About Dayphoto

My name is Linda Brown. I live on a farm on the western slope of Colorado, in the high mountain desert. I’ve lived here all my life, hailing back four generations on my father’s side. Today I blog about our farm, the everyday activities that keep the farm going. I also write about my thoughts and dreams and goals. On Friday’s I always write about TLC Cai-Cai. Our sweet kitty who helps keep the farm safe. And Boo Berry Betty, a breeder dog learning to be a Farm Dog! The lovely thing about blogging it opens the world up for all of us to reach out and meet people from many different cultures and different ways of life. You can find me every day (but Saturday) at https://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/ Your Friend on a Western Colorado Farm, Linda Brown

The Weather Holds so Plowing Can Begin

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Dayphoto

Our fuel was delivered for the season. Now THAT is a jolt to your pocketbook, believe me.

And the weather held long enough to get the plow on and head to the corn and hay fields.

As you can tell we are small farmers and our equipment is older. We use a four-bottom plow any larger and we would have to enlarge everything else. Four plow shears go down, then the plow is turned over and the other side of the four shears do the work.

Here Terry is setting the plow into the ground

The primary purpose of plowing is to turn over the upper layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, while burying weeds and the remains of previous crops, allowing them to break down. It also aerates the soil, and allows it to hold moisture better. If the weather is nice (meaning not storming or dropping down moisture) most farmers, in our area, leave the ground to warm up and freeze (that is what you really want) for a week. The repeated warming and freezing makes for a very soft and friable soil.

It is now down.

And off he goes. We are having lots of wind so this soil will be dry faster than a week. Every day the soil needs to be checked, if it dries out too much the soil will turn to clods. Clods are a pain, a real pain.

We should be able to roll this weekend. (and yes I know how to roll).

All of this seems like lots of work, but to us it’s a real labor of love. When you enjoy what you are doing, work is never part of the equation

Linda

Yeah! Spring Work Has Begun!

Posted on March 25, 2010 by Dayphoto

But it comes with problems.

Terry only disks the corn and old alfalfa fields. Disking over once only shreds about 40-70% of the stalks, most of the time it takes two passes to get the stalks small enough.

A common problem, but one a farmer really wants to avoid, is the ground is too wet. Disking wet soil results in non-uniform shredding, creates clods, leaves compacted soil, and wads up in the disks. The only thing to do then is…

Dig the mud out with a bar! Terry has scrapers on some of the disks, but of course the one in the middle (which never wads up) packed in tight.

Cleaned and ready to go.

Here is what a disked field looks like. Tomorrow he will plow. There again he will only plow last year’s corn field and any alfalfa fields he wants to take out of production.

Alfalfa gets old after several years so to keep the vigor of the crop and to keep weeds from taking over a ‘hay’ field has to be disked and plowed up.

All crops are rotated, so this hay field will become a corn field for the 2010 year. And the corn fields will become pinto bean fields. We have a newly seeded alfalfa field coming into production this year and another older field which should last a couple of more years.

Good crop management is about healthy soil, crop rotation, and good irrigation practices.

But you know all that from raising gardens.

Another storm is heading our way…let’s hope it swings around us again!

Linda

Another Spring Storm Closing In

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Dayphoto

Tomorrow it is suppose to leave. Maybe THEN we can get the plowing done!

Our neighbor (just over the way) is loading his cows into the his truck for transport to the spring pastures. He doesn’t herd them, because his spring pastures are about 25 miles away.

These cows have thier own limo service 🙂

Linda

The Shortest Route from Here to There is Never a Straight Line

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Dayphoto

This is the ‘little’ hayfield. On the other side is a sagebrush patch the cows love to sleep in.

And always, always, always you MUST walk in the ditch (a little ways) to build up momentum to get there.

Cows are such goofs, all they have to do is walk straight and they would get to the corner, but they zigg and zagg all through the hay field.

And where the first one goes, then they all follow.

Linda

The Cows Leave— Watching Them Go Always Makes Me Think of the Song Rawhide

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Dayphoto

Keep movin’, movin’, movin’,
Though they’re disapprovin’,
Keep them doggies movin’ Rawhide!

Move ’em on, head ’em up,
Head ’em up, move ’em out,
Move ’em on, head ’em out Rawhide!
Set ’em out, ride ’em in
Ride ’em in, let ’em out,
Cut ’em out, ride ’em in Rawhide.

Another storm was to blow in last night (and it did); the rancher decided he needed to get the cows onto new pasture and bedded down before it hit.

We had rain and 40 mile an hour wind this morning. Still all in all the brunt of the storm missed us.

Tractor work will start tomorrow if the wind can dry everything out enough.

Yeah! Spring is here!

Boy, am I ever ready. But I guess you knew that!

Linda

Raining, Snowing and Stuck in Traffic

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Dayphoto

Since it was raining on Sunday

We decided this was a good time to go visit Terry’s Mom and Sister and Brother-in-law

And maybe visit a John Deere dealer or two and go to a couple of farm sales

We have to travel over the Rocky Mountains to get to the eastern side of Colorado.

As we go the traffic picks up and up and up….UGH!

Signs warn us all along that the traffic into Denver is immense and to expect delays.

Boy, were they ever right! See the cars W.A.Y. back there. We kept along at 8 miles an hour until after the tunnel.

We made it. We got to have a nice evening with family and the next day took in some dealerships

And a retirement farm sale.

We got home late that night. I am really glad to be back home. I am NOT a city girl grandma.

If the weather holds we will begin tractor work Saturday!

Linda

Stuck Tractor

Posted on March 17, 2010 by Dayphoto

This is exactly the kind of stuff I hate…pulling out a stuck tractor—and it’s treating to rain … again.

So Terry takes one tractor and I drive the other tractor and off we go to get the one Terry stuck

But it is even WORSE than I thought because the tractor is on the edge of a ravine. The ravine isn’t large, but it is steep and covered in slick, matted, winter-killed grass.

No! I do not back up tractors that are in dangerous positions!!!! I should, I know. But I am not that good of a driver and rolling a tire on the edge (the very edge) of a ravine is way above my skills.

This whole thing is just terrifying to me-when I was in high school our neighbor had his tractor tip over backward and kill him, my Dad had a tractor roll on top of him and crush his pelvis, and one of Terry’s very best friends had a tractor roll backward and kill him. I HATE STUFF LIKE THIS!!!!!

Finally OUT! Whew!

Linda

Transmission Pipe and Sunny Skies

Posted on March 12, 2010 by Dayphoto

The sun is back! Yeah for the sun! What you see ‘sparkling’ in the foreground is the sun bouncing off the old corn stalks.

Isn’t it beautiful!!!!

While I sit in a warm office, staring at a computer screen, Terry is burying, by hand a transmission pipe.

So after work he took me up the canal bank to see how much he got done.

As you can see this ditch can be a problem. The cows walk this ditch bank to come into the barn; they stomp down the edges, walk in the ditch itself and generally make a mess.

Water can be its own problem, because if you turn down a head of water and you don’t get to the end fast enough it will start to form little channels and run over the sides. THAT is something you don’t ever want to have happen. The water gets into the field or the road or back into the canal somewhere it should Not Go!

We have wanted to lay transmission pipe for some time, but as most of you know, pipe is expensive and the hand work needs to be done before water starts and after the ground thaws.

It also has to be done before the tractor work; because once the tractor work starts little jobs like this are put to the side. (The -we’ll get by another year- thought process sets in.)

Although, there was a sharp, cold, northern wind, the ground is lending itself well to hand-digging.

In a couple of days tractor work will begin. Providing it doesn’t rain.

Linda

HELP! A Dog Tried to Kill One of the Chickens!

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Dayphoto

Honey Hen here. We have had an almost murder on the farm! It was terrible I might say. Just horrible. It didn’t happen here, which I am ever so very grateful for, but it did happen down at Misty’s house.

Fuzzy had gone down to Misty’s to see how things were going.

(He stopped traveling down there for a long, long time after Checkers passed)

But he told me he missed seeing the little kids and he felt like he better help out Mom-Mom by guarding her place as well.

When he got down there he found out that a stray dog had been dumped out and was chasing chickens

Just as Fuzzy got into the yard the stray black dog got one of the black chickens in his mouth and took off down the road

Lucky for the black chicken and for Fuzzy the neighbor guy was out in his yard and saw the whole thing.

The neighbor guy took off running and caught the dog, just as he was about to have lunch.

This whole business just sends shivers up a hen’s spine don’t you know.

Well, anyway, the hen was saved, and the stray dog is also saved, he is now living with another neighbor way, way down the road, who has a fenced in yard. (And the fence is one of those things that shock the dog if he tried to leave….YEAH!)

Anyway, Fuzzy told me he was really glad the neighbor saw everything, because otherwise they might have thought he was chasing chickens.

Fuzzy says he is just too old for the utter nonsense!

Honey Hen

A Tiny Bit of Green

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Dayphoto

Taking the advice of several of you I brought a bundle of twigs from the pruned Lilac inside and placed them in a bucket of water

I am waiting for the roots to appear and then I will take them outside and plant them. But of course I can’t plant them until the weather settles and the ground warms up. At the rate we are going now, I think I can plant them on Memorial Day.

Anyway, I want to plant them on the canal bank.

This is a main artery of the canal, of which we get our irrigation water. As you can see the mad, rushing, and roaring water has a tendency to eat away the bank. (All photos were taken before the last big snow storm. The snow is gone now, melted with the rain.)

The canal runs right by our house and yard so I plant trees and bushes to protect the bank.

Since I need to cut down the ancient (un-pruned) Standard Delicious tree, the lilacs will fit on up the bank perfectly.

It is still raining here. Still muddy. And cold 41*. There is nothing we can do but wait. But just as soon as the ground is ready, every tractor in the land will be either ripping the soil or plowing.

Come on sun!

Linda