packing rows | Life on a Colorado Farm

The day wore on, yesterday, the heated air hot and heavy.

bearing down on us and the land.

The sun gradually climbing higher and higher in the sky- taking from us any bit of shade.

By noon the shadows were gone, the heat ringed us in, and sat brooding, like a bad mood.

Then a blessing of a thin rush of air — first in starts and stops, then in little puffs, swelling in strength strong enough to cause the towels drying, on the line, to flap and fling themselves over the other wires full of clothes

The air cooled, as clouds rolled in, first in the east, then the south, finally in the west.

All the while the wind rose and fell whispering secrets to the earth; to those creatures and objects that can understand.

There was a hint of thunder a splattering of rain enough to rinse the air clean.

Boomer and I walked out upon the farm, hoping to see a rainbow.

Instead a shock of sunlight splashed in the north, for just a few minutes, leaving the world reborn.

From my heart to your world.

Linda

Terry packed rows last night and this morning!

Our soil is rather strange….if it rains (and we have had a nice 1 inch rain) the water stops going down the furrows.

Weird, but true.

Even though the rows were packed BEFORE the rain, he had to go back out and do it all over again.

Terry like to use a Mormon Creaser, which is a tool that helps square up the row and packs down the walls and bottom of the furrow so the water can flow on through. Sometimes he just drives the tractor up and down the rows, it depends on what the furrow looks like when he gets there.

(See the tractor turning around? The tires mess up the rows so the irrigater has to make sure and dig out those furrows by hand or a flood mess will occur. Also, right at the gate – the siphon tube – the furrow has to be dug out so the water understands which row to head down)

The wind is kicking up a fuss today and it looks like there are storms in the mountains and canyons surrounding us…storms made of water is a very nice thought. It’s also cold. The weather man says we have a huge winter storm coming in complete with 45 mph winds and bitter temperatures. By Wednesday we should see snow, or at least as snow and rain mix.

We will not stop irrigating even if the rain and snow come in—another weird but true fact of farming in our part of the high mountain desert. (the secret is High and Mountain and Desert…)

The little rain here freshened up everything, even if it slowed down the irrigation. We will just keep on plodding along.

Some of the farmers are going to ‘go for the gold’ and plant 70% of their acres, but we are staying with the 60%, we would hate to lose a crop just because we tried to bluff our way through. By the middle of May we will know if we want to go ahead and add another 10% of our acreage. It’s a toss up if we plant pinto beans or alfalfa…it all depends on water — how much and for how long or if there will even be any.

Heading out now to do some things, I hope all of you have a good Monday.

Linda