Uncompahgre Plateau. (Un-come-pah-gray—a Ute Indian word meaning: (take your pick; rocks made red by water

Now that we have moved from [my favorite] Daylight Savings Time into the time —- called get up and work in the dark and go home and work in the dark — Mountain Standard Time

The day does not so much dawn

As it just stops being night. A small phenomenon, which will last for a spell. Then we will start getting weak sunsets and weaker sunrises.

And all living things goes on hold, waiting for the lengthening of the daylight.

The weather apps say a big storm is to blow in here today…some places will see 45-50 m.p.h. winds. Not good. Of course that might not be here. They are also saying we will see rain and snow at 5,000 ft. We live a little above 5,000 ft.

The clouds are gathering….I can see them coming in over the mountain tops…a brooding feeling —- the Uncompahgre Plateau (not the mountain just above, that is Grand Mesa) has a dark and brooding look, the clouds are having a dark and menacing social party, talking about if they really are going to dump rain and possibly snow—maybe not, they darkly mutter to each other, we just might like to fool the weather people. Then a evil chuckle resonates between the cliffs and canyons as they band together chuckling.

Until the storm gets here, we wait, working at buttoning down all flapping and possibly flying things. We are gathering in the wood for the fire, making sure all can handle wind. Or a huge dumping of rain.

Your friend on a western Colorado farm,

Linda

Yesterday afternoon the clouds started to skim across the sky stretching and cooling down everything under them.

Gradually they thickened and thickened, long frontal cirrostratus(is that the correct name for snow producing clouds?) clouds giving Terry and I the feeling that snow was about to happen. Although, the weather people were saying not.

This morning we woke to clear skies and the ever present cold 17*. But a storm is predicted to be in here for the weekend.

Today we are bright and sunny! Still I can see those same frontal cirrostratus clouds being pushed toward us over the Uncompahgre Plateau. (Un-come-pah-gray—a Ute Indian word meaning: (take your pick; rocks made red by water, rocks that make water red, or just plain dirty water. 🙂 ) A winter storm is predicted to arrive here Friday night bringing with it snow for Saturday, Sunday and Monday. After that our daytime highs will shift down a notch from the mid 40’s to the mid 30’s. The slide into the long, dark days of winter has begun. And it’s early! Those of you getting slammed with snow are very aware of that —-winter has arrived; albeit several weeks early.

The corn is still checking out dry on the top end of the field and very dry in the middle, but the bottom end is W.E.T.! 17%. We continue to wait. If this snow goes around us and isn’t too wet (right here) possibly the ends of the fields will dry down enough we can start on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday…hummm, next week sometime. 🙂

I thank each one of you for your continued concern and encouraging words and magic thoughts that soon, very soon, the corn dries down enough we can get this years harvest in.

Your friend on a Western Colorado Farm,

Linda