It’s that seam between the long dark cold months and the warm beautiful green months.
You don’t know whether to wear a coat, jacket, or light sweater.
We will swing wildly between cold winter blasts of rough winds and the brightening of green springs of grass and plants.
STILL I AM HAPPY TO BE HERE!! MARCH HAS COME!!
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
Okay. I’ve put it off long enough. Summer can mean—Drought.
Drought is some pretty awful stuff. Everything wilts, and I do mean everything…except the coyotes. They never wilt.
EVER!
Drought is a humongous dry spell. Once it starts it never seems to leave.
Although, Mom says it can be broken.
Ya…I wonder.
What’s bad about drought it kills all the good stuff, which leaves space for all those pesky weeds to spring up and grow.
Weeds are the coyotes of the plant world.
Kochia weed can grow taller than DAD and Dad is 6’2” tall.
That is some weed!
Then when it dries down in the winter it
becomes a tumbling, giant, scare the heck out of you.
Well, that’s all for Summer. Next on the list is Fall. Or Autumn or finally COOLER WEATHER!
TLC Cai-Cai
It snowed last night
Just like the sundog predicted
Although, this kind of snow
Doesn’t last long
Quickly melting
To leave
Mud in its wake!
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
Yesterday March arrived. The sky cleared and filled with hollow clouds following quickly behind skudding black snow and rain clouds.
The morning sun (yesterday and today) shot the sky with colors worthy of a carnival…the air chilled but intoxicating.
We warmed up to great 45* (7.22222 celsius). The air still enough a candle’s flame would have burned high and steady.
We counted 35 visible calves, plus two cows in the process of having their calf. How many calves were hidden—we will not know until the Mom brings them out of hiding.
Last night the sickle moon glimmered in the star studded sky. The air holding the scent of past snow and ice, and the promise of green and growing things.
Spring (for me) has arrived!
From my world to your heart,
Linda
We have been working on the fire roads. This is a scary time of year for us.
As you can see there is lots of fuel, if a fire were to get away from someone burning off their fields.
Twice we had two different neighbors start fires below us and go off and leave them. The fires came just five feet from the barn and corrals at our rental. It was terrifying.
The photos here are of the one in 2012.
(the second fire…was in 2011 from a different neighbor)
Then on March 16, 2012 the ditch company burned up the other two sides of our place.
Since that time we have been very, very careful! to keep fire roads open and well maintained. For years and years we never even had fire roads, nor did we need fire roads. It just all started about 8 years ago when people decided to burn instead of work the ground up.
Terry, also, disks around all the corn fields and the alfalfa fields. Having those fields disked actually stopped the second fire from swooshing across to our house and barns. Fire makes it’s own wind and with the wind blowing it can travel very fast, even jumping from spot to spot.
We feel the roads are in now good shape; so today he will start disking around the ends of the fields.
Usually I drive the tractor with the loader, but sometimes Terry and I switch.
He’s MUCH better at the scary stuff and than I am!
Honestly!
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
It’s raining here…big sploshes of water. Then it turns into a fine mist, but still wet. Not satisfied with the mist the raindrops return.
Our snow is rapidly melting, becoming ragged and tattered. Mud is appearing, plus the food for the cows—no more nosing around in the snow to find fodder. It’s there, just waiting to be munched upon.
When I was bringing in the wood, for the woodstove yesterday a tiny break in the clouds offered up a patch of blue sky and enough sun to cast blue shadows on the lawn.
It was a Grandpa Bunny moment! Grandpa Bunny was my most favorite story in the Little Golden Books. (I have three copies,)
Grandpa Bunny teaches all the other bunnies how to decorate nature. Grandpa Bunny loves each and every season–one of my favorite parts is when Grandpa Bunny shows the little bunnies how to paint shadows on the snow.
Walking along with my load of wood I realized I saw a perfect Grandpa Bunny moment
As they say: “Priceless”.
Your Friend,
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 