1-29-10

Mud farming

Here is a young planting of Alfalfa. At both ends are flat zones where the harvesting equipment can turn around. They just let a huge amount of water in the fields and it seeks the furrows and floods the whole field. The ground here is really flat. It must be a more efficient way of using water as it is very expensive down here.

After that tornado and major rain event the roads were still flooded after a couple of days. The tornado knocked down over twenty of these power poles.

I met these folks that were selling handmade quilts over in Quartzite when the tornado blew through town. He said he was one of the lucky ones. They were spending the day over at the laundry washing and drying their stuff.

This is how they irrigate the lettuce fields, with siphon tubes. They were not doing it here, there was just a lot of water in the ditches from the rain.

A lot of the hay piles were in small lakes. I bet those bottom bales are going to be ruined. It is such a waste of prime hay.

The high winds of the tornado took their toll on the harvesting equipment.  The tornado did hit ground just north of my camp. It knocked down over twenty power poles but missed the town of Blythe, but they did get a lot of wind that knocked down trees and such.

Here is a nice little Canned Ham trailer. Cactus Jack was lucky to find one just down the street from him in Salida, CO. they are becoming collectable. This one looks abandoned.

I got the bloodhound out and took a ride on the levees. Wow, they are wonderful roads and follow both sides of the river. For those of us that like to ride GS bikes, it was like a freeway with no traffic or speed limits.

The sheep were really stocked heavy here and I am sure that they were being used to make the field ‘weed free’. It will make a nice new crop of clean alfalfa.

Even with the major rain event the irrigation ditches were full.

I’m not sure if these beds were planted yet, but if not they are ready.

A few of the fields had these deep ditches dug in them. I suppose they are going to install drain tiles. I think some of this land is now showing the signs of salt buildup and this way they will be able to bring the salt level down by leaching it out.

It sure is scary for me to see these huge fields of broccoli with not ONE weed in them. Are you sure you want to eat some of this with who knows what on it? Looks good though.

This hay guy has a fortune if he is able to get $25 /bale.

one of the farms was harvesting palm trees.

I was amazed that they could get in the fields and harvest so soon after the rain. These four wheel drive Mudder tractors are amazing.

It took two of them to pull this rig down the field. It is going at a very slow walk, almost a crawl. The tractors have an amazing low gear.

These guys were harvesting a couple of strips that they harvester will travel down. They don’t take every head, I guess maybe there was 40% waste. Only the perfect heads for the grocery shopper are picked.

Getting that thing truned around was a major ordeal. It must have taken them around an hour to get going in the other direction. Lots of arm waving and yelling in Spanish. Lots of women working on the deck so I suppose it was tamed down some.

they had to drive across the rows to get back into where the ones that are wrapped up in the field. That meant that everyone had to get out in the field and puissant the heads to the girls on the packer. The mud was vicious.

This gal is putting a piece of tap to close the plastic bag. She then packs it in a box.

This was heavy puissant work.

Another harvesting operation on another road.

Here the guys are bending over and harvesting the broccoli and standing up and throwing it over their head onto the table behind them. the girls would then gather and bunch the heads and pack in boxes.

This was really hard work and I can hardly imagine a white guy being able to do it. The more I see of Big Ag the more I realize if it wasn’t for Mexicans, we would have very little to eat.

Again, it is just so scary to see these fields with not one weed. I have grown enough veggies to know that there are thousands of weeds just ready to pop out of the ground and compete. I guess they have these weeds scared to death.

a very young planting. No weeds here either.

Another group of guys hand harvesting on the ground. No packing table for this group. Nice little hay stack in the back, along the road.

Harvested and ready to harvest.  At least there were a few weeds in this field, but not many.

sprinkler pipes ready to go out in the fields to get a crop up. They will flood or furrow irrigate after the crop is up.