There is just so much to see! The Dust twirling in the desert
Little songbirds making nests in security cameras 🙂
Being out on the shimmering ditch banks —yes I do enjoy irrigating
The sky….oh, yes I already told you that :)…
The world is full of color
I think that is what I love the most…COLOR!
Color everywhere (and warmth) and sun and well, just everything!
From my world to your heart,
Linda
For those who are interested, and have asked to know more; to understand our irrigation system
This is a wee blog post about the dams…see those straight lines in the cement ditch. Those are wedge-shaped dams…blocking up the murmuring water so the siphon tubes can be dipped into the water and quickly flung over the side (going downhill) to start sucking out the water and into the fields.
Terry does a complicated sort-of insert on some of the dams (see the one closest to us) half tipped up straight, one side down crooked. This allows the water to fill up and spill over so the next set of tubes has enough water to siphon.
As you can see we haven’t set the tubes closest to us yet. We are waiting for the water to fill back up to the ‘wet’ line. Then we will set the tubes
Here is the very last dam…we are allowing the aggressive water to flow over in a mini-waterfall
so the next field can have enough water we can set tubes in it. You can see the dam way, way down there. It will stop the water and start it to back up and start filling up the cement ditch
Once it gets full enough (and before it spills over the side) we will set the siphon tubes. The cornfields require two tubes per furrow, skipping a furrow,
while in the alfalfa we set one tube in each and every furrow
Each furrow must have the top dug out by hand so the tube can set in the perfect little slot and the water rushing and tumbling down the furrows STAYS IN the FURROW it’s supposed to be in.
Here you see the result—goals accomplished—in one of the corn fields. Water making it all the way to end and subbing across so everything is nice and wet. Once this ground dries out to the proper moisture…Terry will plant corn.
There you have it… a tiny wee blog post about dams (and water, and furrows, and siphon tubes); the heartbeat of farming in the high mountain desert of western Colorado :)!
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
We have had rain!!!
Beautiful cool misty rain…although not long, nor in sheets of showers
But still, it is rain! Other places around us got more rain than we. But I will take whatever we get and feel a relief at that!
Even the little hummingbirds calmly rested on the flowers as the thunder rolled over-head
In the stillness after the storm(s) rolled through the little birds fed in the bright pearled mist
The earth not so wet we slipped as we walked along the ditch banks.
Still, the moisture in the air, the lack of smoke because of the rain was all bliss!
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
Yesterday Romeo decided to come to “Grammy and Grandpa’s” for a visit. He left his home and trotted his little (BIG) self all the way over to beg for carrots, horse treats and a sugar mint. (I know we spoil him. 🙂 Mainly for just this reason. If he gets out of his pen, or he decides to leave his yard, or for whatever reason, he WILL head to us.
His mom wasn’t far behind this time. She had stopped to shut a gate—it was one of those wire gates that must either be laid down or leaned up along the other fence. While Shannon was busy….Romeo came for some horse treats.
Terry mentioned that the cows didn’t clean up some of the ditch banks very well; with a little fencing effort Romeo could come up here and eat to his heart’s content.
So now it is a fact…Romeo has come for an extended visit—a perfect feast for him and slicked up ditch banks for us!
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
Mom had to go help Dad over at the other place. She went on the tractor so I didn’t get to go! 😦
Mom and Dad won’t let me run alongside either, they say I’m too old (I’m eleven now) and it would be way too long of a run so I get—“No, Boomer! NO! You stay here”! Then Mom gives me a hug and a very stern look and off she goes.
BUT! I always meet Mom when she comes home! ALWAYS! I meet Dad, also, but I don’t run down the road as far. 🙂
The fox are coming into the yard. One had Sammy cornered. Mom heard the racket and came running out of the house just in time to see the fox and Sammy in a standoff at the grain ben. I chased the fox all the way to the upper end. Whew! Boy was I ever hot and tired when I got back. Mom gave me a big bowl of cold water and a dog cookie. I gobbled up the water and the cookie and took a Loooong nap. I sure needed it. (I might be old(er), but I can still do my job!)
Last night we scared Momma Deer and her Princess out of the corn field when we went up to change the water. (Dad was a little disgusted, but at the same time we ALL liked seeing the little baby!) Mom told me that today we will just take up more of the shelled corn and put it closer to where the deer are bedding down.
Everyone had a big laugh when I chased a mouse out of one of the siphon tubes. It ran toward me and I sorta jumped. BUT!!! No one jumped as much as Mom did when she put a siphon tube into the water and a vole rushed out of the end of the tube and over her hand!
Mom didn’t scream but she sure did lose the siphon tube in the ditch and run backwards for a short spell!!! 🙂
Early this morning we were just stirring around when the fox came back INTO THE yard and ran right by the kitchen window. Monkey started growling low in her voice, Sam jumped up on the window sill, Mom and I hurried out the back door and Mom said “Get!” to the fox. Which it did.
I didn’t chase the fox this time, he/she was going so fast there was no reason to give chase.
Well, there is my week. Doesn’t seem like much, but it sure is fun!
Boomer
I love the outdoors! Even as a child I spend hours and hours by myself playing in Surface Creek, which ran behind our my parents home. I enjoyed the freedom of riding my bike between our and my grandparent’s house. Walking through the cherry orchard, or the apple orchard looking for bird nests, or just laying in the irrigation ditches looking up at the sky, watching the clouds come and go.
Today we would say: “Becoming one with nature.” Back then I was just ‘being’.
I still love the outdoors. The energy and the feel of earth, the sky, the elements — still give me that same peace I felt as a child.
Walking home from the other house last night I thought the sun and the storm clouds and the feel of the earth of marvelous! This is our house looking from the other house.
I tried to capture, for you what I was seeing and feeling.
Beauty was everywhere.
Your friend on a Western Colorado Farm,
Linda
Dad had a meeting to go to last night so it was just Mom, Fuzzy, and myself…oh yes, and Hank. Hank came along since he was spending some time with us while his folks went on vacation.
It was an amazing evening.
Lots of clouds had come in with lightning storms (complete with thunder) running around on the Uncompahgre Plateau and in the canyons next to us. Mom said she really enjoyed being out there with all the majesty of the heavens.
Fuzzy said he didn’t like the thunder so he stayed really close to Mom the WHOLE time.
I only searched for news a little bit….well, because Hank was with us
and I didn’t really want him to get to do something
that I didn’t get to do so I hung around pretty close.
The beans are setting pods, and vining out, and in general looking really good. Mom says we are half way through summer now when the beans vine out.
We had to drive through the grass (well, Hank and I ran through the grass) and it was WAAAAAAAAAAAy over my head and Hank’s head and even MOM’s head! Mom said we really need cows, but that isn’t going to happen.
On we went, moving from the head gate to one field then to the other field.
We saw some cool tracks on the ditch bank….is it a big cat?!?!?!
Or a bear!?!?!?
Mom said she didn’t want to meet it out here in the dark of the night whatever it is.
Mom also said she hoped it was just passing on through and wouldn’t be back.
We sometimes see tracks like this, but so far….we never seen who makes them.
The sunset was rather cool….there was a break in the clouds causing a red wave of light to spread all over the farm, even the corn turned red.
AND SO DID I!
Have a great week everyone!
Boomer
I thank everyone who left me comments on the blog and I apologize for not responding to each comment. It isn’t because I didn’t want to. Last week I slipped on the very wet, muddy ditch bank and dislocated a rib on my breast bone. I am getting better every day, but still have to use caution with my left arm. The worst part is the pain whenever I take a breath, but that too is starting to ease.
The rains have finally left…
Leaving us will lots of sunshine and warm days with cool nights. True fall is upon us.
If everything goes as planned we hope to be able to start the pinto bean harvest soon.
Linda
Lots of animals walk along the ditch bank….
….coyotes, dogs, birds of all sorts, 
our cats,
and (sometime feral cats), sometimes the cows get out
and raccoons.
Life on a Colorado Farm 