The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Wednesday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 14, The Third Season, SUMMER Drought, Wednesday, March 2, 2020

Posted on March 2, 2022 by Dayphoto

Okay. I’ve put it off long enough. Summer can mean—Drought.

Drought is some pretty awful stuff. Everything wilts, and I do mean everything…except the coyotes. They never wilt.

EVER!

Drought is a humongous dry spell. Once it starts it never seems to leave.

Although, Mom says it can be broken.

Ya…I wonder.

What’s bad about drought it kills all the good stuff, which leaves space for all those pesky weeds to spring up and grow.

Weeds are the coyotes of the plant world.

Kochia weed can grow taller than DAD and Dad is 6’2” tall.

That is some weed!

Then when it dries down in the winter it becomes a tumbling, giant, scare the heck out of you.

Well, that’s all for Summer. Next on the list is Fall. Or Autumn or finally COOLER WEATHER!

TLC Cai-Cai

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Friday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 11, The Third Season, SUMMER and Water, Wednesday, February 23, 2020

Posted on February 23, 2022 by Dayphoto

Summer is all about one thing:

Water!

Water for the crops

(which I will tell you about in another series)

and Mom keeping her flowers and stuff wet.

And Dad keeping the farm crops growing.

Water!

The Life Blood for the Farm!

This water stuff doesn’t come to end until late August or early September.

It all depends on how fast the corn matures

and when the last cutting of alfalfa occurs.

For Mom, the watering of her yard comes to a hault

when the farmer next door stops watering his fields.

Water…there is more to it than meets the eye.

TLC Cai-Cai

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Wednesday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 10, The Third Season, SUMMER, Means Heat, Friday, February 16, 2020

Posted on February 16, 2022 by Dayphoto

Summer is the season HOT! HOTTER! HOTTEST!

Pant! Pant!

Spring is pretty—I guess. It does have wind, but still, it is cool enough I don’t pant.

Summer starts sometime in May or June. Depends on what the weather wants to do.

Another sure fact is Mom gets out the lawnmower and

SCARES THE HECK out of me.

I hide in the trees so that big machine won’t get me.

Anyway, for this tiny series, I will talk to you about SUMMER!

Hang on! I’m sure you are going to be just like me and be HOT!

(Oh, by the way, Mom LOVES Summer.

Mom IS crazy like I said earlier.)

TLC Cai-Cai

In Everyday, No Matter What the Trouble — Sunday, February 13, 2022

Posted on February 13, 2022 by Dayphoto

Look for the joy!

From TLC Cai-Cai and Myself—to your heart!

Linda

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Friday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 9, The Second Season, Spring, Means WIND, Friday, February 11, 2020

Posted on February 11, 2022 by Dayphoto

Yes! It! Does! All the Time! WIND!

It starts around the last week of February or the first week in March. And it doesn’t stop blowing.

Oh. That maybe a bit of a stretch, but, I think you get it.

Mom is silly. She likes the wind. Well, most wind.

She doesn’t like the kind of wind that picks up buildings and flings them here and there.

But she does like the kind of wind that lifts her hair off her head and flinging it everywhichwayandup.

Mom is crazy.

Just say’n.

TLC Cai-Cai

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Wednesday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 8, The Second Season, Spring, Means Rain, Wednesday, February 9, 2020

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Dayphoto

Well, as you found out I am talking to you about our weather. For now, in this post, we have now moved to Spring (although, it IS NOT Spring right now. Just for this wee report on the weather here on the farm)

Spring weather is busy weather. Always. That is why I told you about all the ‘work’ on the farm…work is a type of weather, you see. All that tooing and froing brings a sorta wind to everything.

Spring brings all the songbirds back so that (yum, slurp, lick) the whole world sounds like BIRDS!

Also, it’s time to say goodbye to those BIG birds. They rise up one day and point south in a huge arrow, call GOOD-BYE to Mom. Mom waves goodbye to them; throws a kiss, tells them safe journey, and come back again. The farm is always waiting for them.

And they are —- gone!

But for REAL Spring weather we turn to RAIN!

Good ole make your fur so wet it takes three hours of constant licking to ever get dry again.

Mom pets me and tells me…rain is good, TLC Cai-Cai, it cleans the earth, washes everything new, and helps all the plants grow and turn green.

Mom doesn’t understand how TIRED my tongue gets.
Just say’n.

TLC Cai-Cai

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Friday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 6, The Second Season, Spring, Wednesday, February 2, 2020

Posted on February 2, 2022 by Dayphoto

By the end of February Dad is getting pretty excited to start farming. Why even some of the other farmers…the BIG GUYS… have started. It all depends on the frost in the ground, or not in the ground.

Dad and Mom have been busy ‘doing stuff’ most of January and most of February. This stuff usually consists of whatever it takes to make the FARMING SEASON go smooth.

Sometime in late March or April, the Apricot trees will start to bloom.

Mom says LATE APRIL, please. If you must bloom make it LATE APRIL!

You see there are still many, many cold nights and days that kill things that burst forth into robustious blooms.

A cold snap (or a terrible freeze) doesn’t seem to hurt the trees or the leaves (or lack thereof) on the trees, but it does take a huge whack out of the blossoms!

First, there are lovely sweet-smelling flowers and BAM! They are brown and dead and fall off the trees.

Of course, that also means there is no fruit to can later on.

Anyway, by the time March comes roaring in (we hope it roars in not out)

Mom and Dad are farming—

Which isn’t weather, but still…it is SPRING!

TLC Cai-Cai

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Friday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 5, The First Season, WINTER!!! SNOW, or How Wet Can You Get, Friday, January 28, 2022

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Dayphoto

Mom says snow is one of those weather things that is—well, a person had mixed feelings about. (Cats don’t have mixed feelings about snow…just so you know.)

Snow is beautiful to look at.

Snow is necessary to have water…. water to drink,

water to irrigate with, and for the land —it nourishes the roots of all the plants…weeds, and good plants.

Sometimes we get blizzards. I’ve really never seen a blizzard, but I have been in the WIND full of SNOW!!! Mom says THAT is a blizzard!

When a cat (or a person) is in a blizzard there is so much snow and wind you can’t see ANYTHING!!

Nothing! It’s scary.

AND YOUR FUR GETS VERY, VERY WET!!!!

That’s when I meow to come inside and stay inside.

I let Mom and Dad go outside and do all those ‘outside’ things they like to do.

After the snow ends…then we start one of a couple of different types of Winter—SO COLD YOUR PAWS STICK TO THE GROUND or Mud Season.

I don’t know which is worse. Mom calls horrible cold an inversion. She says it is pretty. And it does kill all the nasty bugs, but oh, my is it ever cold!

Then there is everyone’s dreaded season—melt. Snowmelt. When that happens, you get MUD!

On your paws, where you have to take your teeth and pull it out, on your lovely fur, where Mom gets a wet rag and washes you all over–

and MUD ON MY TAIL! Horrors!

Then there is mud on shoes, boots, in the house from the back porch to the stool where the shoes and boots are removed.

Mud season is pretty messy.

That is for sure!

TLC Cai-Cai

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Wednesday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 4, The First Season, WINTER!!! Then there is the WIND, Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Posted on January 26, 2022 by Dayphoto

Wind is the worst!

Mom says Wind in the Winter is the worst, she rather likes wind any other time.

Wind in the Winter is COLD!

I agree with her! Wind in the Winter is horrible, terrible, and bad!

It snaps the trees, throws tree branches every which way,

picks up all the weeds, and flings them in your face, not to mention…what it does to a CAT!

There are warm fuzzy covers for dogs, and humans have hats, gloves, and hooded jackets to put under big thick heavy coats and socks and boots and…. well, you get the picture.

Cats, now…they don’t get any of that stuff. Just think what a cold nasty wind can do to trees and weeds, now think of what wind does to cats!!!

TLC Cai-Cai

The Adventures of TLC Cai-Cai on Friday—-Farm Life Series Chapter 3, The First Season, WINTER Storms, Friday, January 21, 2022

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Dayphoto

Mom always checks the weather on the weather apps. She says it gives her an ‘idea’ of what the weather is going to be.

Then Mom goes and looks at the Uncompahgre Plateau—if there is a line of huge big black clouds over the Plateau in the west…

Then Mom knows a BIG STORM is HEADING OUR WAY!

If Mom sees a mass of clouds already in the canyons, dumping moisture then she knows in a few minutes we are going to get ‘it’.

And Mom is always right! The only thing Mom can’t predict is how COLD it’s going to get, by looking at the canyons or the Uncompahgre Plateau, but she can tell by the feel in the air, the crispness,

the look of the sun, as it shimmers through the sky, and sometimes by seeing Sun Dogs.

Then Mom starts warming up the hen house by putting in a red heat lamp. Red—because if you don’t use red the hens will start picking on each other. Something about seeing everything better, I suppose.

She makes the heat lamp turn on when the temperatures drop way down to 10* and stays on until around 9 in the morning when the birds can start taking care of themselves.

As for keeping me warm, she says I’m smart enough I can go outside if I want, or I can stay inside, or I can come and go. She says I decide since I’m not living in the hen house.