picking up siphon tubes | Life on a Colorado Farm

We have snow about 1 hour away — all around us.

We get glimpses of the snow off and on as the clouds move here and there on Grand Mesa. The weather man says we are to have more rain starting this evening around 6 and then changing to a snow/rain mix after mid-night.

We sure have been having lots of moisture since July. Although, I am NOT complaining we most assuredly need the snow pack to fill the reservoirs in the mountains… all this rain is wrecking havoc on the crops and the harvesting of the crops.

Some of you noticed the semi-coming toward us as we drove along I-80….

This was a photo of a wrecker pulling a semi truck into the shop. It did so look like a truck coming right at us I had to take a photo. 🙂

This is a semi-load of Honey bees. They were being transported from somewhere in Nebraska to somewhere else. The lettering on the truck said they were from South Dakota.

This is one HUGE pile of sugar beets along the way. The sugar beets were mainly in eastern Colorado and the corner of Nebraska. The factory behind the pile is defunct now. We were told that most of the old factories are being torn down. I suppose this one will be knocked down and cleaned up sometime in the near future.

This is the Great Western Sugar factory those beets are heading here. There is also an active beet factory in eastern Colorado and other places in the corner of Wyoming and western Nebraska. I’m not sure where they all are located.

We only saw one wreck and that was in a town and not a bad one, which was good. And the remains of what must have been a horrible train wreck.

Not seeing wrecks is always a very good thing.

Today Terry is working on the bean combine, putting it to bed for the year and the dogs and I are going out to pick up siphon tubes.

They all have to be picked up before he can start the corn harvest. (You can see the wind in the corn…sigh) I want to get them done, before the clouds set down any more.

I took this last night…the colors were just outstanding. Sometimes I think Autumn is a Dr. Seuss world so brilliant and complete yet simple and divine all rolled together.

Have a good one everyone!

Your friend,

Linda

Where to begin, where to begin…so much to do, so much to do….

Fuzzy and I have been helping put the farm to bed, there is much to do. I just so enjoy all this ‘so much to do’ stuff.

Fuzzy and I go with Mom to do her jobs;

the biggest one was to gather all the siphon tubes from the four fields that use tubes for the irrigating of the seeds.

I tried to stay with Mom and Fuzzy but, hum mm, it was a tad hard when there is so MUCH TO DO out there!

Mom would get the tubes, load them up and then move on to the next level, this went on for some hours and well, and I got bored with the whole repetitious stuff so went hunting.

It was hot out there…68*, but after a rather chilly morning 68* is hot. And there is no water anymore, since the crops are all gone.

It went like this….get on the four-wheeler drive to the next level of the ditch, get off, pick up all the tubes

(Not One Mouse Came Out Of The Tubes!!! Fuzzy and I checked out every hole and every tube, but NOTHING!), get back on the four-wheeler drive to the next level blah, blah, blah.

So I headed off in search of news.

Gradually Mom and Fuzzy got way ahead of me, I had to walk lots to catch up…and I admit it made me a little mad so I decided I would just walk on by them and GO HOME!!!

Huff!

But Mom kept calling and calling for me to come back…

So…

I…

DID!!!

I had to lick and dance all around her so she would know that I had forgiven her for LEAVING me AGAIN when it was SO HOT OUT HERE!

Then I realized that she wasn’t heading into the house and I had gotten mad for NOTHING!

After we got done Mom took us all for a ride.

Later on Hank and his girl kids came over to ride in the combine. Hank said that he really enjoyed fall work.

We ran alongside the combine for a spell, and then we walked along the two fields of gated pipe checking to see if some critter had made a home in the pipe, Mom shut all the gates and closed the ends of the pipes. She said skunks, foxes, and other types of animals do not need to be living in the pipes over winter; they make huge nests that are very hard to get out come spring.

The fields that have dirt ditches have transmission pipe so Mom closed those ends off also.

Hank and I had a great time together.

After the last load was in the truck we all went home to rest. Tomorrow Dad starts up the combine again, I’m sure there will be cool things to do once more.