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

Celebrating Corn

Posted on July 8, 2009 by Dayphoto

Our corn has grown amazingly well this year.

On June 30^th it was Linki size

Linki-is-Corn-High

then on the 4^th of July it was Bladen size,

Corn-is-Blade-High

and today it is showing signs of tasseling out.

Tasseling out is one of the most critical stages of corns’ development. What a farmer is aiming for is a large kernel number per ear on each stalk of corn. In other words a full ear of kernels! Most corn ears have about 12 to 16 rows of kernels, but if the conditions are just right you can sometimes have rows of upwards to 20! Now that is cool and helps with the tonnage at harvest.

Sea-of-Corn

I won’t go into tasseling and silking and pollination at this time. But suffice it to say, the corn is definitely ‘knee high by the 4^th of July’!

Part of Our Vacation was a Tractor Pull

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Dayphoto

Not one of those really fast tractor pulls, but just your plain farm tractor pull.

Both Evan and Terry drove. Terry had the 530 JD and Evan drove the 730 JD.

The pull was based on how much weight the tractor could pull, Terry did 170% of his tractors’ weight

Terry-Pulling

and Evan did 174%.

Evan-on-Tractor

No I don’t know what the tractor weighed. My job is to sit there and film the pull and remember the weight. The rest is up to them. 🙂 Works for me! I just have to remember to switch from video to still and sometimes I don’t get that part right.

More on Irrigation Water

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Dayphoto

Sometimes people get weirded out that farmers waste water, but water is never wasted. (as far as I know).

After we put the water through our fields the water goes back into the canal; rushing to the next farm down the way. This is the main artery head gate at the end of our place.

Canal-Headgate

The canal divides the water to go under the road to next set of farms and down the hill to a whole different set of farm. These big head gates give me vertigo, so I am grateful I don’t EVER have to do anything with it.

More-Ditch-Foam

This is a cool photo of ditch foam. I like to find ditch foam. It is a rare, but not unusual phenomenon, which occurs when conditions are just right. I found one awhile back and posted about it here. https://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/2007/07/27/ditch-foam-happens-once-in-a-great-while/

Moving-Water

This photo shows you a head of water let loose and moving quickly. When you pull up the dam the whole head swooshes down the ditch, so you have to hurry to beat the water to your next set or the water can run over the sides.

Devils-Kitchen

Our farm is on a mesa, just above some very interesting canyons. Last evening we went to Fat Man’s Misery and walked up to Devil’s Kitchen. The formations here are just amazing. The last thing you want to happen is to be here when a flash flood occurs. And they do occur, as you can tell from the standing water.

I am not going to be able to do much posting for a few days now, we have company coming, and a short trip to Dove Creek to visit some friends. But I will be checking everyone’s blog over this next week, just not planning on doing much posting on mine.

Everything should settle itself down after the 4^th of July and return to normal.

Have a nice week and really good 4^th of July!

Corn Worms and Pheromone Traps

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Dayphoto

The farming neighbor next to us grows sweet corn, called Olathe Sweet-Sweet Corn, for America’s adoring population of sweet corn eaters. It is a patented “delicious sweet corn watered with melted snow” so the advertising states.

To keep the sweet corn free of corn ear worms (people don’t like to see worms in their corn) pheromone traps are hung throughout the fields to capture the egg-laying earworm moths and prevent them from producing.

Corn ear worms are 1- to 2-inch caterpillars that are green, yellow, pink or brown with a white stripe and black legs. They pupate into tan-colored moths with a 1 1/2- to 2-inch wingspan.

As the larvae mature, they continue to feed on the corncob and work their way down the ear. As the corn itself matures, a second-generation infestation of corn earworm occurs as the larvae travel down the silk vein into the maturing cob where more significant crop damage occurs. The corn earworms even eat one another, normally leaving one corn earworm per cob until it eats its way out by eating a hole through the husk.

As a side note earworm pupae, which live in the ground can cause re-infestation in the spring. Sweet corn fields are plowed as soon as harvest is over.

Anyway, we are now seeing the pheromone traps hanging on fence-lines identifying sweet corn fields across our mesa.

Corn-Worms

Our Tain Ride

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Dayphoto

I’ve had people asking questions about our train ride, so I thought I would answer this way.

Train-Ride-008

The train was a promotional train for Operation Lifesaver. Operation Lifesaver is an educational program taught on the train to eliminate collisions, deaths, and injuries at highway-rail intersections and on railroad rights-of-way.

Train-Ride-009

The ride is scheduled to take one hour to a destination and one hour back to the load-out zone. Tickets were free, but you had to hurry to get your name on the list, all four cars were packed with people. The train loaded and started up the track at 8:00 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., 3:30 p.m. (the one we rode), and 6:00 p.m. (this one went to Grand Junction.

Train-Ride-010

All but the 6:00 train was scheduled to go to Paonia, Colorado, which took one hour, all trains made it to Paonia, but the afternoon train. Because we have three large (huge, very big) coal mines just above Paonia in the Somerset area, the afternoon train had to make way for the coal trains. The coal trains have/had priority. So the afternoon trains just went to Hotchkiss and sat on the track until the coal train went by.

The passenger cars were all 1940 plush cars, one with a dome. Everyone wanted to sit in the dome, but no one got to. All four cars were completely full, 2 to a seat. On the evening train to Grand Junction, only people enough to fill the dome car rode. These people had ‘special tickets’. Next year I want a special ticket!

Train-Ride-011

I, personally, enjoyed the ride. The train’s top speed was 45 miles an hour, because of the huge grades they had to pull, sometimes slowing to 25 miles an hour. To get to Hotchkiss from Delta, by car is only 25 minutes.

I travel that road many times a week. But to be on the train, going through a different area than the highway was really special!

Train-Ride-012

I have always wanted to take a train ride and now I got too.

Our Part of the Country

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Dayphoto

This past week has been busy. A farming neighbor, two farms away had a farm sale;

They are moving to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Farm-Sale

The last of the hay was baled and stacked

Baling-Hay

We went to an antique tractor auction

Tractor-Sale

We took Evan and his son (our oldest grandchild) on a train ride

Other-Side-of-the-Train

In between all of this the house and yard work continued, irrigation and cultivating went on, and the SUN came out plus the wind went away.

Beans-and-Sunshine

Ahhh, life is good!

Fabulous Friday

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Dayphoto

Another-Rainbow

We are still having rain and thunderstorms, but oh, my! The double rainbow experience is just amazing! This one showed up at our daughter’s house. I had my trusty camera ready (again) so now you can enjoy it with me.

The Corn is Tally High

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Dayphoto

Tally-and-the-Corn-002

The corn is doing well; too tall now to cultivate. And the rain has stopped. Well, it has moved to the mountains surrounding us, we are only experiencing heavy afternoon winds. Lots of sun!

Life is good.