A storm blew in yesterday…bringing snow to the mountains
and rain to the fields
The setting sun echoed color throughout the clouds
The rain filled the sky—
Then charged over the land slowing down harvest!
We will begin again when everything is dry enough.
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
We have begun! The last of our crops are now being harvested. Sometime in the next two weeks, with fingers crossed and the creek doesn’t rise,
Our fields of corn will be at the elevator
Then it will be time to put the whole farm to bed and work on fences until the cows come in.
But all that is down the road a spell…for right now we will enjoy
Getting the corn off the shucks and into the truck!
And down to the Elevator. This is an old photo from January 2016….the year the corn would NOT dry down until January. It shows you where we go to deliver our harvest.
Anyway…we are up and running now!
And THAT is a very good thing!
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
My Thirteenth 12th Birthday
Chapter Two
Off I went…sniffing here and there I headed into the cornfield inhaling as many odors as I possibly can.
Then I started into the new hayfield when I heard !!!!! WHAT!!!!
A yipping sound!
Then a barking sound!
Then Suddenly Out of the weeds came a little white dog!
“MY! Heavens! Who are you?” I asked.
Yip, Yip, bark, bark….twirling and swirling around me in a blur. Finally, I put out a paw and tripped him!
Bam!
“Okay, settle down and tell who you are and what is going on.” I held my paw on his back.
“Chris! Chris is my name. Oh, Boy, am I glad to see you, it’s been terrible out here. Horrible! Just awful! I ‘ve been walking and walking for hours and hours and I am hungry and I am tired and I am scared and I need my family.” Pant, pant, the little dog breathlessly told me.
“Alright! If I remove my paw, you can sit up and be still. I will help you, but first, you MUST slow down and talk slow and walk slow and just slow DOWN.”
“Oh! Good! You will help me! Remove your paw and I will just sit here.”
I removed my paw very slowly. VERY slowly! I wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to sit still.
But he did.
“Say, you are a Jack Russell, aren’t you?” I marveled. “Not many Jack Russells out here in the country.”
“Yes, I am.” He beamed. “My name is Chris and I lost my people. We all went down to the giant canyon, I was riding in the back of the pick-up when I saw a rabbit bounce off the side of the road into the Rabbitbrush so I jumped out and gave CHASE! When I looked up again I was in somewhere land and mom and the pickup were GONE! Just gone!” Chris wailed.
“Okay…then what did you do?” I questioned him.
“I started walking. I headed in the direction I thought my home was and I started walking, and running, and hopping, and sniffing, and chasing a squirrel or a rabbit or two until I made it here.”
Humm….I remember those days for me also. That is how I got Mom and Dad and Fuzzy…being lost and then found.
“Well, you are found now” I gave him a high-five with my right front paw, “Let’s go home to Mom she will know just what to do to find your people.”
“Okay!” Chris barked so off we went.
“I was lost like you once, Chris. Only I was dumped out told to scram.”
“WOW! Really! WOW! How Horrible” Chris looked at me with huge eyes.
“It was, but I found Fuzzy and the rest is history. Which reminds me, how in the world did you make it through Coyote world? Those creatures are vicious and scary and would have chomped you down in two gulps for a snack if they saw you?”
“I hid. It was hard! I had to crawl into the weeds in the field you found me in an inch my way slowly, slowly into a place where I thought they couldn’t find me. They were soooo close it was scary.” Chris started shaking and shivering.
“Well, you did okay…come on let’s run, Mom will be delighted to have you and she will know just what to do to find your people!”
With that, we took off running to my house!
Yesterday was my annual visit to the vet!
And my birthday is NOT 13, that Mom thought it was it’s my 12th birthday!!!
MOM WAS WRONG!!!! I am much younger a whole YEAR younger!!!
YAY!
Boomer
The rains left last night and today
The sky is swimming with leaves upon the very cool breeze
The earth’s beating heart is slowing down, heading into the deep sleep called winter
Every day the sound of the beating heart of the earth is growing softer and softer
As the time of deep sleep nears.
From my world to your heart,
Linda
A storm has blown in streaming moisture and clouds across the heavens
It’s supposed to be a one day visit. Leaving our area this afternoon sometime on a stiff brisk wind.
Corn harvest waits a tad bit longer.
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
We still have not started the corn harvest. Although, Terry is checking the dryness of the corn weekly now. The last moisture count was 15.3%. It must be 15 or below to begin.
So we wait.
The days are sharply cooling down…the ground is more leaf-littered each and every day
Last Friday we had the bliss and excitement of a thick marvelous fog
Of which, I had to go walking in.
After all, it’s rare (in our part of the world) to be able to actually walk in a cloud sitting down on the eath. 🙂
It was breathtaking.
The steady flow of water in the canal is turned off today. It will take a week before it is gone at our farm—for you see the water travels all the way from the Blue Mesa Reservoir, Gunnison, Colorado, to the Gunnison River at Delta, Colorado…irrigating farms all along the way.
There is a definite snap in the air, causing us to enjoy the evenings with the heat of the wood stove.
Autumn is moving rapidly toward winter now.
BUT—-
O! The excitement —-while out on the farm a flock of bluebirds flew by Boomer and me on their way through (they don’t seem to nest here on our farm) to who knows where–
I capture two of them on camera! I was elated! Jubliant and Overjoyed to get their photos, even if it was just the back of them as they flew by.
From your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
Rocky turned 11 last week…only he celebrated his birthday in STYLE
Birthday cake and little kids to read to him.
Boomer
My Thirteenth Birthday
Chapter One
This month I am 13…really Mom and Dad don’t know my birth month and I can’t remember…too little you see. But it was in October I was rescued here on the farm…all skinny and worried and sad…caught in a live trap to see what was causing havoc out by the cornfield.
That is where I learned to LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! Canned cat food.
In the live trap, all scared and terribly hungry!
Mom fell in the love with me the first time she saw me. Fuzzy fell in love with me and shared his dog house, food, and dog bed with me until the October he went over the rainbow bridge.
So—-because Mom doesn’t know my real Birth day, the day she found me is my Birthday!
Mom found me on the 10th day of October. The Vet said I was around 5 years old (just like Fuzzy was when Mom found him) that makes me THIRTEEN!
To celebrate my thirteenth years of being alive I decided it was time to take a wee walk about on the farm (who knows if I will be able to next year) and give myself a birthday party with all the friends I meet.
I have some really cool friends. Friends that do NOT want to meet Mom or Dad and more than likely really won’t be invited to come into the yard….just say’n.
So here it is…October—almost November and I think it’s time I have a bit of an adventure.
I chose my time carefully…waiting for Mom and 
Dad to be very busy splitting wood — not watching me in any shape or form—and took off On A GREAT ADVENTURE CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY!
Although I love summer best, my heart leaps into my breast with flares of joy for spring and then once more for the bright lovely days of Autumn
Autumn to me is more than a dying time, or a song sorrow, or a lament to the Old Gods
Its a time of remembering—as the leaves fall down on the weary ground and the plants close up for another year
The sky seems to [also] brighten into strong colors even more so than the brilliant summer skies
The air is not full of the smell of green growing things and thirsty soil like it is in Spring
Nor is it full of the spices and floral scents of summer
But it is full of the smell of leaves turning yellow and falling, drifting toward the earth where we mere mortals tread.
From my world to your heart,
Linda
