It won’t be long now, maybe two weeks, maybe less. The hay is coming into its full glory. As soon as it starts to bloom it will be time to cut hay for the first time this season.
Terry loves ‘making hay’. The dry alfalfa kind (not the other kind, oh, wait, hum, okay. I’m getting off the subject).
So while we wait to harvest hay, we will still be watering the corn and the hay, and Terry will plant the pinto beans, and then it will be haying time!
Not long now!
On Saturday Linkin rode her bike over to Grammy and Grandpa’s. Deciding that she didn’t want to ride her bike, with her basket full of stuff animals way down the gravel/dirt lane, she parked the bike by the side of the road, (off the road next to our property fence) and ran down to see us.
By the time she was ready to go home, the bike, with the basket full of stuffed animals, was missing. Just gone! She looked every where, we went down and looked, and her Momma looked, no bike. A very heart-broken little girl went home that night.
The next day she asked her Daddy to make a sign and put it where her bike was; maybe someone would bring it back.
I hope someone will, we will just have to wait and see.
And the lilacs are blooming!
Plus everywhere I get to pick up plastic shopping bags! Even in the lilac bushes! The wind has been amazing this year, bringing with it dust, dirt, mud rain, and other people’s trash.
As long as there is snow in the mountains surrounding us we will have wind, but once the visible snow is gone it stops. We have had more wind than normal, so possibly there is more snow in ‘them thar hills’ than normal?
Today it is around 81*, lovely. No wind, just sun and blue, blue skies. Ahhhh.
(This is a grain drill)
Yesterday the new alfalfa field was planted,
(Alfalfa seed)
(With oats as a mother crop)
marked out and water started on it.
Talli came for supper
Then until 10 pm we worked on making more siphon tubes
This weekend looks even busier with the planting of the garden. Spring is my favorite seson, but I do get tired at the end of the days, what with the farm, animals, and my ‘paying’ job.
Still it is better than the dark, long, cold days of winter!
Blade is such a hardy little fellow. And so completely up for any challenge. He finished the soccer season
And is now trying to learn how to set tubes, he can do the gated pipe as long as we are there if something doesn’t work just right.
His little 7 year-old hand is just not quite large enough to cover the end, but after many tries he got the aluminum tube,
And then the really, really hard ‘white’ tube.
Blade’s tube set!
Fuzzy thinks he is lots of help, but I wonder.
And of course it always helps to have HELP in blowing out lots of candles.
The bulls are not allowed to run with the cows year round, for lots of reasons (according to what we have found out)-they lose interest, the cows don’t want them around (they are busy munching and growing babies), and the bulls get bored and start tearing up things.
So the bulls go to their own pen.
Interestingly enough bulls will not fight or get territorial if there are no cows around. They hang out with each other, smoke cigars, tell dirty stories, eat, drink lots of water, and in general just have really good guy times. It when those cute dames get in the picture that the whole male thing takes place.
Anyway, I had to tell you that story so I could tell you about my rooster, Roo. What a bird!!!! He is wearing the girls’ backs out and their poor little heads are in bad shape from his very sharp beak. I am in the process of making them aprons so their backs can heal. It is because of Roo busy activities; that every morning, just as the day is starting, Roo goes out into our yard, the chicken answer to the Bull’s pen. He spends his time hang’n at the fence making really pretty talk to girls trapped inside the chicken pen and dreaming about all those delightful girls…ahhhhhhhh.
About 5:00 in the evening I let out all the hens so they can have beauty baths, run and stretch their feet and wings, and eat yummy things in the yard and fields. Roo loves having the girls FREE AT LAST! Does his little court’n dance and ….well, we won’t go there.
When I’m outside working in the yard he comes to help me, he scratches at the dirt, talks about the bugs and worms he finds and in general makes himself a regular pest.
Now, this isn’t a comforting as it sounds, because ROO has attacked DH and last night our son. So I’m not sure of Roo’s days here, we have grandchildren who spend lots and lots of time with us and they come first!
Roo and I had a BIG discussion one day, early on, and he is a bit afraid of me. He wears his scars well, better him than me. I have a very, VERY healthy respect for him and keep a big stick by my side at all times. Still I am not sure of his future, I could come home one day and he may have finished his life here on earth. Until that time Roo will head to great outdoors, help Fuzzy guard the house, help me work in the yard, and sit on the fence dreaming.
A Mormon creaser is a type of marker. It not only marks out the furrow, it also flattens the rows (slightly packs the top of the rows) making a better environment for the little seeds.
This is an older photo; I wasn’t able to get one today, of DH backing the tractor out with the Mormon Creaser attached. It has a long flat bar with shovels attached.
Even though you are seeing the process for corn, the same steps exist for the bean ground. Alfalfa will be planted with oats as a mother crop and has slightly different planting steps. Not a lot of difference, but some. For instance, Mormon Creasing is not used on grain or alfalfa fields, but a broadcasting method.
One of the fun things about working in the fields is you get to see lots of wildlife or evidence of wildlife. Raccoons like to wash their food in the ditches, we have lots of ground birds that lay their eggs in the fields, and every once in awhile I get to see either a fox or a coyote.
This morning, while coming back from a head gate, a beautiful red fox ran alongside of the dog and I on the four-wheeler. OF COURSE I didn’t have the camera, because I am always afraid I will drop the darn thing in the water. But it was thrilling anyway! Thrilling for the dog, he whined and barked, probably gave the fox a huge fright, and thrilling for me just to be so up-close-and-personal to the fox!
And
And
(Tuesday was turn the bulls into steers day)
Finally we have moved to step nine-planting. We are ONLY planting corn, right now. We will plant alfalfa and wheat in two weeks and pinto beans in three-four weeks.
Terry wet plants, which means he waters the ground first, lets it dry some, then when the moisture is just right (it can’t be muddy) he plants. Other farmers in our area plant first and then ‘water the plants up’. You can see the moisture in the rows.
Terry planted on Saturday, by the next Saturday he will be able to Mormon crease it, then in 10 days from the date of planting the little corn seeds should be showing growth.
That will be the time to harrow off the tops of the furrow. If a person DOES NOT harrow off the tops the little plants have a hard, hard time pushing their way through the soil. When four leaves appear (which happens VERY FAST), he will mark out the rows again and we will start water on the field.
We started water in the earth ditches last night.
I just want to show you how we irrigate out of earth ditches. First you have to save the earth ditch (the pounding of the water will create a huge hole) with a protective dam.
Because the earth soaks up the water as it flows along, you have to turn more water down an earth ditch than you do a cement ditch or gated pipe.
In the ‘olden days’ people used mud dams, but today we have the wonder of orange plastic dams. YEAH! It’s hard enough to dig out ends (the end of the furrow) without the pain of building a mud dam.
To leave you with one of the spring pleasures, wild asparagus! Yummm, every evening we have asparagus in some form, raw in salads, roasted with lemon sauce, boiled, over toast with white sauce….
Life on a Colorado Farm 