"...Farm living is the life for me..."

July 17, 2012

OK, so where is that rooster crowing that is supposed to wake us to start our morning on the farm.! We slept way too late...but it was so dark and quiet out here amid the fields that we couldn't help it!

So in the absence of the rooster telling us to get up and get going, we get up and get going on our own...it is still fairly early, the morning shadows are long as the sun slowly rises, and the day is dawning bright and clear...it is going to be a hot one! We take a stroll around the nearby areas of the farm and then down the road a short distance just to begin to take in the sights and sounds (and smells) of the farm.

We pass by one of the corrals where cows are wide awake already and looking for breakfast...they see us coming and move toward us with demanding eyes...do we look like we brought feed for all of you?! Wait a few minutes and the feed truck will be by to give you your breakfast...

Our first adventure today is back into Vale to pick up Brian's dad, and then we get to see the onion packing operation. Brian's family grows a lot of onions and they pack their onions (and those of other farmers) for shipment to customers. Our first stop in the plant is the loading dock where the onions come in and and are loaded into the sorting machine. As they pass through the sorting machine, all the little onions drop out and the larger onions proceed into the processing line.

The first step in processing is a hand sort in which workers pull out defective onions before the final sort and packing.

Once the onions go into the sorter, they are gently dropped into cup-shaped holders by these big, soft rubber wheels...and here's the "amazing engineering" part...a computer weighs each onion to determine its size and then determines which chute the onion will exit into a bag. The onions then roll into the bag that has other onions of similar size, and when the bag is full the workers remove it and place an empty bag below the chute...

The final step is shipping, and here are two sizes of packages...the large bags are sent to food processors, and the smaller bags go to other customers...

Brian's brother operates the family farm with his son, and we decide to take a swing over to his place to see what he's up to. We find him working on his feed lot...now, just by way of explanation for all you city folk (like us), a feed lot is where cows go to eat and get big before they go to...um...er...your barbecue. Doug has quite an operation here...there are many hundreds of cattle segregated into areas based on the type of cattle, or the size, or who owns them...some people send their cattle to Doug to gain weight before they are sold for...um...er...steaks...

We decide to get out and walk around, and it's weird, but it seems the cattle are staring at us...

No, really, no matter where we walked or which pen we passed by, they all stared at us...! Patty leaned over and said, "We're never eating beef again..." Michael replied..."Please don't ever visit a chicken farm...!"

We learned that cattle don't just eat...they also drink...a lot...so today Doug and his crew are installing new water troughs. Here's a really interesting thing...they used to use those cast concrete funnels used for manholes in streets...but it turns out that these aren't big enough for all the cattle to get their drinks. So now they use old tires from huge mining trucks, and these things are about ten feet across. And because the tires are no good for mining trucks any more, farmers get them for free (but they have to pay for freight to get them delivered) and they don't rust, they don't wear out, and if you shoot a bullet through them they seal themselves (though we did not see any of the cattle carrying guns).

It's getting pretty hot, so Patty and Brian's dad supervise from the air conditioned car...

When you raise a lot of cattle you need a lot of space...and also no sense of smell...we gotta say, standing at a feed lot with this many cattle at high noon on a hot July day takes your breath away (actually, we just stopped breathing until we got back in the car and drove into the fields again).

Now it's time to take a tour of the fields and learn what it is that we're looking at. The first one is easy, even for us city folk...corn...and lot of it. But here's what we didn't know...they water these crops using siphon tubes. These tubes use a natural siphon action to draw water out of the irrigation channel and into the furrows between rows of corn. This is how you water a crop like corn that grows so fast and so tall that you can't really water it from above...

OK...time for a quiz...what's this plant?

If you guessed kale, guess again. If you guessed rhubarb, you need to stop guessing. If you guessed sugar beets, you win!

Next we get to see the onions that may some day end up at Jamieson Produce going through the packing process we saw this morning. Here's what we learned about growing onions (well, probably more accurate to say this is what we remember of what we learned...): Onions grow these tall leaves, and they eventually get 13 of these leaves by the time they are fully grown. Each one of these leaves translates into a layer on the mature onion...pretty amazing, right? And, when the onions are nearly ready for harvest, these leaves will fall over...so one day the field will go from acres of standing leaves to acres of fallen-over leaves...then it's time to harvest. But before they can harvest, they have to go through the fields and pull up all of the irrigation lines that run down each row, and then they have to go through the field and loosen the onions at their roots. Only then can you actually harvest the onions.

This is what onions look like as they as growing in the fields. There are two ways to plant onions...the first photo shows onions grown from seeds...and the second shows onions grown from transplants. The transplants get a head start because they are planted as baby onion plants, but it is incredibly labor intensive to plant all of the babies by hand...and we're talking about 150,000 plants! But these are bursting from the ground, and close to being ready to harvest...

This photo is posted a proof that Michael has learned his lesson about gates on farms and ranches. You see, when you get out of the truck to open the gate you are on the entry side, and when you close it you have to close it from the exit side, requiring you to actually go through the gate and then close it behind you. Years ago in Wyoming Michael was asked to open a range gate and warned not to close it from the wrong side...but of course he closed it from the entry side and left himself on the wrong side...we were with Kip at the time so of course Michael had to suffer the humiliation of climbing over the gate to get to the truck. But you see?! He's learned! He ended up on the right side!

What would a western adventure be without a little gun play...so we took a little time to do some shooting. We're not big on shooting live things, but cardboard boxes and plastic jugs are perfect targets so we start with something easy and fun...a semi-automatic .22 gauge rifle. Michael tries his hand, then Patty...and watch out, Patty is a sharpshooter...check out the scope she's using! And check out the nice clustering of shots!

Once we get the hang of shooting, we decide to take a step up...it's time for a pistol, and we start by shooting .38 caliber rounds to get the feel for it. Patty looks deadly serious...

And if you're going to shoot a pistol, you really need to go for the big gun...357 Magnum...This bad boy really packs a punch...not only is it much louder and provide a greater kick, you can actually feel the shock wave when the gun fires...now this is fun! (Please note we do have a gun safety officer present...thanks Brian!!)

Riding the range (in a Ford Explorer), working cattle (in the feed lot), and shooting guns can really build up an appetite, so we head to the local Willowcreek Store and Cafe for an early dinner with Brian and his Mom and Dad. The food hits the spot, but the milkshakes are awesome! Made the old fashioned way with real ice cream and milk, and they bring it to you in the metal container it's blended in!

 

So here's the surprise of the day...we're headed to a rodeo! As it turns out, the Snake River Stampede is just beginning in Nampa, Idaho, (right next to Boise) and Terry (Brian's sister-in-law) has a nephew competing in the event...could it get any better?! So we head off in with Brian to Nampa for the evening!

Now remember, it's hot out today...I mean really hot, in the nineties, so as we're buying tickets we're discussing which seats will be in the shade so we can try to stay cool in the hot late afternoon sun. As we're getting our tickets Brian asks if our seats will be in the shade, to which the ticket clerk replies "Um, it's indoors..." Great! A rodeo and air conditioning...! While we are pleased overall, Brian rightly points out that this will not be good for beer sales...so we commit ourselves to doing our part to bolster sales of Coors (and we lived up to our commitment)...

And here's the really funny thing...we find our way to our seats, and guess who's seated in the row in front of us...Doug and Terry, and their son Cory and his wife Mandy and their two adorable daughters...they must be putting all of the goofy people in the same section...or...great minds think alike as we all chose the prime seating area over the shoots. Regardless, there we all were!

The rodeo opens with the usual procession of flags of sponsors, the county, the state, and then Old Glory and the national anthem.

But then comes the big opening extravaganza...check this out...they turns out the lights, and out come all of these riders with electric lights outlining the riders and their horses....in red, white, and blue! God Bless America...!

As you'd expect at a rodeo, we saw alot of ropin' and ridin'...but we also saw an interesting competition that involved shooting and riding...so here's the deal, the young cowgirl rides around shooting the balloons...shooting one color balloon with one hand, then the other color with the other hand...it's really quite fun to watch...This young woman is from Vale, right near Brian's family's farm, so of course she's our favorite...however, if you see this young woman coming at you on a horse, take cover...

No rodeo would be complete without a sharp-tongued announcer and a dim-witted but lovable rodeo clown...so here they are from the Snake River Stampede...

Another event that does not involve tripping up or tying up a small helpless calf is an event called Barrel Riding. No, my city slicker friends, they do not actually ride barrels...they ride around barrels and compete for the fastest time...no animals get lassoed or dropped, only the occasional barrel gets knocked over...here's what it looks like...

Authors' Note: We've only been to one other rodeo, and we have to acknowledge that the Snake River Stampede seemed slightly more humane than the other one we attended...they even went so far as to give the steers protective headgear (called horn wraps) for the team roping event so that they won't get rope burn from the lasso going around their horns...how thoughtful is that!

Just like other entertainment, in rodeos they save the best for the last, and in this case the best is Bull Riding. In the spirit of full disclosure, we have to say that we typically root for the bulls, which puts us in a very small minority at a rodeo, but nevertheless we cheered when the bulls threw the riders. You can tell which chute the next bull and rider will come out of by the number of cowboy hats...Here's an example of a bull that figures if he spins in a circle long enough the cowboy will get dizzy and fall off...

Here's another bull that eventually gets rid of that little human on his back...

Because the next rider is Terry's nephew, we really have to root for him...at least for 8 seconds...Shane is a professional bull rider, and he's on the highest rated bull of 2011. We learned that the judges who score riders who complete the 8 seconds give a score (max 50 points) to the bull, and the same for the rider, so you need to have both a good bull and a good ride to get a high score. Here's Shane's ride...a full 8 seconds! Way to go Shane!

Shane's score was high enough to put him in fourth place, and the top 12 riders from three nights of competition will compete in the finals later in the week. So Shane might be back for the finale...in the meantime he's off to two other rodeos in the next two nights.

It's late when we get back to the farm, nearly midnight, and as we get out of the car we take a moment to look skyward...we love looking at the stars at night when we're away from city lights (the problem is that we usually go to bed before the sky is completely dark...what can we say, we're early-to-bed early-to-rise people...). Out here, the sky is pitch black, and we can see (literally) millions of stars...and when we see a sky like this we understand and appreciate the Milky Way much better...the sky in places looks like it has a milky white film, like if you were to drop a few drops of milk into a clear glass of water and it diffuses. It never ceases to be an awesome sight. We also pick out a couple of satellites as they fly over head (we wave, just I case it is taking pictures for the CIA or Google Earth) and then we turn in

What a great day and a half...we got to spend time with Brian and his family, and we learned so much about the farm and onions and corn and wheat and sugar beets and cattle and guns and rodeos...We have to get up early tomorrow and hit the road for our next destination...Crater Lake, Oregon. We'll definitely be back to visit the folks on Maag Road to continue our agricultural studies!

 

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