Tag Archives: outdoors

Monday, May 7, 2012

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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

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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

 

 

Corn Planting Time

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One field of corn seed is in the ground.

 

Terry planted Friday and with this hot weather we’ve been having 80+* for the last several days, the corn seed has already past the swelling stage and starting to shoot roots.

Terry will plant the other field of corn today.

Since the first field is already shooting roots he will harrow off the top of the row bed so the little tips of the corn won’t have a hard time coming through and also that will knock some of the weeds down. Usually the corn bed is harrowed about five days after planting.  (This should happen Tuesday sometime-Wednesday at the latest, if it goes too long the corn will be up and will struggle to get through.)

Friday and Saturday we spent getting the gated pipe ready for the other half of the farm and setting the new earth/dirt ditch.  After much thought and heavy pondering…..gated pipe is EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE NOW…..We decided to go to earth/dirt in place of some gated pipe that broke.  The ditch is pretty soft right now so will take lots of extra effort on our part until it seals.  Or imprints —  meaning holds water and remembers where the water is supposed to stay….not run off here and there and everywhere.

Of course the gated pipe (two sticks) had to break somewhere in the middle and at the beginning of the pipe.  So we had to ‘adjust’ all the remaining pipe so we could put the earth ditch at the END of the gated pipe.  That meant lots of jerking apart (by hand) and picking up and moving, one on each end, then shoving back together again.

We had a little break and watched our oldest granddaughter play soccer.  Breaks are always nice, they make you appreciate what you’ve accomplished and give you a mini-rest.

The soccer field is in the valley, on the banks of the Gunnison River, and at the doorway of the Adobes.  You can see the ‘dobies in the background.  The ‘dobies give rise to the foothills surrounding Grand Mesa.

(All the locals call those adobe hills, which skirt the base of the mountain ranges in Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona, ‘dobies.)

Linda

 

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — The Upper End

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We headed up with Mom and Dad to dig ditches to the burn area over on the Back Forty and to the back pastures.  They are going to put run-off-water there to see if anything can start growing again. It was lots of work for Mom and Dad but Fuzzy and I had a right jolly old time! We sniffed around to see what is happening up here.  The Upper End is where the HEADGATE is.  Right now all the cows are around the head gate but they will be moved off tomorrow.  These are not our cows, but the south end of our farm’s neighbors.  He had to move the bulls when the water came in as the ditch riders and Mom and Dad (and us) have to get to the head gate to keep the trash out. Bulls don’t like to have strange people moving around on their property. The head gate is SCARY!  It thunders and foams and roils. It’s really big and has a tiny board to walk across it, which I never do.  You have to walk across it, then stand on the tiny board to clean out the trash from the gate with a rake….Mom is terrified, but she ‘gets it done’. We had a sort of mini tornado last evening the wind was so horrible.  Dad was on— ON — the head gate (terrible frightening thundering crashing water)…when the storm came through the place.  The wind about threw Dad into the roaring foaming mess and even ripped his glasses off his face. We all tried to find the glasses but figured they were swept away in the canal. This morning Dad went on back to clean out the trash and guess what…THEY WERE THERE!  Safe in a whole other spot!  AND the cows didn’t stomp on them either. We are so joyful! Anyway, as Mom and Dad were working on the burn area, Fuzzy and I found Bunny. We like bunny and he seems to like us.  Just hangs around us as we sniff back and forth.  Sometimes Bunny even lets us sniff really close to him before he hops away. Sometimes we find footprints…those get really good sniffs.  We don’t have wolves here, which we are ALL glad about, but these foot prints will help you see what we sometimes see.

 

 

Getting water to one of the burn areas took all morning.  Dad said “that will have to do.  If this works then we’ve helped part of the burn.”

Mom asked Fuzzy if he was ready to ride back to house.

Man, that dog can move when he wants too.  Fuzzy beat both Mom and I back to four-wheeler he was so ready to get home.

The sunrise this morning was pretty cool…there was a cloud that looked like a mini-tornado.

Hummm, maybe that isn’t a good thing!

Boomer

Opening a Ditch

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I dug out a camera I had purchased awhile back.  It wasn’t a real expensive one, I think I got it for around $90, since I knew my other dear old battered and well-loved camera would someday bite the dust.  This camera doesn’t seem to take too bad of photos so I shall continue to use it.

We finished watering our largest field.  Which means it was time to move the water.  We had to take the water from that field down to the one by our house.

Therefore we had to open the ditch. (Winter is not good for my body, but I’m fast getting into shape.)  We only have to open the ditches once, but, oh my, is that ever a job!

Even though Terry makes the ditches with the ditcher there is still lots of trash in the ditch, he turns the water down and then leaves and goes on down to the trash gates, I stay behind and fork the trash out of the ditch.

It starts small, but by the time I make it to the trash catchers I’m hefting huge wads of wet weeds out the water.  ( I couldn’t get photos of the wads — I think Terry would have been a tad upset to see me taking photos while massive amounts of weeds were heading toward him.)

Weeds plug up division gates and get caught in the pipes causing floods.  Floods are never good as they always go where they are not supposed to go.

By the time I get to the trash screens Terry is already in the field flushing the pipe.  This field by the house is set with gated pipe, trash in that pipe is one major pain.  It plugs up the little gates and backs up the water.  You are looking at a screen that has stopped trash.

We like gated pipe for some fields and cement ditches and siphon tubes for other fields.  We even have dirt ditches with siphon tubes for even other fields.  Terry is thinking of changing out some of the gated pipe back into a dirt ditch, they (dirt ditches) really are lots easier to work with than gated pipe.  You wouldn’t think so, since it would seem all you have to do is open a gate and the water flows out.  Pouring another cement ditch is financially not feasible so if we change it will be to dirt.

Trash is the main reason.  Here in our part of Colorado when the wind blows heavy it always blows in weeds and icky stuff which lands in the water and then get caught in the gates.  With a tube the weed will usually flow on by since the tube is under the surface of the water. With a gate the weed runs right to the gate and tried to get out with the water and plugs up the gate. You then have to put your hand into the water and dig out the trash.  For every gate that is open all 20-30 gates.

Anyway, I could lift and toss an 80 pound bale of hay now if I had too.  Three weeks ago I don’t know if I could even pick it up.

The pear trees are blooming!  They sure are pretty.  We’ve had three nights of bitter cold (18* one night) and another cold front moving in by Friday.  I remember these days from my youth and how my Dad and my Grandfather would stress out during spring.

Being and orchardist isn’t for the faint of heart that is for sure.

Linda

 

 

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Back to Work

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We are back to work!  Hanging around and just doing what we want is now over, our work has begun.  That’s what Mom told us yesterday as we headed out to help irrigate.

See we don’t farm with Dad.  We stay with Mom wherever she is.  Our job is helping Mom, always.  Sometimes Boomer will go out some with Dad but Dad is always on a tractor or something and that is just not fun running alongside a big piece of equipment.

We ride (like Mom does) and then we work.

Boomer and I really like it.

We really like helping out too.  There is so much to do.  Sometimes there are mice to snap in two and sometimes not, but there are always smells to smell and for ME there is water to play in.

It’s getting a little harder every year to get OUT of the ditches, but I don’t have any trouble getting into them.  Mom doesn’t like for me to get into the ditches anymore because I can’t get out very well.  But I still do it — I just wait until she isn’t looking and I jump in.

The day before Dad made all the ditches on the place—first he made the main ditches, these are the ditches that carry the water to the fields from the head gate (the head gate takes the water out of the canal onto our place).

Then he made the waste ditches, these are the ditches that take the water away from the field and drop the water back into the canal so the next farm can use the water.

After that we had to wait for the ditch rider to open the head gate so we could begin work.

Work started at 6:00 last evening.  We worked until 8:00 because there were so many weeds and burn trash in the ditches, but we made it.

Boomer and I helped.  I even got into the water a couple of times which made Mom yell at me.  She said the water was too full of trash and it would stick to my fur so I had to get out.

Geez!

Trash on fur is not a big deal.

But she made me get out.

It was rather hard to get out, so I hung with Mom looking for mice in the tubes while she dug out ends and started the tubes with water.

Dad had to work on the trash in the head gate and the transmission ditch, and then he came and helped Mom set tubes.

The trash WAS bad.

And the wind was bad.  The wind kept blowing in other trash so we had to stay out and keep the water from flowing over the sides of the cement ditch for ever so long.

Boom and I really enjoyed it.

Mom and Dad said they were tired.

They worked all morning, then helped Evan move furniture into his new house and set up his new kitchen and then chased water all evening.  The second they sat down in their chairs they were asleep.

Boomer and I were still good to go, but since the folks were so tired we decided maybe we wouldn’t chase Freddy Fox or any of the raccoons tonight or even get on the barking telephone system.

Around 11:00 Dad had to go back out in the wind to check tubes again to make sure they hadn’t trashed back up and stopped or the water was flowing over the sides of the cement ditch into the work fields.

We went part way and then turned back.  ½ mile is pretty far to run for me anymore and Boomer didn’t want to leave me.

By that time we were tired so when Dad got back we went to bed also.

Anyhow our work has begun.

We love it, couldn’t ask for a better life!

Fuzzy (and Boomer)

Saturday—Trees

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My last post for March will be my trees.  I’m taking a photo of the same trees and posting them on the last day or close to the last day of the month so you can see the progression of leaves on the trees.  If you would like to see February’s go here.

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The leaves are starting to appear.  Today we had 80* weather.  A bitter cold spring snow storm is supposed to blow into night, stay all day Sunday and leave us sometime late Monday night.

Then we will start to warm back up.

Terry is finishing rolling so the ground won’t pack IF we do get moisture.

Linda

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Another Fire

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It happened again!  We had a huge fire on Tuesday, two miles long.  The fire wiped out everything on the west side of the farm, except Mom-mom’s house, barn, and other outbuildings.  The firemen were able to stop the fire five feet from all of the structures.

We were all scared!

Boomer and I stayed right with Mom.  We rode on the back of the four-wheeler and never left it.  (Boomer is really bad about jumping off and heading out to see what there is to see when Mom gets off.  He always gets in trouble, but he just gives all of us a Beagle smile and does it again. But this time he listened.)  The smoke and the flames were horrible.

The cows all circled up, with the baby calves in the middle, just like the books say they do when there is danger.  The cowboys came up and stayed with them just to be sure.

At several points the fire jumped into the hay fields and the corn fields rushing right over to toward Mom, Dad, Boomer and my house.  It was frightening.  But just the day before Dad had disked all the ends by the gated pipe and the road to our place.  That’s what stopped the fire there, not the firemen.

The very next day, Wednesday, the Uncompahgre Ditch Company sent the ditch cleaners down to clean out the canal to ready it for the water next week.

Dad talked to the guys said he had a very huge fire yesterday and would they be extra careful, they said they would and took off.

They didn’t!

They swooshed their 8” propane weed burner and burned everything in sight, even burned up our over 100-year-old cottonwood tree, that made Mom cry.  Mom and Dad saw the guy swirl the burner around the base of the tree.

Mom, Boom and I, Mom-mom and Talley hauled water to the tree for most of the afternoon, but it finally burst into flames and left this earth.  Mom told all of us that she felt like she lost a very good friend that day.

Now the whole north side and the whole east side of the farm have the fences burned to the ground.

What a mess!

Dad has been busy, getting the fire report, talking to the neighbor about repairs, and getting the ditch company to fix the fences.

Mom says her digital camera is a blessing.

Since one of the very long time ditch companies board member is our neighbor to the north, (by two miles) and we get up before the sun shines, by 6:30 in the morning, Thursday, Dad and board member were touring the damage the ditch company did.

The tree fell over around 8:30 Thursday morning.  The Ditch company people wanted it to burn up so they didn’t have very much to clean up.  (They made the mess, they clean it up, Dad says.  The board member and the manager of the company agreed)

They also agreed to the repair of all the fences on the north and east side of the farm.

Around three o’clock in the afternoon the tree eased itself into the canal where it continued to burn.

8:30 that night the fire trucks were back out to our place, as someone passing by saw the burning tree for the first time and called it in to the fire department.

The ditch company, which hoped that they wouldn’t have much to do, vanished in several streams of water after the fire department got here.

So this is where we are, the day after the Ides of March. Hopefully we are on our way to mending.

At least the west side fences are still standing.

Knock on wood!

Fuzzy

The Day From H#%%

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A neighbor of ours (2 miles away) decided that today (with 20-30 m.p.h. wind and gusts of wind) was an excellent day to burn one of his ditches.

Well, he got the ditch burnt that is for sure, and the neighbors farm and our farm.

Terry and I are just sick!  Sick, sick, sick!

It took the Delta Fire Department, the Olathe Fire Department, the Cedaredge Fire Department and the Lands End Fire Department from Whitewater to put the fire out. (If you get out a map you will see how far some of them had to come to help)

The fire reached our place at 2:30 that afternoon with fire jumping and running over all of our pastures, hillsides and into the corn fields.  THANK GOD!!! Terry had disked the ends of the corn or it would have ran right to our house.

The fire also ate it’s way right up to our kids’ barns and chicken house….we had to load up and move out all the goats, chickens, dogs and cats.  One of the next door neighbors took Tally, the other kids were in school for part of the time.

The sheriff department had all three roads blocked off from traffic as the smoke was so thick seeing was next to impossible.

The rancher and his daughter and her boyfriend came up and rounded up the cows and calves to keep them out of harms way.

The fire was finally put down at 6:30 that evening.  Terry’s equipment was saved, the buildings were saved and no animals lost their lives that we are aware of.

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Terry and I are sick about the loss of the centuries old Chico and Sagebrush, the ancient cactus.  What will happen now is the invasive weeds will take over.

Sigh,

Linda

Spring Work

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I’ve been waiting for this time of the year ever since we had harvest last year. But….man are we ever busy.  (Not complaining just explaining).

Still I wanted to share with you a couple of shots of the full moon last week-when the moon came up the sun was going down so we had a pink moon.  As the moon was going down the next morning the sun was coming up giving the countryside a beautiful blue haze.

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Nature….isn’t it Grand!!?

Linda