Riley, our daughter Kimberly’s dog, got to come spend the day on the farm. It was so much fun for him; he followed the plow, ate dog bones, and hung out just doing stuff.
Riley has come to visit enough now that he knows his place in the farm pecking order-last after Fuzzy. And the cats are off limits! No chasing of the cows or the chickens.
Plus you don’t just run off down the road to the neighbors just because there isn’t a fence.
A beautiful spring day was Saturday, so warm and pretty Terry started plowing. The old hay field is turning into churned dark earth, ready for a new crop. Terry says he will probably plant corn here.
During the night we had rain and snow making it horrible for a newly plowed field. The freshly turned earth is now a sponge, which will have to ‘dry out’ before more work can be done.
She is really a sweet little calf. We can walk up and pet her. Her Momma (Tar Baby) doesn’t really mind.
For over 30 plus years all of Terry’s farming occurred AFTER his day job, or before he was required to report to his day job. The evening this photo was shot, Wednesday, March 12, 2008, will be one of his last times he will ever have to do farmwork before or after his day job. Terry will be retiring from Delta-Montrose Electric Association after 37 years on March 20, 2008. (Thirty-four of those years were spent as a line-foreman! ) Way to go, Hubby-boo!
Terry has begun the spring work on our fields.
The temperatures are at the high 20 mark during the night, with day temperatures hovering around 45-54 degrees.
With fertilizer costs steadily rising, Terry likes to pulverize the corn stalks and ‘disc’ them into the ground, thereby amending the soil. Not only does the stalks add nutrition to the earth, but the churning of the discs soften up the packed (by cows) soil.
Cows are put in the harvested corn fields to clean up stalks and leaves that are left. Since the corn stalks are left standing in the field after the corn is harvested, new mommas-to-be are put on our place to graze. The stalks remain intact, rooted in the soil surface, along comes the cow which eats the loose husks, and other material producing wonderful manure which helps fertilize the fields.
The cows wander everywhere, in the Chico and sagebrush, up the hills, and down in the cattails along bottom of the hills, and especially in the hay, bean and corn fields on top. Once the babies (calves) are born, the cow and calf are moved to another place down on the river. Although, the white and brown, and tan cows you can see in the photo are NOT ours, they and their momma’s and grandma’s have all been born on our place over the last 50 years.
When Terry (or anyone) disc’s the plant residue is mixed into the soil about 2-3″ of the depth of the disc.
Needless to say, you don’t want to disc if the ground is damp, or still wet from winter’s snow! 🙂
Yes, it is still a wee bit cold here. Still spring work has to begin.
This is what I mean by the 12” pipe allowing sand to build up. You can see the large pile of sand where one pipe was already cleaned.
Terry is changing out the entire 12” pipe system to 10” pipe. The water carries better leaving the mud and sand at the end of the pipe, not IN the pipe.
The ditch company has burned the ditch, ready for the water to come.
Life on a Colorado Farm 
