Last Day of April

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Dayphoto

We had 84* yesterday…unheard of for April…that is more like July temps. By this evening a storm will be here (complete with 40 m.p.h. gusts of wind) and rain showers. It must be a fast moving storm as by Thursday we will be calm and settled once more.

The other thing with the storm is the temperatures are supposed to drop into the low 60s* and freeze.

We will see freezes from now until the snow is melted off the point on Grand Mesa….

Any who…I sure am enjoying all of this…the little Robin’s are waking up right after me and singing the day awake –I hear their cheerful little songs starting around 5:15. Lifts my heart up!

Terry is planting corn, in five days he will harrow the rows down so the little stalks can come through, then he will mark it back out and we will start water on it again. We have to be careful on when to start the water back up, if the seed is in one certain stage and you put water on it the seed will die and rot away.

Timing is everything.

We go out early, early and irrigate. We are in a field that has extremely long rows (think half a mile) which requires us to walk the water through…meaning we have to make sure the trash doesn’t plug up the furrow causing the ground to sub over before the water makes it to the end of the row.

We start the tubes and then start walking the water.

We are doing this three times a day, early light, 1 p.m. and then at 7:00 in the evening.

As time consuming and tedious this is I actually enjoy it. Which is a good thing, because I do most of this while Terry goes to the head gate (I’m rather afraid of the head gate) and cleans trash along the way.

Works out for both of us!

Have a lovely end of April day…tomorrow we will start MAY!

Linda

Opening the Fields

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Dayphoto

We opened the fields Friday — which means we started water. This is a big job as all the ditches have to be flushed, the weeds cleaned out.

Hank enjoys helping the water move through the mud at the bottom of the ditches. He gets the mud packed into his nose. Such a goofy dog! (said with love)

Then the water is set in the proper fields.

Boomer only likes the water to get a drink out of, most the time he is out scouting around!

The day started out cold, warmed up, and then cooled down again. Of course when you are working you warm up fast!

We had help, Misty and Tallen, Hank, Boomer, and Fuzzy.

Fuzzy didn’t want to get off the four-wheeler so I just let him stay up there. This is not normal for him as he loves ‘chasing water’. I guess, he has decided he is just too old now and will opt for directing the other dogs on what to do. The patriarch of the dog pack so to speak.

I would set him down and he would hang out in the shade, go over and get a drink and then head back to the shade. Sort of sad really, but at least he still like going with us.

Tallen really does help…we gave her a row of her own and she truly worked at getting the water down it.

These little grandchildren may never live or work on a farm, but they are getting a good taste of what it takes to make a row crop farm go. 🙂

This photo shows you the gated pipe at work. The little gates are nice in some ways, in others not so nice….like having to clean the trash out of them. You have to reach clear inside and pull the trash out, lots of bending over and getting your hands and fingers wet.

The end of the day we were all back out there.

When you open a field every end of the row has to be dug out so your water goes down the row it is supposed to be in. Corn is watered every other row. Lots of digging when you first open a field, lots of digging after you plant and after you cultivate.

Terry always waters the corn fields first so he doesn’t have to worry about cold weather coming along and causing the VERY EXPENSIVE corn seed to rot.

We will soak the fields, let them dry, then he will plant.

In the beginning your winter body doth protest loudly, by the end of the season you are ‘fit as a fiddle’ — as my beloved maternal grandfather would say.

Terry packed rows ahead of us so we didn’t have to walk the water through the field, sometimes packing helps sometimes not. Yesterday and Friday it worked great!

I hope each and everyone of you have a really nice Sunday…a day of just doing whatever you feel like doing!

Linda

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Water (Predicted to Shrink)

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Dayphoto

The irrigation water sure has Dad and Mom worried.

They don’t have to go out every eight hours right now because the water is in the corn and the old alfalfa field. See those fields have their plants up and growing so they don’t take as much water, but when the water gets BACK to the pinto bean field they will be back to the eight hour change No Matter What!

Dad is planting the very last of the corn today…this morning in fact. He has given up on planting the new alfalfa field.

He will start planting the pinto beans on Monday. Outside of the alfalfa field (alfalfa seed is like buying gold at today’s prices, so he is not going to chance losing the crop because of the lack of water) he will have everything planted. (Dad will plant the alfalfa seed after the sweet corn farmers start harvesting their crop. Once the sweet corn is gone, more water will be in the canals. Hay is a nice cash crop to have.)

Water is extremely short…they are working with 70% of 100% right now—as they move into the middle of summer the ditch riders have told everyone that water is going to be moved lower and lower until it gets to 40%. That will be a 60% loss of water.

Everyone is hoping 40% is as low as it does get!

We hope so too!!!!

So the race is on!

All the farmers HAVE to get the seeds in the ground, watered up, and growing well ….BEFORE…the irrigation water drops to 40%.

As the water levels shrink the nightmare, of keeping everything wet, will just get worse. But the critical stage is getting the plant UP.

Boomie is doing better about coming when he hears the four-wheeler start…Mom talks to him as soon as we get to the field…”Boomer…you can play, but when you hear the four-wheeler start, you HAVE to be back here ready to go home or you will have to run home by yourself!”

He has done real good, even coming back to check on us once in a while.

But the last evening he said he was clear over in the wet lands smelling out the birds and things when he heard the four-wheeler start. Everything was just getting really interesting so he decided he would run home.