good weather | Life on a Colorado Farm

We took a short break (four days) and headed to the plains of west Texas for the Cotton Harvest.

Terry and I have always wanted to see a cotton harvest so a really wonderful blog friend, emailed and said: “COME ON DOWN! We have started harvest!”

Since she owns huge farms, of which she sharecrops out, she talked to her renter to see if we could come watch the harvest. He also said “Come on Down!”

So we did!

We started out in a huge snow storm.

The following is a series of photos as we crossed the Million Dollar Highway into Durango.

This is part of the Million Dollar….

Here is a snow tunnel in a huge avalance area. Several people have lost thier lives at this place. The snow tunnel works like magic.

This is Silverton. There are three passes from our house to Durango, Colorado….Million Dollar, Molas and Coalbank.

The views are amazing and the roads were a mess.

But from Durango on into New Mexico we had good weather and dry highways.

This is New Mexico.

The wind started blowing in the afternoon of the day before we left the plains of west Texas, so going home we drove all the way through Oklahoma into Colorado in a huge dust storm.

Then back at the mountains we drove home again in another storm.

But we are back now.

The corn is starting to be harvested around us so Terry is on his way to have the corn tested to see if we can start.

I’ll blog about the harvest tomorrow.

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.