Salida and the Zip Line

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Dayphoto

We got to Salida to go on our pre-arranged trip on the Captain Zipline tours, but while we were eating it started to rain! RAIN! We have not seen rain in our part of Colorado for months and months and not even a wet snow last winter.

So having this really neat rain was well WONDERFUL! The zip-line tour had to be canceled until the next morning at 9:30, but who cared! Salida got about 60 minutes of really nice rain. They told us this was the first good rain they have had in a very long time.

The next morning we were at the loading dock paid and ready to go…it’s a fifteen minute drive to the mountains and canyons where the zip-lines were located.

I thought I would NOT be able to do this…..attach myself to wire and fling myself off a canyon wall to zip over the wire to the next side of the canyon….but I did it!!!!

What a hoot!

We rode all seven (counting the bunny training line)!

The group we were with was lots of fun and our guides were very good. The whole thing was hugely fun.

I recommend it for everyone…and if you can’t stand heights…well, just keep your eyes shut!

I did for the first two…the last five were incredible!

When we got back into Salida it rained again…for 15 minutes. How delicious it felt!

We called Misty and asked if home got any rain.

No, no rain.

Not even a dark cloud.

While we were in Salida, a fire started close to home. That is the Pine Ridge fire at Debeque, Colorado. (Lightening caused)

Debeque is between Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs, Colorado, if you want to check it out on the map.

Many of you have asked how close that is to us…it’s about an hour and 15 minutes away…around 60 miles. Grand Junction is experiencing lots of smoke from the fire, but we are up the way…. East from Grand Junction, so we only see the smoke as it bellows over the mountains and canyons west of us.

Tomorrow I will tell you about Cottonwood Springs.

Happy Monday Everyone!

Linda

Sunday Stills—Roads (No Archives)

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Dayphoto

We took off Wednesday and headed over to Salida and Buena Vista, Colorado. We were in-between the next set of work on the farm. The only thing having to be done was the irrigation, which Misty did for us — 6 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, 10 at night. Bladen helped.

A little vacation was what we needed!

Three days and two nights.

We only had one spot of road construction going over Serro Summit toward Salida. We only saw one wreck (which was great –and it looked like no one was hurt). Traffic was light.

Everywhere is dry, dry, dry.

Coming back we headed on out of Buena Vista, Colorado, over Cottowood Pass toward the headwaters of our irrigation system…..Taylor Lake.

Wouldn’t you know it?! There was my Sunday Stills Photo Op—-

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A twenty minute wait while they blasted through rock while widening the road.

Everything was extremely dry.

While we were there we experienced two rain storms. One lasted an hour and the other 15 minutes. We were delighted!

Also, while we were there we met many people from Colorado Springs who had been evacuated from the Waldo Canyon Fire and others who had come over from Fort Collins to get away from the smoke.

Also, while we were there we found out that the Pine Ridge Fire had started in our neck of the woods. The smoke is terrible in the Debeque Canyon and in Grand Junction. We can see the huge dark plums rising over the mountains.

So Sad! So very sad.

Hopefully the rains will start soon. Those two showers we experienced were just plain delightful!

Anyway, for great photos of roads head on over here and check out the comment section, click on everyone’s name and see some great roads from here, there, and around the world!

We are always wanting others to join us so please do! You will be welcome. Just leave Ed a comment on next week assigment and a link to your website so every one can find you! Then link your site to the Sunday Stills site!

Have a great Sunday everyone!

The New Little One’s Have Arrived

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Dayphoto

I think there are three in there, but Momma and Daddy were so stressed out by me and my big old camera they were hollering all sorts of warnings.

Nothing popping out of the two hummer nest YET!

Linda

The Heat is On!

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Dayphoto

It’s horribly hot here (I’ve been saying that for some time)…..

Here is the temps at 11:00 this morning

It gets worse during the day. By 3:00 in the afternoon you and everything else has turned into crispy chips.

Of course the wind blows…that stuff can blow all night, or start around 8 in the morning or wait until after it has lunch to get really fortified… I can’t take photos of the wind so you will just have to take my word for it….the wind is here, and it is hot, and it can get to really blowing.

Still I’ve gotten lots of places in the yard cleaned up and painted. Terry and I have hauled most of the old iron to scrap man,

(we have a couple of old cars to go next), and we have started collecting wood for winter.

That seems so insane with all of this heat right now, but it is necessary.

We are still changing water, constantly, Terry checks every two hours, if the row is through he moves it, by the end of 8 hours if the all the rows are through…they get changed anyway. If the water stays at 50% we will make it, it gets any lower, we don’t know what will happen.

Lots of people are struggling…some farmers have had to disc up crops because the water is so short…others are trying to save what they can for as long as they can…it’s a mess.

The first crop to go is alfalfa….prices are already high…this winter they will be worse. The next crop is onions….they take TONS of water…and their season is long…5 acres fields have been cut in half, as for 10 acre fields….lots of corn hasn’t been planted…the ground is just too dry, the air too hot, and the water too short so those guys are going for pinto beans…lots of pintos should flood the market and drop the price for them.

As of last night 10 fires are in Colorado….not around us, but around Durango, and the mountains around Denver/Fort Collins/ and Colorado Springs. Utah is also having fires. Montana is burning also…go to my delightful blog friends’ blog to see…. then there is Nevada —burning….fires everywhere.

We have lots of haze, I can’t imagine what it is like where the fires are.

These look like rain clouds…they never stay…they ride the wind blowing over fast, with others taking their place.

Makes for dramatic sunsets, that is for sure.

Linda

Busy We Are

Posted on June 25, 2012 by Dayphoto

I don’t know what it is about a farm that can collect lots of junk on it.

Well, maybe I should say I don’t know about Terry and I — we seem to collect ‘stuff’.

All the time.

You just never know when you might need a part off of something, or maybe we will get around to fixing this item up so we keep it, or the kids bring us something that we really don’t want and don’t know what to do with so we keep it.

But now…44 years of collecting…has to end!

We’ve been cleaning.

Everything!

Everywhere!

And getting rid of stuff.

I call the kids….you want….okay we are getting rid of it. Oh, you want it…then we will bring it to your house–you get to keep it.

On and on we go…gradually everything is starting to improve, which is good.

I’m very tired of all the ‘stuff’/junk/trash around here.

I’m just about done painting all the fences and the outbuildings also.

Next week I will start on the outside of the house.

I don’t understand this need to fix and clean stuff up…but I’m going to follow the urge for as long as it takes me.

I really like this feeling of CLEAN!

Linda

Sunday Stills—The Color Brown

Posted on June 24, 2012 by Dayphoto

I’m going to assume the color RUST can count as the color Brown…at the Antique Farm Show this old back hoe was on display…our 10 year old grandson found the whole thing “REALLY COOL”.

Then there was “#4” the next size up from the smallest this manufacturer made. There were 5 in the series.

This one was huge…the informational sign says it traveled at 2.4 miles an hour.

For more Sunday Stills, the Color Brown head on over here…. click on the name and it will zip you right on over to the participants blog!

Have Fun! Enjoy the color Brown!

Linda

June 19, 2012

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Dayphoto

About 3:00 yesterday afternoon the ditch rider came by and locked our head gate down more holes…we are now at 50% of the 100% of water we pay for every year. We will still pay the 100%; there just isn’t water in the mountains. Snow pack was only 4 feet last winter and is gone now, accept for a few tiny drifts here and there.

And it isn’t even July!

What is July going to bring? An even worse thought…what is August going to bring!?

We are back to changing the water every 8 hours. 6 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, and 10 at night. At least we got caught up and the ground is starting to hold the water. Less water and less rows we can set.

To give you an idea…say at 100% you can set 35 rows, at 70% you can set 23 rows so now we are looking at 15-18 rows. This is just an approximate, a general idea. Each field is different and sometimes each row is different.

IF this heat continues and the hot, heavy wind (we had 40 m.p.h. gusts yesterday) ….. let us not go there. Worse thought yet, is what if there isn’t any snow in the mountains this winter…!!!?

Okay, okay.

July could/can be a wet month–typically that is our monsoon month, with moist air moving up from the Gulf of Mexico…this would be good! RAIN!

The middle of July starts to see the Winter Wheat being harvested and the sweet corn crops going into to market. (The sweet corn harvest starts in July and ends the second week in September.) As these fields are harvested the farmer does NOT continue with water on the field. This reduces the strain on the canal. So if these two things come together…rain and crops being harvested the rest of the crops in our area—onion, shelling corn, hay,and pinto beans all the farmers in the area should make it.

We will just have to wait and see.

The hummers are back!

This year instead of one soft tiny nest in the tractor shed we have TWO! I tried to climb up on the tractor to see if I could peer into the nest, but it was just too far up there for me.

At least I can see the nests, maybe if I keep checking I will see the baby hummers!

Sorry about the worry/rant…sometimes I think farming very stressful.

Linda

Weeds the Bad and the Good

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Dayphoto

We have weeds, just like each and everyone of you have weeds.

We have all sorts of thistle, from the bull thistle to the Nodding Thistle,

we have common weeds and we have weeds that some sort of use –like Scour Weed (this weed was used by the pioneer’s to scour out their pots)

But I think my favorite weed is the Milkweed (not the poisonous kind).

The Milkweed of Monarch Butterfly food.

There are others the Monarch Butterfly likes for food — Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and Butterflyweed (Asclepias Tuberosa) —but the tall and stately Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).

The Monarch butterfly female lays her eggs on the underside of a milkweed leaf, and the larvae feast on the leaves. Milkweed is the ONLY food these caterpillars eat, though adult butterflies will sip nectar from many other flowers.

The University of Kansas and director of Monarch Watch (http://www.monarchwatch.org) have stated that acres and acres of milkweed has disappeared from the fields, side roads and byways across our mighty land.

And just because we had that huge and nasty fire, and the ugly invasive Russian Knapp Weed and the Canada Thistle have squatted down in great comfort, along has come these beautiful weeds, food of the Monarch Butterfly.

A monarch is that heroic butterfly that flies as far as 2,000 miles from thier northernmost range in the eastern provinces of Canada, down through the Undited state clean to the Transvolvanic Range in central Mexico, where they cluster by the millions in the oyamel fir forests.

(Wouldn’t it be a huge delight to see this…all those millions of orange and black butterflies in the forest? It is something I would delight in seeing!)

So even though we are having a huge heatwave/drought, along with parts of Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico and other places in the west/southwest/south–when the Monarchs start their trip in late summer and early fall…our milkweeds will be here. And the little Monarch that I hope are living on them can take up the same flight feeling full and nourished for the long, long trip!

Linda

Sunday Stills—Clouds

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Dayphoto

We just have teasers of the potential of rain.

But it does make for a great cloud photo or two!

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I wonder if anyone remembers how to do a rain dance?

For more Sunday Stills go here and click on the comment section!

If you would like to join us, please do!! We are always looking for more people to take part. And if you have cool ideas to photograph, let Ed know about your ideas, then he can issue the challenge to all of us!

Happy Photographing!

Linda

Moving Pipe

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Dayphoto

We had to replace two broken sticks of pipe (5 feet long) in one of the fields.

That is the bad thing about the plastic pipe, the sunlight finally gets to them and they start to crack.

They never break at a ‘good time’, nothing ever works that way does it?

So Terry turned the water out and then we pulled apart the sticks, ran them over to the broken pipe pile, ran over to the stash of good pipe and put them back together last evening. (We waited until it cooled down some since this was rather hot work in and of itself).

A little quail was singing to us at the broken pipe pile—he was up in a tree, which I thought was rather cool.

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Around 8:30 p.m. we got everything back together and the water back on.

This morning everything is working good!

Happy Wednesday! We are in the middle of the week!

Linda