Somewhere there is a huge fire…
We only saw this for one evening, but it sure made us stop and ponder.
Please be careful, everyone…all it takes is a tiny spark to create a HUGE problem!
Linda
Tuesday June 12, 2012
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Tag Archives: nature
The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Dear Diary
Dear Diary—
I finally have a few minutes to write a few notes to myself! Boomer and I have been extremely busy this week.
The water is finally starting to work right. It took a while. The ground was so hard and dry and the air so full of hot wind and dirt, oh, yes, and the amount of irrigation water so slim, we had to go change water ALL the time.
But everything is coming together now.
Dad goes out and checks the water often, but we only have to CHANGE the water twice a day, which is normal.
That is because the ground FINALLY got wet. That’s how Dad and Mom talk when they talk about the water…they say: something, something, something now that the ground is Finally wet.
Dad wastes nothing with the water. He sets up a series of dams so nothing is wasted.
The water at the end of the field goes off our farm and back into the canal so then next farm below us gets our water, it goes on like this clear to the Gunnison River.
Pretty cool!
Sometimes Hank goes with us; he likes to check the tubes for mice.
Boomer is off smelling the news somewhere….he reports back what he finds when we all get home.
Me!?
Well, I help the folks out.
I stay right with Mom and make sure the water is the right height in the ditch, (I really like catching the water bubbles, but I don’t tell anyone, they would probably not let me get in the ditch if they knew)
I just jump right in and show them I’m good at irrigating.
Dad has cut baled and hauled hay. The first customers came last night.
That is always cool…..we like to bark the customers into the yard, and then we like to lead them to the haystack with our barking signals—
Bark, bark, bark…THIS WAY—
COME ON– We will show you!
Bark, Bark, Bark!!!
Boomer and I do a really good job of getting them to the hay yard.
By the time we get the truck and the trailer there and all backed up and lined up, Dad is ready to load.
We are a gooood TEAM!
Sometimes Hank and his family walk over in the evening.
Boomer is terrified of the goats!
Terrified!
Did I tell you he is terrified!
Boy is he ever!
Hank and I laugh at him.
Boomer doesn’t care…every time he gets around them one of them tries to butt him so he gets real nervous and barks at them.
Hummmmm
Maybe I would be afraid also if they would try to butt me.
But they don’t.
I get that look on my face and I crouch down and slink close to the ground and they stop.
They look at me and I give a warning growl.
They walk off and I go my own way.
Bullies never like courage!
I tell Boomer to do that, but he says he just can’t.
One day going to town, we saw a devil – a dirt devil.
I thought it was pretty cool.
Boomer said he had never seen one!
Well, Diary. There you have it. Just another day on the farm!
Like I say…changing water is always the best part!
Fuzzy
P.S. Oh, yes! My fur is starting to come back in. I really like having fur.
P.P. S.S. Mom says I have to go to the groomer again NEXT WEEK (SHUDDER) But she said I won’t get shaved.
{{{SHUDDER}}}
Sundial Garden and the Pinto Beans are Up
Far Side of Fifty (Far Side for short) has a delightful fun blog, complete with a blogging wonder Border Collie, Chance.
Far Side also is the Museum Coordinator for her Hubbard County, in Minnesota, collects old photos from antique shops, scans them and puts them on another blog she has which is used to help people connect with their families (and photos). Her third blog is a photo blog…Far Side takes some very good/outstanding photos from around her area. Her fourth blog (this is one VERY busy lady) is for the Museum.
I feel very lucky to just do two blogs!
Anyway….
Far Side has been asking to see the complete Sun dial garden. She asked me to stand in the water trough and take all sides….since the water trough is planted with Red Hot Pokers, alyssum, and three different colors of petunias…I decided not too. 🙂
The Pinto Beans are up…summer is on its way!
Thanks for stopping by! I always enjoy visiting with you!
Linda
Monday, June 4, 2012
Terry is out baling…6:30 in the morning and just enough dew (YEA) to set the baler up and give it a good go before the heat starts rising.
We are thinking we will be able to get another cutting this year, but if the water shrinks anymore that will be the last cutting.
At least we will get two cuttings and we are darn grateful for those.
Anyhow, what I’m really writing about is the Barn Swallows.
I don’t have a photo of the birds themselves, because they are very careful to fly off the second I appear.
See this little pair of Barn Swallows decided to build a nest on the house, upstairs, next to the north side window. They must be a young pair as they MADE A MESS!!!
I had mud all over the screen, bird droppings on the screen and the window…huge mess. I got so mad at them (they only had the two bottom rows done on their nest) that I yelled out the window for them to go someplace else…the other side of the house, THE BARN, the tractor shed, BUT NOT ON THE WINDOW!!
Then I scraped off their little nest and told them to LEAVE!
Later on that morning, I was visiting the Northview Dairy blog, whereby Threecollie was talking about a nesting Robin on her house.
By this time I was feeling really bad I had knocked down the little mud house and yelled at the cute little pair of birds, there she was telling us about her darling Robin family, that was nesting on HER house.
(Which reminds me…I encourage you to visit Northview Diary….Threecollie and her family live in up-state New York. I’m always amazed at the differences in weather from here to there. They get way too much rain and we don’t get enough. But her blog is a delight– full of fun, excellent writing, and a true peak into dairy farming —- I encourage you to visit.)
So I went back upstairs, poked my head out the window and hollered to all the birds flying around, sitting on the Blue Spruce trees and on the electric lines that I was sorry.
I then asked the little Barn Swallows to come back, just don’t build where the screen and the windows get dirty. Build where we can ENJOY them and their little famil(ies).
Two days came and went, nothing.
Three and four days came and went-no nest.
I finally gave up and decided that they really did go to the barn or one of the other buildings.
As I was washing that particular window I happened to look UP and there it was
A perfect little home, NOT on the frame of the window, or above the frame of the window, but where we could watch several little families of Barn Swallows grow up this summer.
It seems that Barn Swallows raise about three families before they leave for the winter. So this should be fun for Terry and I and the grandchildren.
Well, time is quickly getting away from me.
Have a nice Monday!
Linda
Only Two Left, Only 2 !!!!!
There are some things on the farm a person just can’t do without, a shovel for one. I always seem to be in need of shovel….the scoop shovel is a good example. It’s very good for grain and then a separate one for cleaning out the chicken house and the barn (no mixing of shovels for food items, now, ya hear!
Then there is the shovel for the irrigation water, each field has at least two shovels in it….one for Terry and one for me. We like different types of shovels, the shovel that fits best on your shoulder and has a nice weight in your hand is what you look for.
Then I have a shovel for the yard…this one has a large shovel so I can dig up clumps of stuff in one or two digs, not a whole bunch of little ones.
I also have a little red shovel that I use for my water trough flower beds.
And I have two rakes….a leaf rake and a regular rake. I only need the two. They are for yard work and that is all.
There are other implements that are more than necessary but used only for that particular thing…like planters for planting and the lawn mower.
But the thing I use the most for all sorts of things is….
BALING TWINE!!!!
And I only have two left! (WAIL)
Baling twine is what I used to put the top on the chicken run with, baling twine holds my vines to the trellis, baling twine has been know to ‘tie the gate shut’ until one of us could get to town and get the proper latch.
Or to close the garage door until the opener can be fixed ….. that was three years ago and we still have that on the ‘to do’ list.
Baling twine is the farmer’s (at least us) answer to what others use duct tape for.
And I ONLY have two left!
How this all came about was last year when Terry decided to sell the cows, he decided that he would sell ALL the hay, since we wouldn’t need any to feed over the winter. We kept enough for the chickens and Misty’s goats, but that was it.
Gradually the bales were used and I stored the very precious, to me, twine so I would have some when I needed it.
I’m so glad I did.
Terry should cut the alfalfa sometime the first of June (depending on the weather), he will bale up the hay and haul it into the yard. He sell the hay….BUT I’m requesting several bales to hold me through the year. And on those several bales will be two strings of baling twine!
Linda
(P.S. No! I can not go out and cut off any length I might want out of the baler….I can’t EVEN think of that….{{{ shudder}}}!)
My Yard in May
Weeds and all!
Linda
Along Came a Spider
The HUGE black and yellow garden spider (Argiope Aurantia), who lived in the corner of my upstairs eve, passed on. She was a wonderful spider (although very scary to look upon). She at moths, aphids, flies and grasshoppers, mosquitoes, sometimes bees and I saw several wasps. (Do NOT try to touch this spider….they will bite!)
As a little side note: male and female black and yellow garden spiders spin their own webs and hunt on their own during the day for most of their lives. Once mature, the males leave his web to hunt for a mate –I never met him, but I’m sure he must have been just wonderful. My spider was a beauty and she had very selective tastes.
Anyway, of course the poor fellow passed on, the job was just way too much for him.
I never named my spider, but she created a huge, large, GIANT web with heavy zigzagging, called ‘stabiliments’ down the center.
Our winter was just too cold for her (I am told in the milder areas of the United States my spider’s relatives can live for years.) and she passed. I saw her poor crumbled body on the roof shingle below her tattered web one day.
I left her eggs to spend the winter in their very dormant state inside their multilayered egg sac. They emerged Sunday…within thirty minutes what once was an spider incubator…was just a blank wall.
Close to where they had incubated an couple of darling barn swallows have taken up residents. More on that later.
Linda
Nighttime Irrigation—Moon Music
Coming back from irrigating last night the moon was just delightful!!
We had some rain storms in the mountains that have helped (sort of) the irrigating situation. Enough that Terry thinks he can go ahead and plant his new alfalfa field.
Don’t get me wrong, water is still short, and we are still having trouble getting the ground wet because it has been so dry. But water in the hills brings a little more water down the canals. Enough to put out two more tubes, or open two more gates for a short time. If we get more rain in the hills or steady rain, that would be great.
Every little bit helps!
Sara did a cool post on Moon Music I would like to share….just perfect, just perfect.
We don’t have frogs or fireflies, but we still have the moon and last night was just beautiful.
Moon Music is right!
Linda
Monday, May 7, 2012
Sunday we were a bit tired, actually exhausted! Terry took off the day (accept for irrigating) and I took off time to work in my yard (I planted the garden and set out plants for half of the yard — all together the whole thing comes to 1.5 acres and can get too much if I don’t stay with it, real fast.) I also got my dusting and vacuuming done. Terry did all the irrigating except I helped him just before nightfall.
Saturday Terry and I went into town and helped our son work on his ‘new to him’ house. He had an old fireplace he wanted the bricks removed from and to set up his air conditioner, that took the morning. After changing the water we went back in and helped him hang his drapes and curtains.
He is really getting this old place, built in 1918, up to speed. I find it fun to see what changes he has accomplished from one visit to the next. There are a couple of more projects we will help with, but after that he won’t need the extra hands.
While we were there a little boy from two blocks came over looking for the little boy that lives next door. We were shocked to see he had a bird riding on his shoulder.
The bird does not fly away. The little boy said that the bird had been hurt about two years ago, by flying into a ceiling fan. After the bird recovered he was never able to fly again. So now the bird goes everywhere with the little boy. He said he would take him to school but the teachers won’t let him.
Linda
Adventures in Irrigating
We opened the last ditch on the place yesterday…what a mess.
The cement ditch had tons of trash in it, but that was to be expected.
The new dirt ditch (which we made after deciding not to buy more extremely expensive gated pipe) is holding water and sealing up nicely.
Where we had the problem was under the old apricot tree that escaped the fire.
We didn’t even THINK about there being a problem with that ditch….it’s the last ditch on the place, taking the water to the alfalfa hill and then on down to the next farm.
So here we were working away on getting the trash out of the cement ditch, starting the tubes, digging out the ends…..everything going along as expected.
We rode down to check the new ditch out.
Good. The water was going on down to the alfalfa hill, the ditch was sealing and imprinting. We got the trash out …
Looking good
Evening was starting to come on in a hurry so we headed on down to check the alfalfa ditch and start the furrows (earth dams here and digging out ends)
When we saw a LAKE in the road! And the water starting to sub over into the potential pinto bean field!
Who would have thought….a ground squirrel had made a wonderful, delightful, very nice home in the side of the alfalfa ditch!!!
It took some doing but we finally got all 8 holes filled in and covered up. The squirrel was seen chattering at us a couple of times. Floods are bad news for anyone to have to live through.
The squirrel is alive and well, it moved on over to a thicket and started a new house in a much drier area.
We have been rather cool to cold here for the last three days. Temperatures have dropped into the low 20s, it was 24* this morning when I went out to let the chickens out for the day. I think its supposed to start a gradual warm up tomorrow.
April sure was an up and down sort of month for temperatures….reaching 92* one day.
May for us is usually warmer, and a little steadier weather wise…I try to plant my garden the week of Mother’s Day. (Although, it can still freeze here, even as late as in June.)
Thanks for stopping by!
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 