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
The End of the Irrigation Season
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Author Archives: Dayphoto
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.
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
Sun Rays (and one photo of a neat rainbow, although we didn’t get rain someplace around us must have.)
Perfect!
Linda
The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Fuzzy Plays a Trick on Boomer
It’s fall here!
Thank Heavens…June and July has been hugely unpleasant…searing heat, brutal winds, lots forest fires and No rain.
Lots of colorful plants starting to show up, and the rain! Plus now we have mosquitoes. That isn’t good, but we will take it.
But that’s okay; Boomer and I are really enjoying ourselves!
Although, I have to admit, when Hank shows up, or any of Shannon’s dogs, Balou, Rock (two Rottweilers) and Huston (the most beautiful dog in the world) Boomer sorts of forgets what we were doing and goes off with his head cut off, so to speak.
Let’s see by his self, Boomer is intelligent, courteous, and resourceful, but when others show up, simple things, like going for a walk to the upper-end turns into a five-hour energy drink.
First Boomer and Hank, and Balou and Rock have to pee on everything.
And I do mean EVERYTHING… their Mom and my Mom have to make sure they move quickly through the yard, past all of Dad’s equipment, the sheds, the tires on every piece of vehicle and the grain bins.
I don’t know what is worse…tires or the grain bins for being pee magnates.
I’ve tried to keep up with them, but my leg doesn’t raise real high anymore so I have to settle for a shot in the dark. Sometimes that’s not good…I miss. Where I’ve been aiming I sometimes get myself. 😦
Mom told me I don’t need to keep up with everyone and just walk with her, then I don’t have to ‘raise the leg’ all the time, so speak.
Mom says all the dogs’ together act like a pack of boys—joking, poking, wrestling, and laughing. Only with us dogs, it’s sniffing, running into the corn to follow a sent, jumping into the canal (only Hank, Balou, and Houston like to jump into the canal). But they make a huge splash when they do it.
Boomer and I don’t jump in and neither does Rocky…Rocky’s hip hurts so jumping into way-over-your-head, very fast running water is not something he likes to do, then climbing out a grass covered slick, steep side of the canal isn’t fun either.
Boomer doesn’t like water.
I don’t even get in the irrigation ditches anymore, it’s for sure I won’t do the canal. My 40 pounds wouldn’t last long in that thundering mess.
Then Boomer and Houston (she is a hound breed also) take off baying and following who knows what. Sometimes they forget how far they travel and we have to wait while Mom and Shannon holler until they come back.
Walks like that are Bizarre!
The ones I like the best are the ones with just Boomer and I and Mom. 
We find lots of stuff to look at; Boomer has learned to travel off but not go too far as he might miss out on something.
At the end of all our fields are waste ditches…these are the ditches that take the water, which is running through the fields, back into the canal.
I really like these ditches…they are just right to jump in and chase bubbles and cool your feet off.
So yesterday I was doing just that as Boomer was sniffing around to learn what he could learn. At the culvert I decided to play a trick on Boomer…I stuck my head into the culvert, came back out, looked at Mom and barked like something really neat was in there.
Mom threw a little clod of dirt into the water so I barked again…Boomer had to come running to see what was up…
Mom threw a clod at the other end of the culvert…
Boomer stuck his head to see if he could see something really cool.
So I barked real loud and scared Boomer.
He jumped as high as Mom’s knee….
We all had a great laugh…even Boomer…he rolls with everything! Boomer is so much fun!
After we walked home, Mom, Boomer and I cut the sweet corn stalks from the garden to take them to Mom-mom’s goats!
Oh, yes…and Mom saw a RAINBOW!!
Make it TWO rainbows!!
Fuzzy
Nearing the End
We are nearing the end of the irrigation season. The water for the pinto beans has been stopped, the alfalfa field has been watered and the last round of two is now in the corn.
Terry will start pulling the pintos either today or tomorrow morning, depending on the dew. The pinto beans MUST be pulled in the dew so the pods do NOT shatter and the beans fall to ground to be lost forever.
Last night the dogs and I sat 23 rows of siphon tubes while Terry was at a meeting.
The sky was lovely.
Linda
When Walking the Shelter Dogs
When walking the shelter dogs, yesterday morning, these returning birds made a great landing and settled in for the long winter stay.
These Canada Geese picked Confluence Lake Park to settle in and rest up a bit. Later in the morning they will head to Confluence Lake.
It won’t be long now when we will see them in the harvested sweet corn fields.
They will have to wait for the feed corn and some of the pinto bean fields to be harvested, but they can settle down in some of the onion fields as they are going to market.
Hummm, I forgot…pinto bean harvest has started here for some of our neighbors. If the weather holds (no rain for two weeks) our pinto beans will be harvested and at the Beanery ready for purchase.
Linda
Sunday, August 26, 2012
We had a very busy and exciting day yesterday.
By 7:30 in the morning we were headed to Ouray, Colorado, to watch the Hard Rock Drilling Contest.
Ouray was first known for all of it mining, way back when, and that mining was for gold and silver. Hard Rock Mining. As far as I know there is no coal in ‘them thar hills’.
Today there are very few mines operating….although, there is still ‘lots of gold’ in the mountains surrounding Ouray. Mostly Ouray is now a wonderful place to visit, hot springs, good food, and outstanding scenery.
The drillers come from all over.
Yesterday, was the second day of the contest, we didn’t stay for every thing since we had been invited to our daughter and son-in-law’s place that evening for a yummy supper.
The above photo is of the bootleg jack contest
The last contest we got to watch was the mucking machine
This guy was so sure and steady that his dirt never spilled out of the cart and he filled it in record time.
Cliff got a smoker for his birthday this year. He invited us down to each smoked BBQ Pulled Pork and Turkey. Chef Cliff did a great job!
Photo stolen from Cliff’s FB page! THANKS! CLIFF!
Linda
The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Insects
Just like all of you everywhere, we have insects…big ones, little ones, ones who stink, ones who just crawl on you and make your fur have icky feelings, some which bite…like spiders and some with stingers!
Where we live we don’t have scorpions, although they do have them in Peach Valley and I saw one once. They sure are pretty creepy to look at….that tail thing that swings up, up, up….just as I was about to give it a good sniff Mom got there and pulled me away. She tried to stamp on it but it scuttled real fast under a log.
For shear creepiness there are centipedes ….Boomer found a couple of those under a log in the canyon. He even yelped and ran off a tad then barked at the log, making Mom think he got stung, but he didn’t he was just was letting Mom know some creepy critter was under the log.
There are some HUGE centipedes in the canyons around us, Mom says, but Boom and I haven’t seen any.
Which is real good!
There are black widow spiders and brown recluses here also. A friend of ours, died from a brown recluse bite. She was a real beauty of a German Shepard. We still miss her.
There are the honey bees, of course, they have stingers. But they pretty much leave Boomer and I alone, we aren’t sweet enough for their tastes.
But the ones I don’t like are the Yellow Jacket Wasps. I snap at them if they get too close to me and my sleeping spots…my dog house, for example.
Boomer usually just tucks tail and tries to run away from them.
Now Yellow jacket Wasps really like houses, they set up their house anywhere they can along the eves of our main house. Mom is really steady about keeping them off eves and out of any holes and cracks she can find. Sometimes those angry bugs even try to make a home in the ends of the pipe holding up the clothes lines…they don’t last long there either.
For the first part of summer and the second part of summer those yellow striped winged stinger bugs pretty much mind their own business. But come AUGUST they change. They start getting pretty darn serious about figuring out where they want to spend the winter and they get MEAN about it.
This means — THEY STING!!
Mom sometimes put vinegar on our noses (or other places) or a paste of baking soda and water, but if I snap at one and I get stung in the mouth…well, there doesn’t seem to be much Mom can do for me.
Yellow jacket wasps are everywhere right now. Mainly because they have to hurry as fall is coming on and coming on fast. I don’t care if the calendar says it is still the third week in August and the heat is supposed to be sitting heavy on the land, the land itself is saying it’s fall…late September early October…somehow we missed August.
Maybe we had July and August all at once…it sure was hot enough for such a thing to happen in July.
Mom took the following photo yesterday so you can see how much fall is on the land.
LOTS!
Anyway, we all were over helping Dad get the header for the bean combine….and yep! There they were….masses of them.
Building a nest on the edge of the lip of the header….Dad still hooked up the header to the combine and drove the whole thing back to the yard.
Boomer and I were real worried… Dad was bringing that whole roiling nasty mess back to yard where WE LIVE!!!!
I shouldn’t have worried. As soon as we got back, Mom went and got the trusty can of WASP SPRAY and it was over.
No more wasps.
Now Dad could get to work on getting the combine ready for harvest.
You know something? Life is real good.
Fuzzy
Something Wet Came Last Night
A couple of nice showers came through during the night.
Wonderful!
It’s cloudy and cooler here this morning with showers playing around us…in Cedaredge, on Grand Mesa, in Peach Valley and from my upstairs window (where my desk and office are) it looks like it might be raining in the desert between Delta and Hotchkiss.
I found out yesterday that we have FOUR (4) wildfires around us…two near Paonia, one closer to Montrose and one over by the west end somewhere. I don’t know how my source knows, but they seemed very sure. So their fires are adding to the smoke.
But yesterday we had clouds and scattered showers and then last night the cooling/healing rainstorms…no lightening or thunder, that I know of. All of this should help.
We off here in a few minutes to get our last load of firewood to get us through the winter. It takes 7 loads…I’m not sure how many cords that comes to, but seems like lots as we are loading and unloading. Then it always seems like not enough as the winter wears on. In the end it usually turns out ‘just right’.
Have a nice Wednesday, everyone! It’s cool and lovely here. Just right for hauling and stacking wood!
Linda
Third Cutting of Hay
Our third cutting of hay has been hauled in and stacked for sale.
The Delta Elevator has called and wants ALL that we can sell him, which works out fine for us.
We were very concerned we wouldn’t be able to get it in before the rain starts. But we made it….50% chance this afternoon. FINGERS CROSSED FOR IT TO COME!
The smoke is still here, which means people are still experiencing horrible wild fires. My heart goes out to them. Maybe our potential rain will actually come from there and the fires will be put out.
Every evening we go to sleep with the smoke and every morning we wake up with the smoke….I keep hoping that rain, and more rain, and even more rain will help everyone effected by the terrible fires but helping put them out.
Everyday is showing more and more yellow leaves on the trees.
Fall is here!
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 