We were looking at one of the several really cool musuems in Texas when we came upon this display.
Although, we were in Texas the artifact came out of Colorado…the tip of eastern Colorado.
Completely out wire (that is a very fake and very dusty crow)
This is the other nest!
Really very amazing birds!
Windmills…everywhere!
Linda
Confluence Park and Lake
Our little town has a place
called Confluence Lake and Park
Here is where our Fourth of July Fireworks are shot, families play and swim, and those who love to walk can hike.
The lake is home to all sorts of water fowl
The Heron kept flying away so I couldn’t get a photo of them.
A spot of peace in our little rural town.
Linda
Finally! Mom and Dad are home!
They have been super busy, super busy! Which suits me just fine…I like being busy. Fuzzy says we are busy but really we aren’t.
Here’s how our day went when Mom and Dad were in Texas. Sleep until Misty and Tally came up to do the chickens….hang out with them for a while. Then they would leave and Fuzzy and I would sleep again. Fuzzy would pick out a spot in the sun somewhere and doze off. I like to jump on top of the dog houses and sleep there. It’s all nice and cuddly and warm, the sun hits and warms everything up.
Then I would sort of mosey around but I never went too far, because I knew Fuzzy would miss me. Then later, way later, in the day Blade would come over with Puff/Hank and they would do the chickens…gather the eggs and put the chickens to bed for the night and throw some hay over to the cows.
Mom and Dad were gone 4 days….an eternity! On the third day I begged really, really, hard to get to go home with Mom-mom and Tally so they let me. (Fuzzy didn’t want to go)
NOW THAT WAS FUN!!!!
While Fuzzy slept in the sun Puff/Hank and I P.L.A.Y.E.D. everywhere. I came home with Blade in the evening. The next morning when Mom-mom came up I hopped into the truck, because I WAS going home with them again!
Then Mom and Dad came back! Which is just wonderful, you see. They’ve been doing lots of stuff in the kitchen and the bathroom and we have been without water for a couple of days, something about the hot water tank leaked and caused the bathroom vinyl to come up and the underneath wood to get really soaked. A new hot water tank had to be bought, new carpet laid down…but Mom saved lots of water so we didn’t have to go thirsty.
I think they are about done with the water because we rode down twice to the end of the lane to turn the water off and turn it on. Now Dad says he has to haul hay down to the elevator as they are out and want some more. Then maybe, just maybe, on Friday Dad plans on combining corn. He had a flat tire on the combine, but he took it town and got it fixed so plans are still on for Friday.
We all will help with that, but all the other stuff comes first, Dad says.
Today is Friday the 11th, on the 12th Pheasant Hunting season starts. Since none of us had checked fences for a while or even checked on the cows for a time we all headed off to do so. Mom and Dad don’t let hunters hunt on our property anymore. There was a time when they did, but not anymore.
Dad says too many people have left gates down, climbed over fences and broken down the fences, shot at the cows, and even walked down the canal and shot close to the barn to even begin to think about letting hunters back on the place.
(Besides there really aren’t many pheasants left in our area. Too many fox and coyotes! They eat the eggs and they eat the birds! I know because I’ve been sniffing out the sad tale now for the year I’ve lived here.)
We headed out, but had to stop; as our neighbor was moving his cows down from the plateau to his winter pasture…he said the cows were eating snowballs up there. Made us all laugh. The cows said it was true; they were super glad to see food again.
Fuzzy and explored along the corn fields,
there were a couple of lose wires that had to be fixed so the folks worked on those.
The wind had blown some big weeds into the electric fence which had to be picked off; we explored some more while they did that.
Fuzzy pretty much had to ride with Mom — he would get way too tired. Still Mom would put him off and let him run around while they worked.
When we got home the moon was coming up….WOW! Sure was a pretty moon! The last time we had a full moon Sissy Coyote came calling, but we all checked out the known dens (yes there are two for sure) and it looks like they have left our farm.
I sure hope so! Dad said…we’ll see, we’ll see.
Anyway, nothing happened last night. Except it got really cold around 8*, I stayed in my dog house all snug and warm.
It was dark when Mom gets up…I wonder why she gets up so early. Oh, yes…to get the fire started in the woodstove.
The moon was just going to sleep but she came out anyway with her camera, she said she wants a good photo of the moon.
I think she got one. She took one at night and one in the morning. I don’t care if she is outside with the camera that just means I get to go and do something with her.
Then we all went inside and had a good snuggle around the fire. It got too hot for Fuzzy so he headed outside. I thought I could just stay inside and keep myself cool by panting.
That didn’t work.
Still everything is good, I helped Mom rake and I tried to catch mice that were sneaking into the chicken house.
Then I rode in the wheelbarrow as Mom hauled wood to the house. I jumped out when Sam the Cat smirked at me. Mom caught Sam and made him ride then. He did too. Rode all the way to the house on a load of wood!
Smarty pants cat!
Well, hang on to your ears as pheasant season starts Saturday!! (I’ll lay bones to hamburger Fuzzy tried to hide in his dog house or to make a dash to get into the house when the guns start going off.)
Boomer
The module of tightly packed cotton (cotton is dry like the clothes you love to wear).
Is then delivered to the cotton gin.
Here the module is ran through several cleaning machines–machines that take out the any bits of sticks, burrs and the seeds.
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, of whitch the fiber is almost pure celulose. The cotton fiber protects the sticky seed until it is time for it to ‘leave the plant’ and make a plant of it’s own.
The cotton plant is a shrub, and in the tropical deep south or other tropical areas of the world it is a perennial, therefore producing bolls all along. That is why in tropical areas the cotton is picked by a picking machine. The picking machine picks only the bolls that are ripe and broken open.
In subtropical regions…west Texas, the shrub is not treated as a perennial, but stripped taking all of the plant parts. It freezes in west Texas so the plant will die anyway.
The fiber is most often spun into yarn or a thread and then used to make soft, breathable fabric.
Once inside the gin machines pull and clean the cotton, plus seperating it from the cotton seeds.
The balls go through another process that stretches the balls and bales them together.
They then go to the packaging station
Where the 550 pound bales are wrapped ready for delivery to a factory
I hope you have enjoyed this tiny little window into a small part of the farming world of west Texas.
I have found that farmers and ranchers everywhere love the land. They take great care to take very good care of the land and the plants and the animals that live upon the land. One reason is this is how they make a living, but the other reason (and probably the most important reason) is it’s in their blood. In their dna, in the fiber of their beings.
Roy (he farms over 3,000 acres), Terry -farms in western Colorado, and Vadarae who owns several farms and invited us to “Come on down the Harvest is on!”
I have a few more delightful posts from the west Texas area that I will do soon. But Friday with Fuzzy and Boomer will be tomorrow!
Linda
As I understand it….. ( have so many photos I’m having a hard time picking out just a few 🙂 )
Cotton is not PICKED in this part of Texas—it is stripped. Which means the whole plant is picked all at once with a stripping machine. The machine works just like most combines, picking off the bolls (and the leaves and any other part of the plant) selecting the cotton and spitting out the trash…leaves, sticks and the dried boll.
The deep south the cotton picking machine only picks the ready bolls and then they come back and pick the bolls that are ripe again, doing this until all the bolls have bloomed and picked.
When the hopper gets full a cotton buggy comes and picks up the load.
This is the cotton buggy. It is not full at the time of the this photo. It will be too the top when full.
Then the cotton buggy takes the load back to the module maker.
Here the buggy is dumping into the module maker.
The module maker smashes the cotton balls into a tight fitting well pack module.
When the module maker is good and tight– a tarp is put over the top of the module to keep the cotton from blowing away and seal it off from rain. Here Terry is helping Roy, the farmer, and his helper get the tarp ready for this module.
Here is another module being covered. The module maker is pulled away and the tarp is pulled on. Pretty slick, if you ask me.
Finished! They are tying it on at this point.
Tomorrow I’ll talk about the cotton gin.
Our corn is ready for harvest. Moisture content is 14.3% so we start tomorrow.
Today we have to put in a new hot water heater as ours went out last night. 😦 Sigh.
Linda
We took a short break (four days) and headed to the plains of west Texas for the Cotton Harvest.
Terry and I have always wanted to see a cotton harvest so a really wonderful blog friend, emailed and said: “COME ON DOWN! We have started harvest!”
Since she owns huge farms, of which she sharecrops out, she talked to her renter to see if we could come watch the harvest. He also said “Come on Down!”
So we did!
We started out in a huge snow storm.
The following is a series of photos as we crossed the Million Dollar Highway into Durango.
This is part of the Million Dollar….
Here is a snow tunnel in a huge avalance area. Several people have lost thier lives at this place. The snow tunnel works like magic.
This is Silverton. There are three passes from our house to Durango, Colorado….Million Dollar, Molas and Coalbank.
The views are amazing and the roads were a mess.
But from Durango on into New Mexico we had good weather and dry highways.
This is New Mexico.
The wind started blowing in the afternoon of the day before we left the plains of west Texas, so going home we drove all the way through Oklahoma into Colorado in a huge dust storm.
Then back at the mountains we drove home again in another storm.
But we are back now.
The corn is starting to be harvested around us so Terry is on his way to have the corn tested to see if we can start.
I’ll blog about the harvest tomorrow.
Linda
The Sunday Stills Challenge is In the Dark….I was going to do this for Halloween, but I realized this would work well here.
Linda
Linda
When out checking the corn …it’s still too wet, running around 22 and it needs to get to 14
We found the coyote den, well actually the grandkids found it first, but Terry and I had to go check it out
They’ve left the area, but we are sure they will return. Of course having them so close to the equipment is not good….
We saw a lone little butterfly fueling up for it’s flight going south
Back in the yard a very busy bumble bee was working over the last of the flowers. (I so enjoy bumble bees!)
The chickens were busy eating all the nasty grasshoppers, which tickled me.
The weather has cooled some here, but I’m still determined to enjoy every last ray of autumn light that I can. November 6th the time changes, which I dread!
Linda
Hope Everyone has a really good spooky time!
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 