farmers | Life on a Colorado Farm

Way back here I promised to show you the photos and tell you a little bit about the Diversion Dam.

The Diversion Dam is where our irrigation water starts (and out potable water for our homes) out of the Gunnison River flowing through the Gunnison Tunnel. This is the dam and the little house is sitting over all the ‘workings’ that move the water from the Gunnison to farms along the Uncompahgre Valley (Un-come-pah-gray…accent on the pah). We live in the lower part of the Uncompahgre Valley…the irrigation water starts flowing through farms in Montrose, then Olathe and finally Delta. The water is used many, many, many times before it flows back into the Gunnison River on it’s way to California, Nevada, and Arizona. Water in our neck of the high desert is not wasted. Water in Colorado protected by law…we can not even catch rain water as all water must be allowed to flow back into the land. This link will show you other people’s photos of the dam and the tunnel.

Anyway, our water starts at Taylor Reservoir flows into Blue Mesa Reservoir and then starts it’s way down the Gunnison to Delta, through the Black Canyon.

Gunnsion-River

Only a portion of the river is diverted at the Gunnison dam. The above photo shows you the water flowing onward after the dam.

The Uncompahgre Valley Water Users manage the water with senior water rights on the river. This house is where the people live who take care of the Dam and the tunnel on this end of things.

The Uncompahgre Valley Water Users and Delta Montrose Electric Association combined forces to start a hydro project on the canal…

You are looking at the gate that takes the water to the hydro.

Water…always a fascinating subject for me… Since I grew up at the foot of Grand Mesa (my father and grandfather had big orchards) water was always a topic of discussion. After getting married to a farmer we continued the water discussion …the one of — is there enough to farm with this year? Always a concern.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy your short trip. It’s always a treat to take people to see where the ‘water’ comes from, water for drinking and for irrigation in our tiny spot of the world.

You Western Colorado Friend,

Linda

The module of tightly packed cotton (cotton is dry like the clothes you love to wear).

Is then delivered to the cotton gin.

Here the module is ran through several cleaning machines–machines that take out the any bits of sticks, burrs and the seeds.

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, of whitch the fiber is almost pure celulose. The cotton fiber protects the sticky seed until it is time for it to ‘leave the plant’ and make a plant of it’s own.

The cotton plant is a shrub, and in the tropical deep south or other tropical areas of the world it is a perennial, therefore producing bolls all along. That is why in tropical areas the cotton is picked by a picking machine. The picking machine picks only the bolls that are ripe and broken open.

In subtropical regions…west Texas, the shrub is not treated as a perennial, but stripped taking all of the plant parts. It freezes in west Texas so the plant will die anyway.

The fiber is most often spun into yarn or a thread and then used to make soft, breathable fabric.

Once inside the gin machines pull and clean the cotton, plus seperating it from the cotton seeds.

The balls go through another process that stretches the balls and bales them together.

They then go to the packaging station

Where the 550 pound bales are wrapped ready for delivery to a factory

I hope you have enjoyed this tiny little window into a small part of the farming world of west Texas.

I have found that farmers and ranchers everywhere love the land. They take great care to take very good care of the land and the plants and the animals that live upon the land. One reason is this is how they make a living, but the other reason (and probably the most important reason) is it’s in their blood. In their dna, in the fiber of their beings.

Roy (he farms over 3,000 acres), Terry -farms in western Colorado, and Vadarae who owns several farms and invited us to “Come on down the Harvest is on!”

I have a few more delightful posts from the west Texas area that I will do soon. But Friday with Fuzzy and Boomer will be tomorrow!

Linda