I walked over to the old apricot tree the closer I got I realized that the Old Apricot Tree made it through the fire.
I was delighted!
This lovely old girl is starting to bloom. The fire went around it.
The sun was just coming up adding a wonderful luster to the morning.
This apricot tree bears pink flowers and medium sized, extremely sweet fruit.
I am so happy the fire spared this wonderful tree. So very happy.
Linda
Farming is going strong here. The morning always starts out good, but by the end of the day the wind comes up.
Go here for more Sunday Stills and more weather in other parts of the world.
Happy Spring Sunday!
Linda
Boy is it ever hot in the house anymore! Fuzzy and I used to love to be in the house, I would lie next to the fire and let it cook me and Fuzzy would lie next to Mom’s chair so she could pet on him randomly!
We try it now, but it gets way to miserable real fast.
Mom has us sleeping outside again, which suits Fuzzy and I real well.
The dog houses are warm, sometimes so warm Fuzzy stays outside of the dog house until the air cools down enough the dog houses feel good. I stay out with him for some time also. I do go into the dog houses much faster than Fuzz, but that is really so I can get the side I want to sleep in.
So anyway we love being back outside…there is so much to do, and to see who is walking through the place. Wonderful!!!
So the last two or three nights we’ve had a ball. We ran barking up to the hay stack area, then we ran barking over to the old bean field, then we had great fun barking at Freddy Fox. Mom was rather upset with us, but she said “Well, there has to be a reason you are barking. Let’s go see what is out here, that you have to warn away.”
Now this was cool. We took off with Mom; she carried a flashlight and shone the light here there and everywhere. We didn’t see anything, but that was okay. It was fun just walking with Mom after mid-night.
Since this worked out so well we barked lots for the next two nights. Mom would come out…look around, tell us to stop barking.
All this barking really does make us tired the next day. But we sleep in.
Then last night Fuzzy and I decided it would be good to get Mom outside and go for another walk. The time was, oh, maybe, hummmm, let’s see maybe 3:30 in the morning… when we heard the Dog Telephone Relay start.
Perfect! Someone to talk to!
Bark, Bark, Bark!
Woof, Bark, Howl!
Sound carries really well in the night.
Bark, Bark, Bark!
Woof, Bark, Howl!
Bark, Bark, Bark!
Woof, Bark, Howl!
In about 10 minutes of this we had all our dog friends in the whole country mile barking and howling and baying.
We had a chorus going on.
Then the light for the outside snaps on!
Both Fuzzy and I start wagging our tails and getting ready for Mom to hit the sidewalk so we could walk out to the gated pipe. (Mom is always on the lookout for coyotes. One thing Mom does NOT like is the coyotes in the yard.)
There—
The back door is opening—
“Get ready to go, Fuzzy! Here comes Mom!”
“YOU DOGS SHUT-UP RIGHT NOW!” Dad belted out to us.
“AND I MEAN THIS INSTANT!”
Whew!
EEEK! Dad was really mad!
Fuzzy and I rushed right back to the dog houses and stayed there the rest of the night.
(Sometimes Dad isn’t any fun.)
Boomer
AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Happy Wednesday Everyone!
Oh, by the way, the other guy’s Insurance Inspector came up yesterday afternoon, looks like we are going to get our gated pipe replaced and all of the fences.
Keep your fingers crossed, that is what he said anyway. Now we just wait and see if it really happens!
Linda
Mice in the chicken house are a pain. They are nasty, dirty and (if you don’t take care) EVERYWHERE!
But one nice thing about chickens…..
They are very good mousers.
I was raking around the wood pile and the chicken house when suddenly a mouse ran right by me, followed with a very determined Lucky Hen.
She grabbed the mouse and ran over to the trash pile (will get it cleaned up soon, I promise!) making sure the other hens don’t follow or Sam the Cat.
Whereby she proceeded to ‘take care of the nasty little vermin’.
Just like I do with the mice in the mouse traps I disposed of it.
Good Hen!
(Hens do not eat mice, or at least I have never seen one do it. But I do find mice that have been very flatten with lots of peck holes in them.)
Linda
Sunday Stills is a place where you can practice your photography skills by joining us in a weekly challenge every Sunday. For this weeks challenge you are to photograph your interpretation of a transition…
This is a good place to say Thank you to each and every person who wrote expressing sorrow and concern over the two huge fires we had last week. Each comment I read and each personal email you sent helped Terry and I know how many good people are out there.
Thank You!
Since staying mad or staying angry is a horrible place to be, we are moving on. The fences will be built, the hills will grow green again, maybe not with the former stuff, and yes, probably with the noxious weeds in our area, but they will be green.
The wonderful old tree cannot be replaced, but I do have lots and lots of photos of it. The kids are just as sad as Terry and I, but the memories of standing under it waiting for the bus and playing by it will hold us for now.
A spring storm is supposed to blow in soon, we are hoping for rain. That way the nasty charred remains will melt into the soil and the other things waiting to spring to life will be able too. Also, the rain will cleanse the air of all the smoke and ash that seems to be hanging around.
I spent Saturday cleaning house and Terry spent it working on the fields. He finished disking and rolling. Work is a great stress reliever. As odd as that sounds.
I’m putting in a photo of another really old, old tree….it is an Apricot Tree. I’ve been a little afraid to go over and see if it made it through the fire (I took this photo on Monday and the fire was on Tuesday). It is still standing, the fire did seem to go around it, so there is hope.
That is what springs eternal….Hope!
Once more we Thank each and everyone of you for your thoughts, prayers and concern.
Terry and Linda
It happened again! We had a huge fire on Tuesday, two miles long. The fire wiped out everything on the west side of the farm, except Mom-mom’s house, barn, and other outbuildings. The firemen were able to stop the fire five feet from all of the structures.
We were all scared!
Boomer and I stayed right with Mom. We rode on the back of the four-wheeler and never left it. (Boomer is really bad about jumping off and heading out to see what there is to see when Mom gets off. He always gets in trouble, but he just gives all of us a Beagle smile and does it again. But this time he listened.) The smoke and the flames were horrible.
The cows all circled up, with the baby calves in the middle, just like the books say they do when there is danger. The cowboys came up and stayed with them just to be sure.
At several points the fire jumped into the hay fields and the corn fields rushing right over to toward Mom, Dad, Boomer and my house. It was frightening. But just the day before Dad had disked all the ends by the gated pipe and the road to our place. That’s what stopped the fire there, not the firemen.
The very next day, Wednesday, the Uncompahgre Ditch Company sent the ditch cleaners down to clean out the canal to ready it for the water next week.
Dad talked to the guys said he had a very huge fire yesterday and would they be extra careful, they said they would and took off.
They didn’t!
They swooshed their 8” propane weed burner and burned everything in sight, even burned up our over 100-year-old cottonwood tree, that made Mom cry. Mom and Dad saw the guy swirl the burner around the base of the tree.
Mom, Boom and I, Mom-mom and Talley hauled water to the tree for most of the afternoon, but it finally burst into flames and left this earth. Mom told all of us that she felt like she lost a very good friend that day.
Now the whole north side and the whole east side of the farm have the fences burned to the ground.
What a mess!
Dad has been busy, getting the fire report, talking to the neighbor about repairs, and getting the ditch company to fix the fences.
Mom says her digital camera is a blessing.
Since one of the very long time ditch companies board member is our neighbor to the north, (by two miles) and we get up before the sun shines, by 6:30 in the morning, Thursday, Dad and board member were touring the damage the ditch company did.
The tree fell over around 8:30 Thursday morning. The Ditch company people wanted it to burn up so they didn’t have very much to clean up. (They made the mess, they clean it up, Dad says. The board member and the manager of the company agreed)
They also agreed to the repair of all the fences on the north and east side of the farm.
Around three o’clock in the afternoon the tree eased itself into the canal where it continued to burn.
8:30 that night the fire trucks were back out to our place, as someone passing by saw the burning tree for the first time and called it in to the fire department.
The ditch company, which hoped that they wouldn’t have much to do, vanished in several streams of water after the fire department got here.
So this is where we are, the day after the Ides of March. Hopefully we are on our way to mending.
At least the west side fences are still standing.
Knock on wood!
Fuzzy
A neighbor of ours (2 miles away) decided that today (with 20-30 m.p.h. wind and gusts of wind) was an excellent day to burn one of his ditches.
Well, he got the ditch burnt that is for sure, and the neighbors farm and our farm.
Terry and I are just sick! Sick, sick, sick!
It took the Delta Fire Department, the Olathe Fire Department, the Cedaredge Fire Department and the Lands End Fire Department from Whitewater to put the fire out. (If you get out a map you will see how far some of them had to come to help)
The fire reached our place at 2:30 that afternoon with fire jumping and running over all of our pastures, hillsides and into the corn fields. THANK GOD!!! Terry had disked the ends of the corn or it would have ran right to our house.
The fire also ate it’s way right up to our kids’ barns and chicken house….we had to load up and move out all the goats, chickens, dogs and cats. One of the next door neighbors took Tally, the other kids were in school for part of the time.
The sheriff department had all three roads blocked off from traffic as the smoke was so thick seeing was next to impossible.
The rancher and his daughter and her boyfriend came up and rounded up the cows and calves to keep them out of harms way.
The fire was finally put down at 6:30 that evening. Terry’s equipment was saved, the buildings were saved and no animals lost their lives that we are aware of.
Terry and I are sick about the loss of the centuries old Chico and Sagebrush, the ancient cactus. What will happen now is the invasive weeds will take over.
Sigh,
Linda
I’ve been waiting for this time of the year ever since we had harvest last year. But….man are we ever busy. (Not complaining just explaining).
Still I wanted to share with you a couple of shots of the full moon last week-when the moon came up the sun was going down so we had a pink moon. As the moon was going down the next morning the sun was coming up giving the countryside a beautiful blue haze.
Nature….isn’t it Grand!!?
Linda
What a busy day! I am just now getting my Sunday Stills Photos up and it’s 8:00 at night (really I’m still on Mountain Standard Time so it is 7:00 p.m.)
I chose for my Sunday Stills Small part of a whole as the fence and gate lock, but as I get here I realize I didn’t get a photo of one fence. Please forgive…here is a small part of the fence and it’s lock.
I took a photos of two different fences on the place and our creative locks!
Happy Sunday One and All!
Linda
