“To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall….”—Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty
Your friend on a Western Colorado Farm
Linda
The evening skies are just lovely…the colors warm and dramatic
Sometimes the colors even look hot, although it is cooling down by sunset.
My 4-wheeler is broke, the part comes in today. It will be nice to have it back…walking in the heat is rather ‘smashing’…you come back home feeling two feet tall. 🙂
Enjoy your days and evening, my friends!
Your friend,
Linda
It doesn’t seem possible but we are on the last irrigation of the season for the pinto beans. The pods are full and the beans are starting to harden up, once the pods stripe Terry will put the bean puller on the tractor and pull the plants. This will allow them to dry. Then he will combine.
About the middle of September (is our prediction) we will begin the harvest of the pinto beans.
This year I have raised 10 different varieties of dry bush beans (like pinto beans). Because they are in the yard they are ripening and getting ready for harvest sooner.
I just harvested my Red Mexican bean.
I have several others in the drying stage,
of course my harvest is all done by hand 🙂
The sweet corn harvest is in full swing also. We wake up every morning (5:00) to the sound of the sweet corn pickers on thier way to work. The first load of corn heads into the cooler around 6:30. They stop picking about dark. If you see Olathe Sweet or Mountain Sweet—-sweet corn in your market you will know it came from a farm somewhere close to ours!
Enjoy your summer, it’s starting to some to a close when the harvests begin!
Linda
Terry finished cultivating the corn and the pinto beans.
He likes to use the 730 because the clutch is a hand clutch and not a foot clutch.
There will be one more cultivation of the pinto beans, but the corn is too tall now. As soon as the bean shoot feelers all tractor work is done until harvest. The only thing left (on tractor work) is making alfalfa into hay.
Of course we will continute to irrigate, changing the water every 8 hours. Water is short, with reports that it could get shorter.
It’s hot. But we are having some moisture flowing in from Mexico after noon.
We cool down when it comes in which is really nice.
But we heat back up after the storm moves on.
That’s summer for you in our part of the high mountain desert!
Here’s how I cultivate! 🙂 This hoe never seems to leave my hand…I have it my yard, in the garden, and helping remove Canada Thistle, Star Thistle, Sticker Weed, Nodding Thistle, and other nasty stuff, which gets between the bean plants. Once the beans shoot feelers I won’t have to be out there, but until then….
Summer is lots of work, but I would rather have summer than winter. Terry, now, he would rather have cold, dark, dreary, drab winter. Oh, oops! I think those are my words.
The Fourth of July is tomorrow. (and then by Tuesday they should have the part to fix my internet receiver! YEA!)
Happy 4th, everyone!
Linda
The weather is always such an interesting subject. I suppose it is because we all live so close to the land that weather is part and parcel of what we do every day.
We are still having rain. Some days just a down pour or two, some days lots of rain, or just a gentle rain that goes on for days. Anyway it is more rain than normal…. we are also experiencing signs that an early fall and a hard winter are on the way. (Sigh. Double Sigh)
Weirdly the milkweed plants are already setting seed pods, weeds that never show up until late August are blooming wildly right now and there are other signs.
I dread winter!!! I love spring, summer, and fall, but winter drags on me. Just plain drags and to think of one that comes early and lasts long….oh, I don’t even want to go there.
So here is a photo of the down pour three days ago. With an afternoon thunderstorm predicated for today. The sun sure has been nice! And it IS July so I have several months before I have to worry, now don’t I?
First cutting of hay (and of course we had rain on it the third day of trying to dry).
By the time the hay is cut for the first time, the second cultivation has occurred in the other crops, everything is up and growing, irrigating is in full rotational swing, and the nasty Canada Thistle is about ready to bloom.
We are there, even though the real first day of summer isn’t for three more weeks.
I love the smell of alfalfa drying and turning in to hay…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Summer is almost here!
Our little town had its annual celebration “Deltarado Days” complete with a parade and Mud Volley competitions.
Mud Volleyball was lots of fun! Kelly and Misty’s team won.
Life on a Colorado Farm 