What We Have Been Doing, (all in caps :) ), Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Posted on April 14, 2021 by Dayphoto

We have two fields of alfalfa being irrigated now…one is almost done (tonight) the other one tomorrow night.

Terry has finished leveling one cornfield, and marked it out, then packed the rows

After which, we started water on it last night. This will take several days to have this field wet, but we have begun. After the whole field is wet then it will set for a spell to dry out some. Then we plant.

Of course, there are other fields of corn to go through the

leveling, marking, irrigation, plant process

And another hayfield. But we are making progress.

Besides helping Terry set tubes, I have been working in my yard. Two days worth of work and three more to go

And I can say—Spring has arrived in my yard!

Your friend on a western Colorado farm,

Linda

The Adventures of Boomer on Friday—News of Our Work

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Dayphoto

We are finishing up lots of things now…Lots of stuff.

I love this time of year! There is Always something to do…sorta like spring. Only opposite. In the spring we are ‘putt’n stuff in the ground’ and in the fall we are taking stuff OFF the ground. 🙂

So far we’ve had really pretty nice weather…blue skies and slight breezes. Keeps the heat and the bugs off a dog. And er, my people also.

We are still irrigating…that’s the best part for me.

I sniff out the news in the corn tunnels,

check for interesting things in the alfalfa field….I saw where a snake shed its skin. Looked like a pretty big snake to me!

The raccoons keep coming in my yard at night. I chase them off…there is NO room for a raccoon in our yard…they can have the whole farm, but NOT my yard!

I like to run as fast as I can in the fields…I don’t know a dog out there that doesn’t like to run and feel his ears flapping on his head…makes a dog feel free!

My sister, Shannon, has a new member to her family…Scout, the pinto horse. He is really a neat horse…although, I AM a tad afraid of him…I’ve never been around a horse IN MY LIFE! Now Willow, one of Shannon’s cats, LOVES Scout…they do all sorts of things together…I like to hover way over there (somewhere Not close) and just watch…Scout seems so BIG!

We have a cool spider in the yard…it makes a NET for a web. I haven’t seen the spider yet, but I keep looking.

The bean harvest is done. We are still ‘chasing water’, as Fuzzy used to say,

Fuzzy lives over the rainbow bridge now, Mom and I still miss him loads.

I have the bestest life in the whole wide world! Running Free, riding on the four-wheeler with Mom, gathering news, gosh, just so many great things to do every day!

Boomer

Ella had it Right—Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Posted on July 22, 2015 by Dayphoto

Blue Skies, nothing but, blue skies…(Ella Fitzgerald)

The rains have gone, soon to be replaced with triple digit heat.

I’m painting on the this side of the house today.

Yesterday and the day before was up here! One thing about it, I could see for miles. Although, I tried NOT to look down.

In the evening Terry, Boomer and I weed the pinto bean field. It’s not toooo huge, only 20 acres. We work at it morning and evening. Once the beans shoot the feelers and the rows grow shut we won’t be able to weed anymore. Weeding is terribly important…if you get too much trash in the pinto beans the elevator docks you for the cleaning of the beans.

We take a break; sipping iced tea outside, in the cool of the shade. Resting a spell and listening the bees hum as they gather pollen.

Your friend on a western Colorado farm,

Linda

A Space to Fill Forever—Monday, July 20, 2015

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Dayphoto

On Sunday the work slows down to just the things which must be done

We changed the water in the pinto bean field (that is our house and barns in the distance)

And changed the water in the smallest corn field. (Grand Mesa is in the background) Flowing

That is all.

I walked through my yard, watering the pots and deadheading some of the flowers.

It was like walking through a cloud of perfume, in some places. The low hum of the bees filled the air along with the chirps of the birds.

The peace was strong enough to fill forever.

I am blessed beyond measure.

Your friend,

Linda

The Adventures of Boomer on Friday— A Routine Day on the Farm

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Dayphoto

Mom hollered at me saying: “It’s your turn to write, Boomer. Today is Friday.” Then she walked upstairs to turn on the computer. As soon as I heard her voice I had already scrambled up from my dead sleep ready for action.

I wagged my tail and bounced up the stairs beating her by three steps! I might be 10 ½, but I’m still fast!

Tee Hee

I waited with Mom while the computer turned on and warmed up. Then I had to sit down for a spell, because Mom wanted to check out the news and a few things.

“Be thinking about what you want to say, Boom. I’ll look at the a few blogs, then when you are ready the computer is yours.”

I sat there watching her move the mouse around, click a few things…stop and stare at the screen…I guess I’ll just lay down here and put my head on my paws; looks like she is going to take forever!

Geez, my eye lids are getting heav…y…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

“Okay, Boomer, your turn,” mom announced as she got up from the computer chair.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmph! Znort! HUH!? Oh, My turn.

Let’s see-what was I dreaming thinking about? Oh Yes! What we did yesterday. Yesterday was a typical day. A day just like any other day. I like days like that they are FUN!

Mom and I took the finished siphon tubes out to the dirt ditch at the pinto bean field.

We irrigated the corn and the pinto bean field. We are watering the BIG corn field now…it takes a week to get across to get all the rows wet…I explored while my folks worked. Sadly I found out that one of the porcupines died over on the sagebrush hill. It’s always sad when something like that happens. Mom and Dad had a wee flood from the large cornfield into the little corn field…they were scrambling pretty fast to get the water back into the big corn field’s cement ditch. I thought it was pretty neat since several mice had to scamper very quickly away from the water. I didn’t chase them, but I did give some of them a couple of good sniffs.

Then Mom loaded me up…I don’t jump up any more, ever since I tore my knee Mom lifts me up and takes me down. My knee is better but she doesn’t want “another hurt knee”.

Then we moseyed on down past the alfalfa field … Dad says he will cut hay next Wednesday; it’s starting to bloom. To the pinto bean field. Mom told me to stay that this wasn’t going to take long.

It didn’t…22 set siphon tubes later and we were back on the 4-wheeler heading home. HUH!? Not home!

We were going to the Rocky Hill…Dad’s favorite spot on the farm. Then we rode through the pasture between the Rocky Hill and the Coyote Hill…it’s a good thing I was on the 4-wheeler the grass was over our heads!

We saw three doe deer…Mom told me today she and I are going out to put corn on the ground so the deer won’t eat the new baby corn plants. COOL!

After that we headed home. See. Not much happening. But it sure is fun.

Boomer, the Beagle

The Deep Hush—-Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Posted on June 3, 2015 by Dayphoto

The upper corn field is a pasture away from the headgate. As Terry and I work (last night I shoveled ends and Terry dug the little depressions to hold the siphon tubes and then started the tubes, the night before he shoveled and I dug and started tubes) we can hear the roar and the crashing of the water in the FN Lateral Canal, as it moves over the little dam and into our headgate, then the turbulent flinging of the water back into the canal heading on toward the Gunnison River, then into the Colorado River.

It’s our own mini-Niagara Falls.

We usually work in companionable silence; the rumbling of the water making casual conversation hard to hear.

After checking the headgate for trash we drive through the Upper End pasture, around the Fox den area and take the ditch bank road separating the largest corn field from the Alfalfa field to set water in the soon-to-be-planted Pinto Bean field. (Whew! That was a long sentence!)

By this time the sun has set and twilight fills the land. I was walking back from the dirt ditch, (counting rows of set water as I went—too many open and the water dries up, not enough open and the cement ditch over-flows—when the full moon started rising.

I am not a ‘good taker’ of moon photos…usually I have the wrong camera with me at the time . Still I thought…why not. The full moon in June is called the Strawberry Moon.

Once away from the roar of the headgate the land is growing silent. Although, night is never truly silent, the sounds take on a deep hush, shhhhhhhhhhhhh, bidding our hearts to be still, step lightly, those who live in the daytime are preparing for sleep.

Here and there the night sounds start, the hoot of a owl, or a cry of a far away fox, the night birds starting to awake, the earth’s breath slowing down to a gentle heartbeat.

It’s easy to stand with Terry, our arms linked, or me resting against his chest his arm around me-both holding a shovel. 🙂

Silently we survey the rushing of the irrigation water down it’s own little furrow. Boomer at our feet, waiting for the word to load up.

The earth calms, our hearts match the beat of the earth’s– peace descends.

Your friend on a western Colorado farm,

Linda

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer—The Waiting Begins

Posted on September 26, 2014 by Dayphoto

Yep, THE waiting begins!

Waiting, not for Fuzzy and I but for MOM and DAD. They have to wait you see, not Fuzzy and I. We do lots of waiting as it is:

We wait on the four-wheelers LOTS!

What Dad and Mom are waiting for is the corn to dry down and the moisture content to get JUST RIGHT so the Corn Harvest can begin!!!

The last set of the water happened.

The head-gate is now turned off. Unless everything gets really bone dry before the canal is turned off there won’t be another set of water on the farm until next spring.

Fall is in the air…the Rabbit Brush is rich and full and lush— the bees are working the flowers heavily!

The Upper End and the Back Forty just screams AUTUMN!

Fuzzy and I like this time of year. It’s not so hot it’s hard to breathe and there is lots of stuff to sniff and smell. The animals are moving around now getting ready for winter. We like to smell what they are up too.

Just last night a Momma deer ran across the ditch bank road right in front of Dad and Mom and Fuzzy and I! It was so COOL I had to bay at the deer.

Mom jumped… “Boomer…not in my ear! You scared me!” She said and then she laughed and so did I.

Fuzzy thought it was a funny also!

Back home we saw Sammy Sam absorbing the heat from the big shed doors.

“Oh, you are back”, he said then turned his head away and closed his eyes.

Oh well, Boomer. Sammy is just not interested in riding four-wheelers.

Works for me Fuzz!

Hey Fuzz?

Yeah?

What’s with cats? They sure seem to sleep a lot.

I don’t know, Boomer. That’s just a cat for you!

Well…THANKFULLY we are NOT CATS, Fuzzy! The world is waiting and you and I are ready to see it!

Chuckle, smile! It’s good to be a dog, isn’t it Boomer?

It sure is, Fuzzy! It sure is!

Boomer

There is Always One — January 30, 2014

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Dayphoto

I don’t care if you are working with cats, dogs, rabbits, sheep, pigs, goats, horses or cows…there is ALWAYS ONE! That has to live outside the box…

Yesterday Mr. Davis and his daughter were helping our neighbor move his cows from Mr. Love’s place to two miles down to My-Way Cattle Company’s corn field.

You can’t tell it here, but one of the cows jumped into our field giving Mr. Davis and his daughter a merry chase up and down the fence line. Terry went down to help and to see if our electric fence was still working (it was). Seems the errant cow had also taken them on a merry chase just below our place…running happily through the swamp on Gennis’s land. Once they got her back into the quickly moving herd she marched along very nicely, until she got our cornfield…HOP she was back over the fence galloping into the middle, standing there snorting frozen breath while they got the fence open and got into the field with her.

Then across the field she went, down to the end of the fence line by Misty’s house, back up the fence —by this time Mr. Davis, his daughter, two dogs, and Terry were all starting to squeeze her into the canal whereby the up gate could be opened.

NO! Not this girl, no sireee! DOWN THE CANAL she ran, ducked UNDER the bridge, kept on galloping to the end, and pushed herself under the fence to the other side coming out on our lane. Two more dogs arrived from Mr. Love’s end of the herd, I was on the lane…she turned so fast dust and sparks flew off her hooves. Within seconds she was hidden well in the middle of the herd heading north, right where she was supposed to be.

There is always one!

It’s acting like snow here, if we will get some I don’t know. But all around us the mountains are socked in giving me hope for fuller reservoirs this summer!!

Your farm friend,

Linda

January 21, 2013

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Dayphoto

I tried to get the Sand hill Cranes in flight but no such luck.

Anyway, for those of you who enjoy these delightful creatures I give you the following:

A crane just landing….I hope you can see it

They are here all the time. I took this series of photos around 5 O’clock in the afternoon

There are hundreds here in this one field. The corn is field corn, not sweet corn. Sometimes a group of birds leaves, but another soon lands…always a large, large number feeding at anyone time.

They also spend the night here, I guess they feel safe with the calves present.

Last night I heard coyotes from three directions ….

Linda

We Live in the Middle of a Corn Field

Posted on July 24, 2012 by Dayphoto

This year, (because we do rotational planting —-meaning all crops are rotated from one field to the next keeping disease and bug problems down as much as possible) the corn all happened to be planted around the house and the buildings.

The heat inside of a corn field is hot and humid, corn just loves a hot day, add in the water to keep the corn growing and you have a huge humidifier!

Breezes don’t make it inside this box of heat and moisture unless we have a wind…I relish wind now…

On the flip side I love smelling the corn, so rich and full and alive. Sounds carry from far away so it seems the train (6 miles away) is right down the field. The dogs can’t figure out if they should bark or not. They mostly don’t unless someone is right at the yard, so the nighttime dog phone has rather stopped.

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And we get an up close and personal daily report on how the corn is doing, just be looking out the window or working in the yard.

Harvest for sweet corn is on….you should be seeing Olathe Sweet Sweet Corn or Mountain Sweet Sweet Corn in your market soon. If you do just know that the corn was grown somewhere near our farm!

(No we don’t grow sweet corn, we grow corn that used for feed or to be made into corn meal. Our season of growing lasts much longer than sweet corn.)

Linda