It rained again last night, around 3:30 in the morning
But the sun is shining and the clouds are moving away. I checked the weather forcaste where it looks like we are now in the 40% chance of rain, with it mostly in the mountains.
The sunrise caught the last of the early morning rain just leaving and I caught the gift with my camera so I could share it with you.
Linda
It rained last night
My yard is beautiful and green, the dust is settled and the drying alfalfa is wet. Just one more day in the heat and then a day to bale and haul and it could rain.
70% chance for the rest of the day and night today, Tuesday with more storms for Wednesday.
I still love the rainbows the storms produce.
Linda
We are hauling the little field now. Up before dawn and out in the field by 5:30. Get the water set and start on the hay. By 7 it’s already hot and the bugs are biting.
If the weather holds, (it’s suppose to bring in more thunderstorms today at noon), the largest field of hay should be ready to bale tomorrow morning. We hope tomorrow morning, if not then Wednesday. Everything is a race against the weather.
At least it is hot drying weather (100+*) and if the thunderstorms stay in the mountains everyone who is doing hay will get done fast. Hot weather helps the alfalfa dry into hay.
Linda
Since school is about to start and we were in a down-time Terry and I, the grandchildren and thier parents decided to take a short vacation.
Terry put the water in the pasture and we headed out.
Cortez, Colorado is three hours away from us, with Mesa Verde (the Visitor’s Center) an hour out of Cortez. So in four hours we were looking, walking, and touring some of Colorado’s most famous cliff houses.
There are two mesas which are open to visitors, each mesa takes four hours or so to completely see.
Some you drive to and get out and look upon as they are waaaaaay
across the canyon. Others like this one just above (Long House) is open for tours
others you walk down to and then get to walk through out.
This cliff is called Cliff Palace. The time space is 600 A.D. to the middle of 1200 A.D.
You can NOT be afraid of heights, nor have bad knees, or get tired of walking
You get to walk in the footsteps of these very ancient people …here you go up the rock in ancient foot holes
It took four hours on the first mesa and about 6 hours on the second mesa
Everything that goes down, has to come back up.
I was walked out! It was hot, also, heat hovering around the very high 90s. You could see it shimmer off the canyon walls.
Lots and lots of people. It costs to get into the park, and it costs per person no matter the size or age to travel into the large cliffs. The group sizes are regulated so you are not crowded or the site over-whelmed with people.
Times have changed. This made my 6th visit to the park. In the beginning you could just go and do and enjoy. It’s now big business, but still very enjoyable.
If you get a chance to go, please do so.
Linda
Well, here it is another day on the farm and not much happening. The weather has been rather bad…sweltering hot in the morning, and then it cools down, which is nice. But it cools down into masses of thunderstorms and lightning strikes. Makes my whole body tremble and shake and I try really hard to climb into the house or on Mom’s lap or anywhere where I can’t be shot at by the sky.
Another really bad part of all this loud booming weather is Mom is always outside trying to get a photo of the lightening shooting at us. Or Dad thinks he has to go change the water. The reason that is bad is it’s my sworn duty to follow them everywhere they go.
If I have to choose between one of them I choose Mom, but lately she is just insane wanting to out there with those loud gun shots and fire in the clouds. Mom says they are not gun shots but thunder and it won’t hurt me, but I still shake and tremble.
Boomer says he doesn’t understand, nothing seems to really ever scare Boomer.
Any who, let’s not talk about the weather but about the stranger that came to visit the other day.
It was some person who wanted to talk to Dad about something or other, they sat outside in the cool of the afternoon (potential thunderstorm) and Mom stayed inside because it was something called ‘business’.
But Boomer and I were outside.
The man was driving a cool pick-up with a DOG in the back.
First the dog jumped out and followed his person everywhere Dad and that man walked and that strange dog followed and he peed on everything! I do mean everything.
So if he peed, then Boomer would take a pee.
I would wait until they were all done and I would pee all over their pee.
That way I was showing them who really is the one who runs this place.
Smirk, smirk!
Now if there is something that Dad doesn’t like…its dogs marking their territory. It will rile him up real fast.
After about 10 minutes of the peeing thing Dad asked the man to put his dog back in his truck, then he talked real stern to Boom and I about stopping the peeing.
He said “STOP IT! NOW!”
So we did.
The guy put his dog in the back of the truck but the dog would wait until his person’s back would turn and he would jump out.
This dogs name was some Spanish name I don’t know how to say or spell. He is a mean hombre, a big old bear catcher of a dog.
Anyway this went on for a few minutes until the man grabbed the dog and clipped him to a rope he had tied to the bed of the truck.
Boomer and I watched all of this with interest…way over by our dog houses…we didn’t want Dad to yell at us again.
Mom came out and brought some pop and glasses with ice so Dad and his visitor settled down for a very long talk.
When they got to laughing and chuckling, I signaled to Boom to follow me.
Off we went.
We were very safe you see…the hombre was tied up and Boom and I were free.
I showed Boomer what to do….
The Hombre suddenly jumped up and hollered at me…”Get away from that tire!” “You stop messing up my person’s tires!”
Boomer saw what I was doing and laughed.
The next thing I heard was water running in the front of the truck on the other side away from me.
Hombre started growling deep menacing growls way down in his throat…
“GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”
I just laughed.
What could he do?
I grinned and lifted my leg as high as I could, which isn’t very high anymore, but I was able to get the edge of the tire next to the ground.
Hombre went nuts. His fangs were flashing; he lunged from his rope, and let out furious barking.
He was so loud I knew Dad would be over here soon or for sure his person would be, but guess what?
Mom headed out the door and saw what was happening.
She grabbed my collar (as Boomer gave a couple of more swipes to one of the back tires) and then grabbed Boomer. She marched us right past Dad and the person, and then put us in the house with her.
Shish
Oh, well. We each got a dog cookie. She also told us we were not being very nice to company. And we had to lie on our beds until she told us we could go back outside.
When that time came, the hombre and his person were gone.
But Boomer and I both agree we had a great time.
Fuzzy
The monsoon season is also known as the rainy season, coming about due to a shift in wind directions that bring excessive rainfall. Right up from the Gulf of Mexico to us.
July is our monsoon season, some years it misses us all together, but we’ve been lucky. The other side of the Continental Divide in our state (Colorado) is very, very dry.
On the other hand all the moisture is causing havock with the second cutting of hay. If the alfalfa is cut then rained on you can pretty much weep tears. Rained on hay loses much of it’s food value.
Once cut it takes around 6-7 days of hot drying weather, less if you can get hot drying weather with a little wind. Then the good weather has to hold with enough moisture (dew) in the morning to bale. Baling with dew is good for it keep the little leaves attached to the stem of the plant. The little leaves are where the food value is…a dry old stem is pretty much like eating straw.
Terry’s cutting the small field today…it’s suppose to be nice for about six or seven days in a row so he is chancing it.
Then on Friday or Saturday he will cut the large field.
After that we hold our breath hoping the rain stays away until we get it baled and stacked.
One nice thing about the weather…the sky is ever so dramatic!
Then after each wild storm rolls through the sun comes out and there is a rainbow!
🙂
Linda
We took off for a couple of days…Misty did the irrigation for us and took care of our animals while we were gone.
When our children were little Terry drove us up this very steep mountain…Pikes Peak.
Tall
it is!
Scary driving…
You bet!
So this time we rode the cog train to the top
Where I promptly became ill
But the altitude didn’t bother Terry
The lady sitting next to me had just been to Peru. Her husband and I were not feeling very well at all. She said she learned in Peru to take the hand sanitizer and rub in on and it will help
And it did!
I was ever so thankful she was sitting next to us.
Linda
Sammy got into some spray that the famer next door was spraying on his weeds
So I gave him a bath.
When cats or dogs get into spray the thing they want to do is lick thier fur. They then get sick from the spray.
Sammy really didn’t mind the bath, but he didn’t think very much of me taking his picture when he wasn’t all pretty.
Better a wet cat than a sick cat, I told him.
Linda
The kids in this family, well, not Mom and Dad’s family….Misty’s family, seem to love to come over to Grammy and Grandpa’s. It seems like they are here at least once a day, if not more. I really don’t mind.
I don’t even mind if Hank comes with them, which he always does.
I don’t even mind if Linki takes the curry comb and tries to brush me. I hope you caught that word tries. I keep moving and moving so she finally just gives up.
Hee hee
I don’t even mind the goats coming over, Boomer is getting better about the goats– I keep working with him.
What I do mind is Boomer and Hank. They get to playing so hard, laughing and barking and rough housing that that I get to thinking someone or something is coming down the road to the house and I missed barking at whomever or whatever is coming.
So I jump up, sometimes from a very sound sleep, quickly get my bearings and take off running out to the road barking as loud as I can so whomever or whatever knows there I’m on duty.
What’s really frustrating is when Hank and Boomer are together I can’t tell what’s happening. So when I jump up and run to the driveway and see there is nothing there…well (to save face) I start barking at the birds. I’ll even run right out in the alfalfa field so they will think I have always been barking at the birds.
So back to my story-
The grandchildren were up, and Hank, and Mom-mom, everyone was sitting around on the east patio as it was now in the shade. So that means the sun was in the west and the day was starting to cool down.
My Mom went into the house and came out with a box loaded with GUNS!!!!
Three of them to be sure!
Also a HUGE bottle of bubble making stuff!
That is all it took.
You mix bubble making supplies together with three little kids and you get lots of fun on a late summer day.
What surprised me and everyone else is Hank, oops I mean Puff.
He loved them as much as the little kids.
He jumped and twirled and tried to catch bubbles all afternoon.
Along about dark, he sank down to the grass and just went to sleep.
My Mom gathered up all the bubble making stuff and took it inside.
I sure don’t understand Puff. Who would have thought bubbles could be so much fun. I watched all afternoon, not once going out to bark at the birds. Boomer watched too. Although, every once in a while Boomer would wrestle with Hank. Boomer didn’t know what to do with the bubbles either.
Beats me!
Fuzzy
