Linda
Happy Monday
16
Linda
Author Archives: Dayphoto
Happy Easter Every One
My camera fell out of my pocket as I was changing siphon tubes yesterday — right into the irrigation ditch. Boo Hoo Sob! I found it but I do believe I can no longer use that camera, and it was my favorite! WAAAAHH.
But just in time for Sunday Stills I have a almost appropriate photo.
It’s cold here, frost on the ground and freeze warnings in effect. I built a fire last night. Still it is April and a time of wonderous joy!
Happy Easter Everyone!
Terry and Linda
The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Back to Work
We are back to work! Hanging around and just doing what we want is now over, our work has begun. That’s what Mom told us yesterday as we headed out to help irrigate.
See we don’t farm with Dad. We stay with Mom wherever she is. Our job is helping Mom, always. Sometimes Boomer will go out some with Dad but Dad is always on a tractor or something and that is just not fun running alongside a big piece of equipment.
We ride (like Mom does) and then we work.
Boomer and I really like it.
We really like helping out too. There is so much to do. Sometimes there are mice to snap in two and sometimes not, but there are always smells to smell and for ME there is water to play in.
It’s getting a little harder every year to get OUT of the ditches, but I don’t have any trouble getting into them. Mom doesn’t like for me to get into the ditches anymore because I can’t get out very well. But I still do it — I just wait until she isn’t looking and I jump in.
The day before Dad made all the ditches on the place—first he made the main ditches, these are the ditches that carry the water to the fields from the head gate (the head gate takes the water out of the canal onto our place).
Then he made the waste ditches, these are the ditches that take the water away from the field and drop the water back into the canal so the next farm can use the water.
After that we had to wait for the ditch rider to open the head gate so we could begin work.
Work started at 6:00 last evening. We worked until 8:00 because there were so many weeds and burn trash in the ditches, but we made it.
Boomer and I helped. I even got into the water a couple of times which made Mom yell at me. She said the water was too full of trash and it would stick to my fur so I had to get out.
Geez!
Trash on fur is not a big deal.
But she made me get out.
It was rather hard to get out, so I hung with Mom looking for mice in the tubes while she dug out ends and started the tubes with water.
Dad had to work on the trash in the head gate and the transmission ditch, and then he came and helped Mom set tubes.
The trash WAS bad.
And the wind was bad. The wind kept blowing in other trash so we had to stay out and keep the water from flowing over the sides of the cement ditch for ever so long.
Boom and I really enjoyed it.
Mom and Dad said they were tired.
They worked all morning, then helped Evan move furniture into his new house and set up his new kitchen and then chased water all evening. The second they sat down in their chairs they were asleep.
Boomer and I were still good to go, but since the folks were so tired we decided maybe we wouldn’t chase Freddy Fox or any of the raccoons tonight or even get on the barking telephone system.
Around 11:00 Dad had to go back out in the wind to check tubes again to make sure they hadn’t trashed back up and stopped or the water was flowing over the sides of the cement ditch into the work fields.
We went part way and then turned back. ½ mile is pretty far to run for me anymore and Boomer didn’t want to leave me.
By that time we were tired so when Dad got back we went to bed also.
Anyhow our work has begun.
We love it, couldn’t ask for a better life!
Fuzzy (and Boomer)
Getting Closer to Starting Water
Terry finished rolling late Monday evening
(Rolling is where you smash the plowed clumps down into soft manageable soil)
After the fertilizer was spread he covered it up by marking out the water furrows
(That’s the combine herd…and a couple of old cars which really needs to be hauled away…. Someday, I’m told, we will get to it.)
Straight rows are a must. Other farmers drive by and always (I do mean always) make a comment on if your rows are straight or not.
With today’s tractors the GPS does all the work, therefore the rows are perfect. We have no such tractor…Terry relies on scribes (marker bars), getting started right, and driving straight. Otherwise, he has to take a ‘ribbing’ until the rows grow shut.
Today we (this is where I start helping him with the farming) work on setting up the gated pipe, making transmission ditches and waste ditches, it won’t be long now until we start water. In fact any day now.
Getting closer—–
Linda
The Morning After
The huge cold front is pushing itself through our area, leaving behind a beautiful sunset last night complete with sun brightened jet streams.
This morning as the sun came up I saw a sun dog along with the sunrise.
Our sky’s are just wonderful! All we need to do is look up!
Have a really nice Tuesday, everyone!
Linda
Here They Come
The char on the Back Forty, and the Upper End are starting to turn green.
You are looking a the beginning of Russian Knapp Weed and the tiny sprouts of Canada Thistle. The Prickly Pear Cactus is toast.
While this stuff is little I can at least be glad it’s green.
I told Terry what we need is a herd of goats and a goat herder. At this stage in the game goats will eat all the knapp weed they can get and even the tender little shoot of thistle.
Alas we do not have a goat herd, nor a fence to keep them in and I don’t want to spend my time, and Fuzzy’s (Boomer would NOT know what to do) sitting out there with about 20 or so goats. Although, I enjoy goats.
So it is just going to be what it is for a time.
I’m sure you are all (every last one of you) getting sick of me bemoaning this disaster. I promise I will move on. There really isn’t anything to do but wait for the insurance to come through and get on with life.
So more or less this will be the last post on this mess.
(I hope)
Linda
Sunday Stills-Bird Stalking
Our assignment this week to get and see if we could capture some birds which are arriving back for spring.
One of my goals is to be able to take really good bird photos. This has been a horribly busy week this week so I wasn’t able to stalk many birds, but I did get this lovely pair of ring-necked doves in the apricot tree—
A very chirping flock of (I don’t know what kind of birds)
And of course the resident hens!
Of which I thoroughly enjoy.
Linda
Saturday—Trees
My last post for March will be my trees. I’m taking a photo of the same trees and posting them on the last day or close to the last day of the month so you can see the progression of leaves on the trees. If you would like to see February’s go here.
The leaves are starting to appear. Today we had 80* weather. A bitter cold spring snow storm is supposed to blow into night, stay all day Sunday and leave us sometime late Monday night.
Then we will start to warm back up.
Terry is finishing rolling so the ground won’t pack IF we do get moisture.
Linda
The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — March, 30, 2012
We finally made it through March, well almost made it; we are at the end anyway, just one more day to go.
Mom thought we ought to hop onto the four-wheeler and ride over to see how the fire-burned area is doing.
Most of it is still burned. Nothing really green there yet, but when we got to the hill pasture 
WOW little sprigs of green showing up everywhere.
Mom said she is not surprised about that since the hill pasture is a mixture of grasses; the fire there just took off the dead. (It also jumped the road and ran through the corn field toward the house, and it also jumped into the alfalfa filed that burned right up to Mom-mom and her family’s barns. But I didn’t remind Mom of that, she was still a little sad to see the whole mess.)
We then headed on down to the back forty,and then over to the west field, then the upper end.
Still pretty black!
When we got to the south end Boomer got off and hiked around a bit
while Mom wrote down the fence post count in a little book she was keeping for the insurance guy.
Mom told us dogs that Dad wanted to NOT have to build fences anymore and look at what he has to do now—the whole west side of the place, the ditch company took out the whole north side and the whole east side. He will have lots and lots of fences to fix now. Although, there is a possibility that maybe the west side will be fixed with help.
The Ditch Company will probably NOT do the work on the north and east side so Dad and Mom will get to do those fences.
Building fences are not easy, it isn’t stringing the wire that is hard, and it’s digging the fence post.
Of course, us dogs get to go help. We really enjoy helping out there, we really do!
Almost back home I wanted off. Boomer found some deer tracks and bayed at me to “come smell.”
So Mom helped me off.
We sniffed around for some time. Mom got tired of waiting and went back in. I came back after I checked out all the news out there.
Fuzzy
Apricots for Wednesday
The apricot tree in the yard burst into bloom over night, Monday night. This tree is a different variety than the other tree…the old apricot tree.
This one is only 40 years old. I planted it when we moved here 40 years ago. It, too, is a heritage apricot, but it produces a lighted apricot colored fruit. The fruit is sweet and make wonderful jams.
Yes you can tell the difference between the two jams if you don’t mix the fruit while canning.
Now for having fruit trees in your yard, I have a couple of prune trees, four pear trees, several sour cherry trees and two standard delicious trees. You see I was raised on an orchard. My grandfather had 60 acres of all sorts of different fruit and my Dad had 180 acres of all types of different fruit.
I missed the trees when I moved to here, their lovely blooms, the deep shade under their branches and climbing into the trees and finding bird nests, and I missed the humming of the honey bees.
(We have lots of bees because we do NOT spray for bad bugs, but allow the good bugs to do their thing.)
So I planted fruit trees in my yard.
I would never ever in a million years do that again.
NEVER!
While it works well to live in the middle of an orchard, the house is usually in a ‘space’ of it’s own. Having the trees right with you in the house space is very different. The problem occurs when the fruit comes on —- the fruit drops and turns to mush if you don’t get out there immediately and pick it up. The birds get most of the fruit because you work and can’t get out there the second the fruit even thinks about turning ripe, the trees grow BIG and BIGGER and BIGGEST and of course the best fruit is UP THERE! (So you must and have to prune…you can’t NOT prune, which is a winter job.)
Since the best fruit is UP THERE the birds get it first and they only peck on one side or they only peck on one spot. After all it is a bird buffet and there is so much to choose from, so that fruit is gone, even after you pick it. If you don’t get it picked ON TIME, then the fruit drops onto the grass or the flower bed or the side walk, whereby YOU MUST GET OUT THERE AND GET IT CLEANED UP NOW!
If you have little kids its a great job for them, but little kids grow up and leave so the job becomes yours.
Still I have all of the same fruit trees I planted when we moved here, I put up with the mess. I enjoy the bees who are very happy to have delightful food the first thing in spring, and the birds who feast on the fruit. I can, I bake, I freeze and yes….
I pick up fruit by the wheel barrow loads before the mush turns into an ant feast.
Come spring, I fall in love with each and everyone of my fruit trees all over again.
And this is why!
The trees in spring always bring me this delightful surprise!
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 