dew in the morning | Life on a Colorado Farm

We had great fun with Linkin. A day with just one of the grandchildren…their day..is always nice. She is still here and will go with me later on this morning to ‘pet the kitties’ at the shelter while I walk the dogs. A child has to be fourteen to walk dogs, but the shelter manager lets Linki pet all the kitties and play with them in the big walk-in cage. This works out for everyone, me, Linkin (who adores cats), the dogs and the kitties.

It’s nicely warm here 88* yesterday with some clouds drifting by and a little breeze or so.

Terry has decided today he will cut the alfalfa…the long-range forecast is for hot, drying weather for a least a week. Good! At the end of the week, the alfalfa will be dry as toast and morph into hay. Then we pray for dew in the morning so he can go out and bale the hay. After he gets it baled he will haul it in and the dogs and I will work on the hauling in of the ends of the fields.

My favorite little bugs are very active right now…I just adore these fat, furry buzzy bees!

She was very intent on her work so didn’t mind that I was shooting away with my camera.

She also posed several times, I just sure she loved having a photo shot going on while she was so very busy!

Linda

The monsoon season is also known as the rainy season, coming about due to a shift in wind directions that bring excessive rainfall. Right up from the Gulf of Mexico to us.

July is our monsoon season, some years it misses us all together, but we’ve been lucky. The other side of the Continental Divide in our state (Colorado) is very, very dry.

On the other hand all the moisture is causing havock with the second cutting of hay. If the alfalfa is cut then rained on you can pretty much weep tears. Rained on hay loses much of it’s food value.

Once cut it takes around 6-7 days of hot drying weather, less if you can get hot drying weather with a little wind. Then the good weather has to hold with enough moisture (dew) in the morning to bale. Baling with dew is good for it keep the little leaves attached to the stem of the plant. The little leaves are where the food value is…a dry old stem is pretty much like eating straw.