Earth Day Everyday

Everyday is Earth Day for Farmers and Ranchers.

Our lives depend on the land. 

We care for it so that it may care for us in an abundant and healthy harvest. 

We care for it because, for many, the land has been in the family for generations and to keep it for generations more requires care.

Here are a few recent examples of ways we care:

All four kill deer eggs hatched thanks to a cautionary flag added to the road to keep vehicles from driving over the nest.

This is the second of three owl boxes we have set up to help provide homes for Barn Owls. One box is fully occupied and we hope to have residents in the newest ones soon. 

We work with our farm consultants to utilize crop protection materials in a way that keeps these beneficial lady bugs thriving. 

We add wildflowers for bee and butterfly feed to promote healthy populations in both. 

None of these items is thanks to grant funding. We just strive to take care of our environment every day. The health of the land is vital to the health of our farm and family.

Everyday is Earth Day for Farmers.

Irrigation

This was my view at dawn this morning. This is what irrigating looks like for us. 

I've been meaning to do a post about irrigation for some time now. Irrigation is a pretty complex topic and really needs a very long post and a ton of pictures. So I'm going to give you the quickest version I can, because if I try to do a long one it was stay as a draft for way too long.

We irrigate all of our crops using surface water. This means that the water we use for irrigation is collected above ground. In our case it is rainfall and some snowmelt (none this year) collected during the winter months. The water is collected in man made resviours. The resivours also have the benefit of  being lakes and providing recreational opportunities. 

This is different that using well water. We do not have any ag pumps or ag wells. Our water is coming from above ground rather than below. 

Our water is delivered using a system of canals or open ditches. As seen in this picture. The open ditches are not as efficient but this system is an oldie but goodie and would be very expensive to replace. We are currently working on a project to convert an open ditch to a pipeline on 20 acres. Just for the 20 acres that project will cost about $60,000. So upgrades happen slowly.

Our water project delivers water to most of our neighbors and thousands of acres of farmland in our area. The water is running most of the time and we essentially take turns using it. It is more complicated than that, but the gist of it. 

So, this means that you only can irrigate when the water is in your area. So last night the water arrived at 6 pm. If we had decided we would prefer to sleep then we would not have the opportunity to irrigate for about 2 weeks. Crops need water to grow so that meant I had a very long night of changing irrigation water. I made changes at 11pm, 2:30 and 4:30 am and then gave it to a neighbor at 6:00 am. 

We often have people confused about why we change water at night. But we don't have much of an option. It is just the way our system works. It frequently limits our sleep, social lives and general plans. But, that's farming.

I'll try and post again with more about irrigation. It is a very complex subject. 

Silent Sunday Sunflowers

The first field of sunflowers - for us - is already done blooming.

I was a little past the prime photo opportunity on these.

But we have one more field yet to bloom, so I will try to be more on the ball with those pictures. 

New Growth!

Is 'Wordless Wednesday' still a thing? I hope so. 

This is what things are looking like around here - new growth! To save time and resources this year we no-tilled our Sudan crop right into the stubble of our winter hay crops. Since we have such limited water this year we needed to plant a drought tolerant crop and needed to save every drop of water in the soil. No-till helped is accomplish that. 

The green in the Sudan crop, the yellow/light brown is the stubble.