And The Rain, Rain, Came Down, Down Down

Lovely, thirst quenching rain.  Although, Fuzzy panicked and ran into the corn field with all the thunder and the lightening.  It took me about an hour to get him to come out.  Boomer stayed with him the whole time.  Both dogs were wet, and muddy and soaked.  They got to sleep on the back porch until they both decided it was way too hot for them and went outside around two this morning.

It is still cloudy here, although not raining.  Everything looks so happy and clean outside.  Rain is a blessing.  It’ s just hard to have it rain during harvest.

(And YES, we do have weeds….)

Whenever it rains I always think of that wonderful little song from Disney—

Linda

Winnie The Pooh And The Blustery Day:

The rain rain rain came down down down
In rushing, rising riv’lets,
‘Til the river crept out of it’s bed
And crept right into Piglet’s!
Poor Piglet, he was frightened,
With quite a rightful fright.
And so, in desperation
A message he did write.
He placed it in a bottle
And it floated out of sight.

And the rain rain rain came down down down
So Piglet started bailing.
He was unaware, atop his chair,
While bailing he was sailing!

And the rain rain rain came down down down
And the flood rose up up upper.
Pooh, too, was caught and so he thought,
“I must rescue my supper!”
Ten honey pots he rescued,
Enough to see him through,
But as he sopped up his supper,
The river sopped up Pooh!
And the water twirled and tossed him
In a honey pot canoe!
The rain rain rain came down down down…

YIPEEEE

We made it!

 

The last load went to the beanery yesterday evening.

The rain came in sometime during the night.

Two gifts….beans are done and a nice rain shower.

While walking back in from the bean field I saw a sun dog…cooler weather is on it’s way!

Linda

Sunday, September 9, 2012

A huge storm is supposed to come in tomorrow, bringing 40% rain for Monday, 30% for Tuesday, and 20% for Wednesday.

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We are still working on the pinto beans.  Keep your fingers crossed it misses us and stays in the mountains only.

Talk to you in the morning…we have lots to do today!

Linda

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Helping Dad Harvest

On the way to the bean field …..

FREDDY FOX RAN RIGHT IN FRONT OF US!!!!!!

Fuzzy and I took off running, leaving Mom in the dust!

He was so close his fur almost touched my nose!

Boy, was I surprised and shocked!

Fuzzy and I IMMEDIATELY took off after him, giving him the good old, HI HO chase clear to the end of the corn field, where we immediately lost him!

That was Amazingly FUN!

Back at the bean field I kept sniffing out Freddy Fox’s former tracks…

he even went through the pipe at one point now that the water is gone.

Mom and Dad got the bean truck all loaded up….they have to wait until next week as the three fields left to be harvested are still drying.

Here is one of the fields.

See how fluffy the beans are…they have to get a lot flatter and drier.

Fuzzy and I go everywhere with Mom

We rode in the back while we headed toward the Beanery.

Dad was in front.

We enjoyed the whole experience.

I even like to ride now.  Fuzzy smiles all the way, I don’t smile, you get bugs in your teeth and dirt from the load, but I did have a great time.

We had to wait our turn to be weighed and then we came home.

Dad is over there today with the last truck to unload and then he will be back.

Farm Living is the Life for me!

Boomer

Harvesting Pinto Beans

Of course you have to hook everything up to the tractor.  Terry likes to use the 730 to pull the beans

That thing on the front is the bean puller…here’s a better photo of it

 

Then the bean blade

The puller lifts the beans up and the blade cuts them off

 

Moving down the field everything is pushed together into rows

The rows are allowed to dry for week (unless it rains, then a mess occurs)

 

All pulling of the beans occurs in the morning, while the dew is still on the plants.  If you look you can see how dry the bean pods look.  They are very dry.  A little dew holds the pods together so they don’t shatter and spill the beans into the ground.  If a pod shatters and the beans spill, that is then end.  There is not a way to pick up the beans from the dirt.

After a week. It’s time to start combining.  Combining is ALWAYS after lunch.  You don’t want the plants to be wet and clump in the combine and cause a wad mess.  You also don’t want wet beans going into the combine and molding.  If you deliver wet beans to the beanery (where they sort, sack, and sell the beans) they will refuse your load.

For a farmer that is money and time lost.

Dry beans for the combine only!

We are not big farmers and our equipment is not new, but it is paid for and Terry knows how to fix it if something goes wrong.   He also has a small combine herd of combines that he uses for parts since our stuff is really dated.

Here the combine is picking up two rows of a time and shelling them and putting the beans in the hopper

 

The weeds and the bean straw is flung out the back

 

 

Leaving just the straw behind.

Once the day turns to evening and the cool comes on, the farmer must stop.  Lots of time the lights run until the operator just gets too tired and calls it a day.

The hopper of the combine is dumped into the bin of the grain truck

 

When the truck is full, but no over flowing it will be driven to the beanery about 5 miles from our home.  The trash you see in the beans  (weed leaves that made through the trasher into the beans) will be screened out.  Then the beans are sacked ready for market.

But first….we got to get them there!

After we get done with the pintos our next crop to harvest will be the corn.  But that won’t be until the end of September.

Linda

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The End of the Irrigation Season

This morning at 6:45 Terry called the ditch rider and turned the water off.  We are done until next spring.

He is pulling beans as I write this. 

Harvest is happening!

Linda

 

 

Rain and Rainbows!

Although, we are doing pinto beans, we keep having little storms pop-up.  So far the rain hasn’t stayed or pushed the beans into the mud.

(Which would be horrible, you can’t get the beans out of the mud so the crop is lost.)

But we have been blessed and only received the the gift of the rain.

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Linda

Sun Rays for Sunday Stills

Our next assignment from Sara is  — “light and how you use it is one of the most important aspects of photography.  Let’s play with some interesting natural light this week.  Rays of sunshine can be found during the sunrise, sunset or even just beaming through a window during the day. Of course, if it rains all week, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing for much of the country either ;-) “.

So for my Sunday Stills I give you

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Sun Rays (and one photo of a neat rainbow, although we didn’t get rain someplace around us must have.)

Perfect!

Linda