In the Silence of the Air —- Sunday, May 5, 2019

Posted on May 5, 2019 by Dayphoto

Our air is full of the scent of the Lilacs

Rich and sweet and lush all at the same moment

All three of my bushes are in bloom fluttering gently in the soft spring breezes

How very blessed we are, for it’s been several years since we have had blooms

Thankfully not this year.

Another glorious gift from the sky arrived in my message box on FaceBook

A most beautiful double rainbow spanning Vadarae’s cotton fields in Texas. A most delightful sight! Glorious to behold!

Thank you, Vadarae! A rainbow from you, now for all of us!

From my heart to your world,

Linda

The Alamo, The Steps We Take to Growing Up, January 16, 2014

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Dayphoto

My Momma was a Texas girl raised in New Mexico. Her Momma, My Love Grammy, and all her sisters and brothers were born in Texas and still lived in Texas. (Except for Gram and Lois). My Grandfather was also a Texas boy, although born in the last land rush of Oklahoma, but raised in Texas.

Every year of my growing up we went to Texas for part of the summer. The year Walt Disney produced the movie DAVY CROCKETT it was smitten with the history of the Alamo. I wanted to go! I begged and asked, and probably whined…in general I was probably very irritating.

My wonderful great aunts and my hero great uncle Fred and my fun great Aunt Marie (we stayed with them at their ranch in Junction, Texas) told my parents they would take us to San Antonio to see the Alamo.

From: Junction, TX To: San Antonio, TX

(Google maps)

So we all dressed up (back then all women wore hands, gloves, and hose, even little girls had gloves and hats) got in Fred’s big car and made the almost two hour trip to the ALAMO!!! I was soooooooooo excited.

Not only was I going to get to see the Alamo, but I was going to get to see a real picture of Davy Crockett! Of course it didn’t enter my mind that the REAL Davy Crockett wasn’t the same as Fess Parker. I just knew he was going to look just as daring and handsome and wonderful as Walt Disney could ever portray him!

There a many things I remember about that trip…how hot it was. How old the Alamo looked, the many displays of the battle…being allowed to stand and stare all I wanted at whatever I was interested in…and how UNLIKE Fess Parker looked like the REAL Davy Crockett. (I laugh about that now.)

It was the ‘opening of my eyes’ that if you see it in the movies…it just might not ALL be true. It also told me that history really was a real thing and even today you can make it come alive. I think this was the step that turned me toward studies of history and genealogy.

Momma gave me this photo when I was about twelve. I’ve kept it ever since…just to remember the Alamo!

Your friend,

Linda

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Dayphoto

More flash flooding is predicted for our part of Western Colorado.

Although, we are NOT getting what the Boulder, Colorado Springs, Longmont, and Greeley area are having. (They are in the Corridor of our State) Our hearts and prayers go out to everyone in those flood damaged areas. 😦

Our rain puddles are starting to grow slime

Even the trees are showing signs of moss

We are so wet it is hard to find a spot to walk without sinking up to your ankles.

An old-timer called this the ‘100-year rain’.

This morning we had some scattering of blue skies

Just seeing the blue made me happy.

Last night there was also a break in the clouds

The sunlight was outstanding! It caught the rim of Black Canyon. You can’t see the other mountains behind Black Canyon because the clouds have them covered.

The sunlight also produced a rainbow

Rainbows always make me think of hope.

According to the weather channel today is the last horrible day of torrential rain, then the slow moving storm will move on…which means it will move toward the east possibly hitting Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and/or parts of Texas, it just depends on the the jet stream. I sure hope you don’t get the floods, but lots of really nice ground soaking rain. 🙂

I hope your Sunday turns out well my friends,

Linda

While at the Wind Museum …..

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Dayphoto

The Wind Museum in Lubbock, Texas has several types of windmills.

They had just finished assembling and hooking to Excel Energy and the power grid a huge wind machine.

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Although, we know those things are huge, standing in front of them really shows how huge they are. Terry is 6’2″ tall….he looks like a elf! 🙂

Linda

In the Land of Wind

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Dayphoto

We were looking at one of the several really cool musuems in Texas when we came upon this display.

Although, we were in Texas the artifact came out of Colorado…the tip of eastern Colorado.

Completely out wire (that is a very fake and very dusty crow)

This is the other nest!

Really very amazing birds!

Windmills…everywhere!

Linda

The Cotton Gin

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Dayphoto

The module of tightly packed cotton (cotton is dry like the clothes you love to wear).

Is then delivered to the cotton gin.

Here the module is ran through several cleaning machines–machines that take out the any bits of sticks, burrs and the seeds.

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, of whitch the fiber is almost pure celulose. The cotton fiber protects the sticky seed until it is time for it to ‘leave the plant’ and make a plant of it’s own.

The cotton plant is a shrub, and in the tropical deep south or other tropical areas of the world it is a perennial, therefore producing bolls all along. That is why in tropical areas the cotton is picked by a picking machine. The picking machine picks only the bolls that are ripe and broken open.

In subtropical regions…west Texas, the shrub is not treated as a perennial, but stripped taking all of the plant parts. It freezes in west Texas so the plant will die anyway.

The fiber is most often spun into yarn or a thread and then used to make soft, breathable fabric.

Once inside the gin machines pull and clean the cotton, plus seperating it from the cotton seeds.

The balls go through another process that stretches the balls and bales them together.

They then go to the packaging station

Where the 550 pound bales are wrapped ready for delivery to a factory

I hope you have enjoyed this tiny little window into a small part of the farming world of west Texas.

I have found that farmers and ranchers everywhere love the land. They take great care to take very good care of the land and the plants and the animals that live upon the land. One reason is this is how they make a living, but the other reason (and probably the most important reason) is it’s in their blood. In their dna, in the fiber of their beings.

Roy (he farms over 3,000 acres), Terry -farms in western Colorado, and Vadarae who owns several farms and invited us to “Come on down the Harvest is on!”

I have a few more delightful posts from the west Texas area that I will do soon. But Friday with Fuzzy and Boomer will be tomorrow!

Linda

Third Cutting of Hay

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Dayphoto

Terry finished cutting the last alfalfa cutting of the season. (We get three cuttings here.)

Gosh, this summer sure has flown by! I guess it went so fast because it was my first full summer without having to go into work everyday. I had worried that I would miss the excitment of registration and then all the students coming back, but I HAVEN’T!!!! I guess I was ready…time to retire and let others take over the reins.

Both grass and alfalfa and mixed ( part grass and alfalfa) hay is leaving our area by the semi-loads. People are coming up from Texas and Arizona to get hay to feed thier critters! It’ really sad. I wish rain would start falling in the south! Days and Days and DAYS of over 100* temperatures without even a cloud in the sky is horrible. Our news here said that Texas has beaten it’s own record for the longest amount of over 100* temps…something set in the 1980s or thereabout.

Unless Terry decides differently we changed the last set of water in one of the corn fields last night, we will finish up the rest of the corn this week.

We are just waiting now, for the ground to be really (bone) dry so the pinto beans can be pulled and rowed. They will dry in the rows until all the stems and leaves are brittle, then we will start combining the beans.

The corn has dented or is in a stage of dent. Once reached that will be then of the irrigation of the corn. After that we wait for the whole stalk to dry down and then we will combine.

The largest field of alfalfa will be plowed up next year so we will be done with the irrigation of it, but the smallest field will still need water. The field must go into winter with enough green leaves to not die over the winter.