Mom and Dad finished stacking all the firewood this week. We have firewood in Mom’s pile by the old basketball hoop, by the machine shed for Dad’s stove, and out by the hay stacks—just in case.

The cats and I always know that the wood pile means MICE!!! It also means Stewart and Stanley have a cool place to hide from me!  (That part I don’t like so much.)

Then Dad took out the hay swather for the very last time this year.

(Dad keeps saying this is the last year he is farming-if he can find someone else to farm this place he is re-tir-ing from farming.  He says if he can’t find someone he is just going to let it sit idle.—-Hummm I wonder if he really is going to retire from farming!?)

Then Dad and Mom and I…I go EVERYWHERE with Mom! Everywhere!

Went out to take care of the ends on the hay…Dad raked and Mom and I gathered the scattered ends.

After that we ate supper—and changed the water.

Mom always gives me the talk when we get to the water—“No rolling in anything dead, smelly or stinky, Boomer! Don’t run off.  You can sniff around, but you come right back when you hear the four-wheelers start”.  Then she gives me a kiss on the nose and we are off!  Mom and Dad down the ditch bank and me INTO the corn field!

It’s cooler now, much cooler, out on the ditch banks.  Also the grasshoppers are BIG and thick and nasty…they like to jump on us as we walk through the weeds, makes my hide twitch.  I can hear Mom say things like: “Ew get off me you big ugly thing”!  When I turn around I can see a grasshopper stuck on her shirt, or pants, even once in her hair.   Dad always laughs about it.  Mom not so much.

We are only watering the corn now.  The pinto beans are close to being pulled so Dad doesn’t want the ground muddy.

There will be one more irrigation, after the hay is hauled and stacked, then this irrigation season is DONE!

Fall has arrived!

Boomer