The Start of the Pinto Bean Harvest, Thursday, September, 17, 2015

Posted on September 17, 2015 by Dayphoto

Right after breakfast and the next set of irrigation water on the alfalfa field, Terry, Boomer, and I header over to hook-up the bean puller and bar.

This is the bean puller

And hook up the bar on the back of the 730. You understand that Terry does most the work. Boomer is off somewhere checking out the news and I’m pretty much there to give him a tool, or the handyman jack, or move something out the way. 🙂

That’s the blade…the puller pulls the beans out the ground and the blade cuts off any stems the puller misses.

The pinto beans are ready. The plant is dry, with only the weeds staying green and growing.

Up and down, careful, careful…you don’t want to run over the plants and loose your crop.

Slowly, ever so slowly,

The beans are put into rows. Once the day warms up, Terry stops— warmer air will dry the dew off the pods causing the pods to split and spill the beans.

Tomorrow (if all goes well) he will put on a different blade and go out and lift all the rows UP so they are fluffy and can have air circulate among the plants.

Then we wait. Terry says (if the warm weather holds and NO rain), in about a week the green weeds should be dry and he can start combining.

Harvest! A huge process with nice results.

Your friend on a Western Colorado farm,

Linda

Summer’s Gifts—Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Dayphoto

It is cold here this morning. 49*…a light jacket was in order to change the irrigation water.

As a gift to me I was sent several photos of those beautiful little flying jewels of summer. Kagedog lives in Cedaredge, Colorado and is a regular visitor to our little blog. She knows how much I enjoy the Hummingbirds so sent to me some very nice photos. She also gave me permission to share them with you. 🙂

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

We still have lots of Hummingbirds here. I don’t know if they are the regulars or if they are moving through. This morning they were fluffed way up as they drank from the feeders. Although, it is cool in the mornings the days still warm up nicely, as much as 89*.

I hope your Tuesday is a good one. It’s time to put the bean puller on and finish work on the combine. We are still waiting for the alfalfa to turn into hay. Hope the rains stay away for a least two or more weeks!

Your friend on a western Colorado Farm,

Linda

Harvesting Pinto Beans

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Dayphoto

Of course you have to hook everything up to the tractor. Terry likes to use the 730 to pull the beans

That thing on the front is the bean puller…here’s a better photo of it

Then the bean blade

The puller lifts the beans up and the blade cuts them off

Moving down the field everything is pushed together into rows

The rows are allowed to dry for week (unless it rains, then a mess occurs)

All pulling of the beans occurs in the morning, while the dew is still on the plants. If you look you can see how dry the bean pods look. They are very dry. A little dew holds the pods together so they don’t shatter and spill the beans into the ground. If a pod shatters and the beans spill, that is then end. There is not a way to pick up the beans from the dirt.

After a week. It’s time to start combining. Combining is ALWAYS after lunch. You don’t want the plants to be wet and clump in the combine and cause a wad mess. You also don’t want wet beans going into the combine and molding. If you deliver wet beans to the beanery (where they sort, sack, and sell the beans) they will refuse your load.

For a farmer that is money and time lost.

Dry beans for the combine only!

We are not big farmers and our equipment is not new, but it is paid for and Terry knows how to fix it if something goes wrong. He also has a small combine herd of combines that he uses for parts since our stuff is really dated.

Here the combine is picking up two rows of a time and shelling them and putting the beans in the hopper

The weeds and the bean straw is flung out the back

Leaving just the straw behind.

Once the day turns to evening and the cool comes on, the farmer must stop. Lots of time the lights run until the operator just gets too tired and calls it a day.

The hopper of the combine is dumped into the bin of the grain truck

When the truck is full, but no over flowing it will be driven to the beanery about 5 miles from our home. The trash you see in the beans (weed leaves that made through the trasher into the beans) will be screened out. Then the beans are sacked ready for market.

But first….we got to get them there!

After we get done with the pintos our next crop to harvest will be the corn. But that won’t be until the end of September.

Linda