On Friday, May 2nd, Terry turned 70! I hope I am as active and energetic and able to work as hard as my Dear Husband does everyday….still!
Today, I’m having our kids and their families over for a Sunday dinner celebration. We had to wait for everyone to be off work.
Happy Birthday, Hubby!
I found this cool little saying:
“Seventy is wormwood,
Seventy is gall
But its better to be seventy,
Than not
Alive at all.”–Phyllis McGinley
Your farming friends!
Terry and Linda
Happy First Day of May Everyone!!!!!
For my “Good Fences” post today I have the wonderful, exciting photo of this delightful, outstanding, just perfect for today’s post of a fence and a Rainbow…I just love Rainbows!
I give you our corral fence………….
Yippee! How lucky am I and how lucky are you! A Good Fence and a rainbow!
My white picket fence even looks blue in the evening light. Another cool thing!
For more wonderful fences head over here. Please join up…its really fun to see all the cool gates and fences from all over the place…yours will be just as appreciated as everyone else.
Your farming friend,
Linda
The wind is still with us…a very sharp wind, blowing across the snow freshly dumped in the mountains all around us.
We are COLD. In my yard the asparagus has froze, the lilac buds have turned brown and dried on the stem, the fruit trees crisp white blooms are now a brown yucky color. Out on the farm everything is still okay…the alfalfa is cold but green, growing slowly, but still alive. We are still irrigating, nothing has been planted so we have no worries in that department.
Rain and snow occurred off and on all day
The wind pushing storm clouds from the west toward us, then onto the east
At different points the sun shined into the Roubidoux Canyon allowing us to see the geological formations just four miles from our farm.
The tri-colored Red-winged Blackbirds helped us while we changed water, searching for yummy things in the soil.
A hawk looking for super also, watched us while we changed the water, swaying gently in the wind on his tiny branch in the tree. The tree is still waiting for warmth so it can leaf out…waiting, just like us.
Suddenly a rainbow lite up an culvert a neighbor has ready to insert across an arroyo on his land!
We worked on the water until dark, but even the dark offered Bling in the most spectacular of ways!
The Bling of Nature…really, who could ask for more? Not I. I am most comfortable here, on the land…really Terry and I try hard to one with the land and all that shares it with us!
Your farming friend,
Linda
What a cold and windy day we had yesterday…and the day before….and again today! I’m holding onto the hope that calmer weather is heading in by the weekend. It sure needs too.
Some of the sweet corn has already been planted (no, we don’t raise sweet corn), but that that drew the early lottery already have the seed in the ground, just waiting for the weather to warm up before they put the water to the seed. Sweet corn harvest is timed to come off every two weeks starting around the 4th of July and ending in late September. Those that get the extremely early or the extremely late lottery always have a crap shoot going in…weather (the house) can be the winner in most cases.
The wind blew gusts of 40 m.p.h most of the day until late in the night, slowing down some, but back up again this morning. The weather people say to expect 35 m.p.h. gusts today. Freeze warning are in effect until Wednesday at 10 a.m. I’m pretty sure the fruit is all gone…I just don’t know how it could make it through all of this wind and extreme cold.
This Boomer on the run…he didn’t come when called so he had to hurry in behind me.
Fuzz always waits for me. He used to like to get out and chase the water, but not anymore.
Back home the cats know just what it takes to make life good
Now what more could you ask for? 🙂
Still all in all I thought the sunset was a perfect spot of Bling at the end of the day!
Linda
Today our youngest daughter turns 37….it just seems like yesterday she was a tiny tot.
We are still very cold…I mean very cold! Although, it’s sunny and bright (which helps) the wind is terrible and very cold. It’s like being in January all over again. If the weather people are right, by Sunday we will be in the 80s…I can handle that! 🙂
A rainbow did appear as the sun came out from behind the clouds! I love seeing rainbows.
Anyway, while we were up at the upper end we saw another wonder of nature….
Desert Evening Primroses were everywhere….the moisture and the weather must be just right for these to pop into bloom. It’s been several years since we’ve seen them!
Although we are terribly cold…I’m now down to raiding my scrap heap for wood —(I refuse to open up the wood that is being seasoned for next winter) ….the earth and the skies have given us gifts untold!
Lucky us And you!
From a cold windy land a cherry Good Morning!
Linda
Boy, is it ever COLD here!!! Miserable in fact. We started the heat back on in the house yesterday and have kept it going all night and even today. I’m down to four logs of wood (that have been cut to length) I was hoping the cut wood would last us until warm and settled weather of spring. So far that isn’t going to be the case.
Last night Terry and I were dress in our winter clothes —carhart jackets, hooded sweatshirts, with warm winter hats pulled way down over our ears to do the irrigation water. Miserable changing and resetting (melted snow) ice water in all those clothes. But we had to do it or freeze.
Today there is edges of ice along the rows it’s so cold out here.
Of course, the fruit trees are in full bloom—apples, cherries, prunes, pears, and plums. These trees are on our place and I don’t smudge. I’m sure the orchardist are smudging or running wind fans to try and save their fruit and their living.
Out there on the ditch bank I had to marvel at the beauty that surrounds us—sometimes it is just stunning.
The storm clouds had lifted a little bit allowing the sun to shine on the canyons, mesas, hills and the Uncompahgre Plateau (Un-come-pah-gray) highlighting the vistas surrounding our mesa.
There is something about being near these geological wonders that lifts my soul. Something mystic, even exciting. The canyons draw me to them speaking of mystery and and enchantment—opening my spirit to those who have traveled long long ago, within their captivating walls, or walked along the mesas and hills hunting, foraging, putting down roots, making a life for themselves.
Then there are all the wild animals and other creatures that complete the magic within the vista…calling to my soul!
Anyway….I couldn’t tarry long day dreaming, but for a spell, a very short spell, the canyons and mesas, the plateaus and the hills where filled with sunshine then the storm descended upon them also.
But, lucky for me, I was outside and saw…now you can too.
From the high mountain deserts of Western Colorado I sing to you a bright and very cold “Good Morning!”
You friend,
Linda
A Run Around Ranch is hosting Good Fences on Thursday.
Here is our apricot blooms with complete with fence
Please join it! It’s a real treat to see all the fences and gates (you can showcase gates if you would like) from around the world.
Spring is such a nice time of year, isn’t it!
Your farm friend,
Linda
Our oldest granddaughter and her best friend came over one afternoon…and bummed a ride with Grandpa
How lucky we are
To be have the blessing of our grandchildren so close…just ten acres away. It’s nothing for them to walk over…stay a while (a long while or a short while) and then when they are tired of being here…to walk back home.
In the reality of life…Terry and I could not ask for more.
Your friend,
Linda
Spring is the time all the cows are removed off the farming land, onto ground that isn’t being put into production. To the DELIGHT of Fuzzy and Boomer (for sure Fuzzy) we see many of the different herds being shifted from here to there.
The cows will stay on this new section of land until the summer pastures open up—sometime the first of June. By opening up I mean all the snow is melted and the BLM has given word that the ground is stable enough to support hooves. 🙂
Not all the cattle head to BLM ground, some head to their owners very own summer ranches. Ranchers are very good caretakers of their spring and summer pastures. The cattle are usually moved to what is called the “Spring Pastures” first.
This is the first ground that dries enough to support hooves…these Spring Pastures are owned by the ranchers….remember the word is OWNED! The cows are trailed up the roads and then onto the new lush green food, where they will graze and their calves will grow stronger. As the early spring moves into early summer the cows will then be trailed up to the SUMMER place—where ever that maybe for the rancher.
Our head gate is on another farmer’s land…when we started the water, for the first time the first year, the heifer’s had not be moved to the corrals and then onto the spring pastures.
They always ran over to see what we were up too… if you could understand cow language you just know they were say’n: ‘What ya doing?’ Just like any curious little kid!
Off now to get some stuff done. The day is going by fast and here I sit chatting away to you!
Your friend,
Linda
Many of you have read about, or heard of the Bundy Ranch take over by the Feds…and some of you are even aware of the huge water issues that face our part of Colorado (I get emails from you letting me know that you are following the water cases evolving all over our part of the state), and some have asked me to explain or at least give you my opinion.
First off…I am NOT a water lawyer, nor am I an employee of the ditch company, nor do I have credentials that make me any sort of an expert on the ‘water issue’ in Colorado.
I do know that it is against the law to save any rain water, ever…no barrels under rain spouts, no water barrels with the rich, soft rainwater all capped and waiting for us to use in case of emergency. EVER!
Our water is destined to head into the Colorado river and flow right on down to California and the ocean. The Colorado is the mother of all rivers with its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains and flows to other states.
Right now water in our part of the state (the western part of Colorado has most of the water in the state of Colorado) is a private asset. Meaning that the water system that is in place ….PREDATES Colorado statehood. This system operates on the junior-senior water rights system. Whenever you filed on the water is where your water rights fall in the uses of rights. The oldest filing is first, then on down the line.
For us…the Uncompahgre Valley Water Company is the second oldest water right on the Gunnison River.
There are pressures building to abolish this system (private use) and making it a public asset under the Governance of the Governor of the state. (In a nutshell —as far as my meager brain understands— this means if Denver wants our water then the governor can take if from here and give it to them.)
Only somewhere around two percent of Colorado’s population are farmers, 98% or not farmers. Also, somewhere around 80% of the population is on the Front Range of Colorado. Our area, the Uncompahgre Valley has 80,000 acres of farmland….of which we are a part of that acreage. I really don’t know how much farm land there is on the eastern slope so I’m not going to give you any figures for that.
So, unless you have a crystal ball, I really don’t know what is going to happen here with the water. You know as much as I know right now. Every day we just rejoice with having the water to irrigate with, watching the rows fill up with the water and flow on down to the end of our field until it reaches the canal again, flowing onto the next farm and the next until it reaches the river. We will vote to keep our rights here and we will wake up every morning, head out to change the water, and we will plant and harvest and give thanks for that day!
Your friend on a Western Colorado Farm,
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 