Once Upon a Time …

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Dayphoto

… in a corn far, far away. A farmer was trying to get all of his corn picked. Every day he greased up his combine, poured fuel into the combine, and drove it way, way out into the corn field.

Up and down the rows went the farmer, filling his big red-orange truck with golden seeds of corn.

Gradually, as the harvest kept on the farmer grew very tired — fill the hoper of the combine, then dump into the truck, when the truck was full he then would drive it to the elevator and wait his turn to dump his truck so he could start over.

The day came (when after sitting at the elevator since 6 o’clock in the morning–until 9:30 a.m. when he was able to finally dump and get back home) he became overly tired.

But wait…..

What is this?!?!?

A little fairy princess appeared at his side, with a touch of her magic wand the corn flew into the hoper and the big truck filled up as if by magic.

But the fairy dust didn’t stop there…when the farmer took the big truck to the elevator he was able to be back in the field in an hour.

Who says there isn’t magic in the world anymore?

This farmer knows different.

Linda

Wordless Wednesday

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Dayphoto

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Linda

In the Land of Wind

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Dayphoto

We were looking at one of the several really cool musuems in Texas when we came upon this display.

Although, we were in Texas the artifact came out of Colorado…the tip of eastern Colorado.

Completely out wire (that is a very fake and very dusty crow)

This is the other nest!

Really very amazing birds!

Windmills…everywhere!

Linda

Confluence Park and Lake

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Dayphoto

Confluence Park and Lake

Our little town has a place

called Confluence Lake and Park

Here is where our Fourth of July Fireworks are shot, families play and swim, and those who love to walk can hike.

The lake is home to all sorts of water fowl

The Heron kept flying away so I couldn’t get a photo of them.

A spot of peace in our little rural town.

Linda

The Cotton Gin

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Dayphoto

The module of tightly packed cotton (cotton is dry like the clothes you love to wear).

Is then delivered to the cotton gin.

Here the module is ran through several cleaning machines–machines that take out the any bits of sticks, burrs and the seeds.

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, of whitch the fiber is almost pure celulose. The cotton fiber protects the sticky seed until it is time for it to ‘leave the plant’ and make a plant of it’s own.

The cotton plant is a shrub, and in the tropical deep south or other tropical areas of the world it is a perennial, therefore producing bolls all along. That is why in tropical areas the cotton is picked by a picking machine. The picking machine picks only the bolls that are ripe and broken open.

In subtropical regions…west Texas, the shrub is not treated as a perennial, but stripped taking all of the plant parts. It freezes in west Texas so the plant will die anyway.

The fiber is most often spun into yarn or a thread and then used to make soft, breathable fabric.

Once inside the gin machines pull and clean the cotton, plus seperating it from the cotton seeds.

The balls go through another process that stretches the balls and bales them together.

They then go to the packaging station

Where the 550 pound bales are wrapped ready for delivery to a factory

I hope you have enjoyed this tiny little window into a small part of the farming world of west Texas.

I have found that farmers and ranchers everywhere love the land. They take great care to take very good care of the land and the plants and the animals that live upon the land. One reason is this is how they make a living, but the other reason (and probably the most important reason) is it’s in their blood. In their dna, in the fiber of their beings.

Roy (he farms over 3,000 acres), Terry -farms in western Colorado, and Vadarae who owns several farms and invited us to “Come on down the Harvest is on!”

I have a few more delightful posts from the west Texas area that I will do soon. But Friday with Fuzzy and Boomer will be tomorrow!

Linda

West Texas Cotton Harvest

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Dayphoto

As I understand it….. ( have so many photos I’m having a hard time picking out just a few 🙂 )

Cotton is not PICKED in this part of Texas—it is stripped. Which means the whole plant is picked all at once with a stripping machine. The machine works just like most combines, picking off the bolls (and the leaves and any other part of the plant) selecting the cotton and spitting out the trash…leaves, sticks and the dried boll.

The deep south the cotton picking machine only picks the ready bolls and then they come back and pick the bolls that are ripe again, doing this until all the bolls have bloomed and picked.

When the hopper gets full a cotton buggy comes and picks up the load.

This is the cotton buggy. It is not full at the time of the this photo. It will be too the top when full.

Then the cotton buggy takes the load back to the module maker.

Here the buggy is dumping into the module maker.

The module maker smashes the cotton balls into a tight fitting well pack module.

When the module maker is good and tight– a tarp is put over the top of the module to keep the cotton from blowing away and seal it off from rain. Here Terry is helping Roy, the farmer, and his helper get the tarp ready for this module.

Here is another module being covered. The module maker is pulled away and the tarp is pulled on. Pretty slick, if you ask me.

Finished! They are tying it on at this point.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about the cotton gin.

Our corn is ready for harvest. Moisture content is 14.3% so we start tomorrow.

Today we have to put in a new hot water heater as ours went out last night. 😦 Sigh.

Linda

Away and Back Again

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Dayphoto

We took a short break (four days) and headed to the plains of west Texas for the Cotton Harvest.

Terry and I have always wanted to see a cotton harvest so a really wonderful blog friend, emailed and said: “COME ON DOWN! We have started harvest!”

Since she owns huge farms, of which she sharecrops out, she talked to her renter to see if we could come watch the harvest. He also said “Come on Down!”

So we did!

We started out in a huge snow storm.

The following is a series of photos as we crossed the Million Dollar Highway into Durango.

This is part of the Million Dollar….

Here is a snow tunnel in a huge avalance area. Several people have lost thier lives at this place. The snow tunnel works like magic.

This is Silverton. There are three passes from our house to Durango, Colorado….Million Dollar, Molas and Coalbank.

The views are amazing and the roads were a mess.

But from Durango on into New Mexico we had good weather and dry highways.

This is New Mexico.

The wind started blowing in the afternoon of the day before we left the plains of west Texas, so going home we drove all the way through Oklahoma into Colorado in a huge dust storm.

Then back at the mountains we drove home again in another storm.

But we are back now.

The corn is starting to be harvested around us so Terry is on his way to have the corn tested to see if we can start.

I’ll blog about the harvest tomorrow.

Linda

—Sunday Stills Challenge—In the Dark

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Dayphoto

The Sunday Stills Challenge is In the Dark….I was going to do this for Halloween, but I realized this would work well here.

Linda

The West Side Story–Wordless Wednesday

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Dayphoto

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Linda

November 1, 2011

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Dayphoto

When out checking the corn …it’s still too wet, running around 22 and it needs to get to 14

We found the coyote den, well actually the grandkids found it first, but Terry and I had to go check it out

They’ve left the area, but we are sure they will return. Of course having them so close to the equipment is not good….

We saw a lone little butterfly fueling up for it’s flight going south

Back in the yard a very busy bumble bee was working over the last of the flowers. (I so enjoy bumble bees!)

The chickens were busy eating all the nasty grasshoppers, which tickled me.

The weather has cooled some here, but I’m still determined to enjoy every last ray of autumn light that I can. November 6th the time changes, which I dread!

Linda