A Quick Stop —Sunday, June 15, 2014

Posted on June 15, 2014 by Dayphoto

The nice thing about summer is the fact people are traveling…and sometimes that means they are traveling ‘through’ where we live.

My brother, Dan (this is from last year)

And his pretty wife, Cloudy were also in the area, but could not stop by this time. They usually come over sometime in August so I’m thinking we will get to see them at that time.

Terry’s sister, Carolyn, and her husband, Wayne where traveling back from Arizona when they called and said—“We are coming through”,

Then the “Side Trips” blog folks posted about this really nice trip they were on and I realized THEY WERE GOING TO BE PASSING THROUGH!!!

I quickly emailed them and invited them to stop and have supper with us on their way back home. They took me up on the invitation!!! YIPPEE! It is great fun to meet people in person after years of reading and commenting on each other’s blogs!

We had hot dogs and hamburgers and all sorts of picnic food, ate outside and the wind blew us away. Even blew my salad right off my plate. Shish!

But everyone was was kind and gracious. ate the food, sat in the kitchen while I put stuff together, chatted together outside – passing the time quickly. Suddenly it was all over, everyone back on the road to home.

The wind…it hung around until today turning colder on Saturday; bringing in another cold front for our area. It’s actually cold enough we had to turn up the heat just to take the chill off the house. A strong cold front with heavy gusting wind is predicted until Wednesday when it will finally push itself out of here and we will start to warm back up.

I guess in the scheme of things, five days of gusty winds of 30 m.p.h, or more, is really just a quick stop. This time next week we will have the heat and warmth of late Spring.

Your friend on a farm in Delta, Colorado

Linda

No One Likes a Bully —March 31, 2014

Posted on March 31, 2014 by Dayphoto

We had a huge bully wind yesterday….55 m.p.h. gusts that picked up everything and flung it here and there and everywhere.

All of Utah came with it!

No, not really, but the sky was brown.

Along with the dirt and wind came ‘almost’ rain. Just enough to coat my very clean and sparkling windows.

I haven’t really gone to check the apricot trees, I guess I know what I will find.

This morning the sky is Spring time blue, the sun is shining, the air calm, with a few puffy clouds around Paonia. It will stay that way until this evening when another wind will blow in. The weather people say we will be like this for a week. Then more settled weather will arrive with 70* temps. YIPPEE!!

Off now to rewash the windows to let the sunshine into the house!

Your farm friend

Linda

A Big Day — March 3 2014

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Dayphoto

Yesterday was a Big day!

First was the BIG culvert pipe that was removed at the end of the farm-very rusted and crumpled and wore-out, that is for sure.-

Then the second big thing was the new culvert pipe–

All shinny black and very new looking lowered into the waiting trench.

This took most of the day. This morning, at the crack of almost light, the little children and their Mom walked the 1/4 of mile to the mailbox at the end of our land. (Terry and I watched from the warmth of our living room 🙂 )

The pipe was still uncovered and a huge hole still in the road, but with much daring and great feats of jumping the two oldest (12 and 9) jumped into the open trough, onto the wonderful big shinny pipe, and scrambled up the the other side….I’m sure they went to school dirty but happy. Mom-mom and the little Kindergartner had to walk clear around the huge hole, walk across a smaller white pipe to get to the other side, then RUN—RUN–RUN to the waiting bus down by the mailboxes.

Then last evening the little kids and their Dad stopped by to say HI. Then they were on their way through the fields to their house…Tally (the youngest) wanted to see if she could beat them to her house by running across the fields. You know what? She DID!!

Yesterday Terry started disking up the corn stalks. He worked until nine in the evening and has started the process again today.

We are not fond of large corn stalks creating little dams in the water furrows. Terry also like to have the rotting organic matter in our clay soil…lots of humus significantly influences the density of any soil and contributes to moisture and nutrient retention. We are always, always, always working to protect the land we farm.

That evening I notice a BIG storm playing over the Uncompahgre Plateau. (Un-come-pah-gray).

Today we have wind. Wind always signals Spring in our part of the world.

Your Western Colorado Farm Friend,

Linda

The Adventures of Fuzzy and Boomer on Friday — Fall Storm

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Dayphoto

The day started like this…Boom was resting and resting and resting. But Mom came out and started putting all the lawn furniture away…off we trotted to the old unused grain bin…first Boomer’s favorite bed, then his second favorite bed, then Dad’s favorite chair…after that all the tables and the benches. Back and forth Boomer and I went with Mom. We are very good helpers!!

Then when Dad and Mom went off to finish Shannon’s fireplace

the wind started up…it blew me this way and that! That is one thing about wind I really don’t like my fur going here and there and everywhere!

Gradually the day started to end as the wind got worse and worse.

Boomer and I decided we were NOT spending the night in the dog houses….no sire! Not tonight!

Because the wind and the rain and the ice were bad all night!!!

We woke up to a very cold morning! Mom started a fire in the fireplace; we all toasted until I just got too hot and HAD to go outside!!!

Mom wonders if the snow and ice have finished off the apple harvest. Mom says she hopes not.

Anyway …

Boomer and have stuff to do, we are off (he is that dot in the weeds) to check out how the farm and our wild friends did last night in that bad storm. As you can see we are just cold here, the rain didn’t really wet anything down, just turned to ice. As the sun has come up it melted.

“I’ll take it!” bayed Boomer. “Give me sun any day!”

Me too…that was enough for a while!

Fuzzy

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Dayphoto

The gale of a wind blew all day yesterday filling our air with choking dirt and dust. It was a mess changing water —

Boomer wouldn’t even trot around looking for things to smell by the last set of the night, he just sat himself down in the lowest point on the earth (a furrow) and waited for us to finish. Fuzzy had to work hard to stay with me, but he did it.

The wind picked up over the night and went from gale to very strong gale-it even blew off some tin on one of the roofs.

Then around three this morning it rained.

Everything settled down, cool and clear by the time we went out and sat the first tubes.

It was just lovely!

By the time we came in the wind was back. If the wind blows in the morning here it won’t stop until sometime at night, therefore, we will have wind all day.

The weather guys have issued a freeze warning for tonight and a freeze watch for tomorrow night. Then I am hoping we move back toward warmer weather.

Not broiling weather, warm weather. I hope the weather gods are reading this! 🙂

Linda

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Dayphoto

We fought wind and dust all day long yesterday. Sure was a mess!

And of course it had little bits of rain with it…nothing that does any good, just helps the blowing dirt stick to stuff.

Here is one of our windows to give you an idea…that isn’t rain, it’s dirt.

I went to bed thinking I will be glad when the weather settles and I can get the windows and screens washed.

This morning we woke up to this-

Yep! And we still irrigate even though there is snow.

Terry and I were talking about those that have corn seed in the ground ready to ‘water-up’–sort of scary, because this type of moisture will cause the seed to swell and break out roots and a stalk, if the water doesn’t hit them at the right time the seed will die.

That is one reason we water the ground first, wait for it to dry to the right stage of moisture and then plant.

Everyone has their own theory and knows what works for them, but for us this is what and why we do what we do.

Also, this type of weather is a mess for those in the ‘prep’ stage of ground work. You get the soil to the point of being a really nice sponge; it will act like a sponge. In our clay type of soil sponges turn rock hard if you don’t get on it right at a certain point.

As in all things timing is everything.

There is an old saying: “As in gambling so is farming” there just might be more than a grain of truth in it.

Well, moisture is moisture so we will just keep the fire going, the water flowing and know that someday, at some time, winter has just GOT to end! 🙂

Linda, from Canada sent me some bulbs of her Tarda Tulips, last year we were so dry they didn’t bloom, but this year they are lovely.

Of course they are covered up with snow right now, but the photos I got yesterday show you how beautiful they are

Spring time in the Rockies or is it still winter time? Maybe a mix of both 🙂

Linda

April 16, 2013 — The Perils of the Head Gate

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Dayphoto

After a very cold day yesterday, we woke up to thick frost on the ground which quickly melted by 7:30 this morning. It was lovely.

Although…………….

We could see Utah dirt coming in from the Uncompahgre (Un-come-pah-gray .. accent on the pah) Plateau. By 8.30 it was here…nasty wind, full of red dirt.

The weather guy said we would not see this wind until around 2-3 this afternoon (I wonder if harder wind is coming in at that time), then it would change over to rain and then snow and would snow most of Wednesday then blow out of here.

I took a couple of photos of Terry cleaning out the head gate. The Head gate is the out-take gate of the main canal to your farm….our canal, the one that runs by us is called the Ironstone, the water that leaves our place goes back into the Ironstone and into the FNC Lateral…which is a branch of the Ironstone canal.

We are lucky because the head gate to our farm is right at the beginning of our farm…its easy to monitor because it is so close. Some farms have head gates as far as 2-3 miles FROM their farm.

All head gates have to be monitored for trash, dead animals, big garbage that someone up the way didn’t want to deal with…on the most part everyone is really good about NOT dumping stuff into the canal for the next person to have to take of. Sometimes an animal will fall in (or get tossed in) we’ve had skunks, sheep, calves and pigs that have been caught in the head gate. No goats so far, which is good.

I’m heading out to sort firewood, we have some green I need to get into a different pile and I want to do it before the rain starts.

Thank each and everyone of you for following and/or commenting! I always appreciate how wide spread the world of blogging is and how diverse our worlds are; yet how very close blogging makes us. I am most grateful for this blogging world and for getting to know so many people from around the world.

Sincerely,

Linda

Sunday, March 24, 2013….March Leaves Like a Lion

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Dayphoto

We were up at 2:30 on Saturday morning to take Evan to the airport to go see Joylene in Canada.

Everything went really good for him until he got to Denver …then he was grounded until 8 that evening…

Snow storm…big one…that is already on it’s way to the rest of the country.

Terry’s sister and her husband live in Greeley and sent us over a photo of just what the snow looked like there…18″.

It didn’t snow here, but we did have the wind…frigid, face freezing wind and lots of it– 40 m.p.h. gusts with 25 m.p.h. sustained winds.

Today we are frozen…more like January and February instead of late March. I guess March is leaving like a lion…not long now until April.

I’m looking forward to April. This is a little robin, poor things they really look cold this morning.

Our wood is down to four logs so this afternoon we are heading to the upper end to cut wood from the downed trees, this time last year we were not worrying about heat except in the early morning.

Each year is decidedly different one never really knows what will happen.

I saw a headline on the internet saying this the winter that doesn’t leave.

Fits!

Linda

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Dayphoto

We are still cold here, but getting warmer every day. Although, it IS still coat wearing weather, at least it isn’t layered coat wearing weather :).

Terry started working on the ditches yesterday, but the wind was just too bad. In fact it blew one of the yard lights off it’s pole, so he had to stop.

The wind blew the storm over Grand Mesa, which is how our storms go…in through eastern Utah, then over Grand Mesa to the Craig, Steamboat Spring area and on to where ever they go from there. Sometimes they lose their steam along the way, but always they leave us by going toward Cedaredge and Grand Mesa.

We will start work on getting the spot ready for the old grainery...this might take some time, but it has to be moved before the first cutting of hay. Where it sits now is where the haystacks are going to sit.

I must be off…the sun has warmed the frost off of things and I need to be doing!

Have a nice day everyone!

Linda

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Dayphoto

We had another winter storm come in, complete with wind and drifting snow…I guess I really should expect it since IT IS FEBRUARY!

Some of the farmers, around here, started plowing…now they have a mess. Plowed up ground is like a huge sponge, then when it drys out (finally) it is just as hard and brittle as a dried out sponge.

Water is still an issue, although the snow pack should have grew some with the last several storms —- the last we heard snow pack was 77% of normal. Still a ways to go to normal, but much improved.

Usually the water is turned on the last week of March, but not this year — they will turn it on the third week in April and then at only 50% of your allotment. Of course, you still pay for the 100% you are entitled too. Our water bill is higher than our taxes, go figure.