Moving Forward—Thursday, June 4, 2015

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Dayphoto

We’ve been making siphon tubes. Seems like this is something we must do every year. Although the pvc pipe is really sturdy, it does wear out…cracking or splitting, even just plain breaking off at the end.

We first heat up a PVC pipe, which has been cut to length, in our handy-dandy oven. It’s my job to turn the tubes until the heat softens them.

Once soften (they fall down in the oven all warm and pliable), Terry picks them up quickly and puts them in his hand made siphon tube form. I showed you this same photo last Friday…Boomer watching. He is never sure if he should just watch or if we have something for him to do. 🙂

Over and over again we heat, shape and stack. Then when cool and hard we take them out to the fields…new tubes YAY! No more packing tubes from one set to another—just pick up a tube, fill with water, set down and done!

We have 30 more to go. Since we are doing this for ourselves we work at it off and on; a little today maybe some more in a couple of days. The last set of 30 is sitting out there waiting for us. Once we get those done we will have all we need for the rest of the farming season.

The weather is still nice and hot with a rather strong wind in the afternoons, but the weather people are saying this is about to change. A cold front with heavy moisture is to hit the Four-Corners area this evening then head our way by the week end. That’s okay…a little cool down is good for the plants and for ME! 🙂

The cold front will be fast moving (unless it stalls) so we should be able to cut the alfalfa next Wednesday. That’s the plan anyway.

Have a good one everyone…I’m off to mow the lawn!

Your friend on a Western Colorado Farm,

Linda

A Weekend Update—Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Dayphoto

I have returned! What a glorious weekend…first day we celebrated Tallin’s 7th Birthday! Everyone came and showered her with very fun things to make and ‘stuff’ to do AND a Diary with a Lock and TWO KEYS! (Guess what she played with the most…the Lock and the two keys! 🙂

Today I was starting to clean up the house when I found the two keys places in a very safe spot, under a beautiful plastic heart. Aren’t children fun? I need to gather all things left behind and mail them to them. The keys will be most missed, I’m sure she is frantic. 🙂

The next day (Sunday) we went to a Mardi Gras Party at our daughter and son-in-law’s in Grand Junction. There was tons of food, some ingredients they had shipped in just for the occasion–several different types of gumbos, budan, beans and rice, cray fish…I can’t even remember all the different dishes they had.

Monday it was pack up and leave time, BUT before we said good-bye everyone went to the Shannon’s Salon (also in Grand Junction) for hair cuts, colors and whole new looks for the coming spring. I think the little family probably got back home to Craig, Colorado at 8 o’clock in the evening…a long day for them.

A cold front moved through yesterday, but we only received sprinkles and wind..Just enough wet to make the windows dirty!

Today I’m cleaning the house back up—you clean for the company then you clean after the company 🙂 –but everyone knows that.

Soon Terry and I will begin again on the winter farm projects–this time we will be hauling in dirt from one of the ‘settling ditches’ and building up our farm roads, dirt ditches and holes in the fields. Farming will start around the 10th of March, if the weather holds, so we must get the winter work finished.

I will be around soon to visit all of you!

Your Friend,

Linda

A Quick Stop —Sunday, June 15, 2014

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Dayphoto

The nice thing about summer is the fact people are traveling…and sometimes that means they are traveling ‘through’ where we live.

My brother, Dan (this is from last year)

And his pretty wife, Cloudy were also in the area, but could not stop by this time. They usually come over sometime in August so I’m thinking we will get to see them at that time.

Terry’s sister, Carolyn, and her husband, Wayne where traveling back from Arizona when they called and said—“We are coming through”,

Then the “Side Trips” blog folks posted about this really nice trip they were on and I realized THEY WERE GOING TO BE PASSING THROUGH!!!

I quickly emailed them and invited them to stop and have supper with us on their way back home. They took me up on the invitation!!! YIPPEE! It is great fun to meet people in person after years of reading and commenting on each other’s blogs!

We had hot dogs and hamburgers and all sorts of picnic food, ate outside and the wind blew us away. Even blew my salad right off my plate. Shish!

But everyone was was kind and gracious. ate the food, sat in the kitchen while I put stuff together, chatted together outside – passing the time quickly. Suddenly it was all over, everyone back on the road to home.

The wind…it hung around until today turning colder on Saturday; bringing in another cold front for our area. It’s actually cold enough we had to turn up the heat just to take the chill off the house. A strong cold front with heavy gusting wind is predicted until Wednesday when it will finally push itself out of here and we will start to warm back up.

I guess in the scheme of things, five days of gusty winds of 30 m.p.h, or more, is really just a quick stop. This time next week we will have the heat and warmth of late Spring.

Your friend on a farm in Delta, Colorado

Linda

Right on Time— March 18, 2014

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Dayphoto

We had a pretty amazing wind yesterday. Ripped the plastic off my chicken house pen, flung some of the lawn stuff here and there. The weather people said the wind would come up at noon and die down around nine in the evening. They were close…the wind came up about one o’clock and died sometime way after I went to be around ten.

Yesterday morning we had this

Yep!

There are always those who think they must burn….always.

That afternoon we had dust and smoke and wind, mixed with some clouds coming in from the west. You can still see some of the smoke drifting around in the hollow just below our mesa.

Sigh!

So far nothing on our farm burned and as far as I can tell no one around us lost anything. I did hear the firetrucks go out in the late afternoon. Thank Heaven for the Volunteer Firemen!

Poor old Fuzz-Dude about blew away. He also was a huge magnate for all the trash that was flying in the air.

It’s still blowing today. It also looks like storms are playing around in the mountains. Storms made up of rain.

Wind is so very important to help the plants bring the sap up from the roots that I work really hard with myself to not get too carried away with Not Liking the Wind. I even have been known to stand out in it and pretend I know what kite feels like. For today, we have a sap rising wind, a few very cold storms and a small cold front which leaves tonight sometime.

I hope you all have a good day….

Your Western Colorado Farm Friend,

Linda

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Dayphoto

While working outside Friday a huge Sun Dog lit up the western sky, foretelling of a cold front soon to be arriving in our area

The day was rather warm for a November day so we kept on

checking the fences and rebuilding where they had been torn down

That is Terry the tiny dot on the gray looking hill. He will check the fences between our neighbor to the south

Here he is again almost to the top.

While he is doing that the dogs and I headed down to the west of the place. The most damage will come from those two areas and the north.

Yep! Right on time! Saturday the cold front came in…rain, bitter wind, and snow in places. We only had a sprinkle of rain and the sharp wind, but it looks like the mountains collected lots of white stuff. Come next spring we will be able to water our crops with melted snow! 🙂

Today the clouds are lifting and a small chill breeze is pushing them away clearing the sky.

It looks like a promising day!

Your friend on the western side of Colorado,

Linda

Monday, March 25, 2013

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Dayphoto

The cold front is still here, but gradually moving on. By this coming weekend we should have somewhat warmer weather.

Yesterday morning we were 2 above Zero, this morning we were 5 above Zero…just a little bit warmer, but I’ll take it.

The day will warm up better than yesterday, we should see warmth around 47* this afternoon. Gradually, gradually, we are heading back toward spring.

Just as Terry and I were going to head off to upper end our son-in-law showed up with half-a-load of firewood for us. What a cool gift!

The hope is this will last until May…which by that time (WE THINK) it will be warm enough spring is really here!

I can remember my Mother saying that anytime we have an early Easter (an Easter in March) the weather is always bad. That you can’t have winter end until Easter comes. Even if she isn’t right, so far this year is seems to be so.