives and how the corn reacts. Also when i am blogging sometimes merely writing it down crystallises my thinking so i can see my choices more clearly.. hope it is not too hot today.. ;poor old John has to go out and work in the city so that i can farm so i had better get back out and back to work.. we are not hot today.. perfect outside weather.. c
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I love your farming posts! You are so right, it is never easy but a great way to live. Your irrigation system fascinates me. It is so wet here, all we try to do is think of ways to turn off the rain!
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Life on the farm is never boring to us.
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I have been working on a backyard garden for five years now, and I have not had anywhere near the success I would like to have (in fact, I pretty much stink). Looking at my pitiful plants I have gained an even deeper respect for those who try to feed us all for a living. I’m amazed that anyone is able to produce anything of significance at all. Best wishes for you for this year’s growing season — I hope all of your hard work is greatly rewarded!
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Boring? Not at all…
It’s important that folks in other parts of the country – even other farmers – can see what your unique circumstances are out there. It seldom occurs to those of us in the water-rich Northeast just how much engineering goes into simply irrigating crops out there.
Fingers crossed for a good year – even if it IS a strange one.
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Never boring. (Even if you were, it’s your blog. 😉 )
I’m getting more and more nervous as we get closer because I know it won’t be easy. And reading blogs like yours shows that to be true.
Hope you all have a blessed evening. ♥
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You are never boring Linda! My husband doesn’t read blogs (except to proofread mine or fill in blanks when I forget important parts) but I often tell him about your posts — he came from farming family and thinks about the life not lead!
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A very good description of your predicament. Farming is a gamble. It’s sad that you have to have off farm jobs to keep the farm going. It’s the same here with small farms. Larger farms use their equipment for contracts. One nephew has a semi and hauls grain all winter.
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Hi Linda, I never tire of learning more about your lives.. In some ways, I am jealous since I have never ever had any of those opportunities… But–it seems that farming is always different from year to year mainly depending upon the weather. You can always say though that you never get bored!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing your life. I love it.
Hugs,
Betsy
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I hope the water situation works out so you can plant more pinto beans. We’ve had four days of rain here. I would gladly send some your way if I could.
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Not boring at all. It’s nice to see how farming is done in other parts of the country. We could use some rain here.
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I can really empathize, Linda! Our weather is about the same, tho just a tad hotter. We’ve been up to 100*’s. Water will be a problem here, also. The aquifer didn’t replenish during this last winter as there wasn’t much moisture further north of here. We will be planting skip row, or two in, two out in order to have enough water. Home place will be half cotton and half wheat this year.
Your corn is looking good…we’ll just keep on praying for rain!
Blessings!
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If it were not for farmers we would starve, I appreciate all ya’ll do to feed our country and now I’m craving a big bowl of pinto beans and cornbread..:-)
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I love reading about your farming chores . I just sold a truck to a nice young couple they have 3 young kids and where telling me about the farm things . The guy was so excited to buy my hubbys truck because it has a extended cab. Plus he got 4 tires to go with it. It’s nice to hear farming is still around alot of farms don’t even do cows anymore, because of the cost around here. Alot of farmers unless they are retired ,need to take extra jobs elsewhere. My sister is a master gardener in Utah, and is making a website which I think is pretty cool. her last name is Woodbury!
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I never looked at farming the same way after reading the LIttle House on the Prairie books as a little girl. Even at that young age, I thought it was toss of the dice every year to grow plants for food. I hope your weather evens out and stops confusing the crops. 🙂
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Farming is a gamble, that’s for sure. Its very warm and very windy here in Iowa, too. We need rain.
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