Across the Road in 2015

I thought I did a post like this for 2014, but I didn't. You have to go back to this post to see what it was like Across the Road in 2013. My plan is to make a photo record of the changes that I see from standing at our mailbox. To do that correctly I'd need to do it on the same day each week (or month), with the same camera, using the same lens, and at the same time of day. FAIL. Here is what I have (and it's probably more interesting this way).January 22, 2015. February 5.February. Almonds are blooming.

In this photo our pasture has started to green up because I irrigated in mid-March. Normally the irrigation district doesn't provide water until April or May but due to the drought we have been getting water earlier. In 2014 we irrigated in January. The green in the background of the aerial photo is hay or  wheat or barley fields. April 26, 2015. The field has been bedded, ready for tomatoes.May 3, 2015June 9, 2015July 22, 2015August 9, 2015August 30, 2015This is a photo taken across the road, from Across the Road. (That is my pasture looking west.)The alfalfa field that is the green triangle in the upper right in the aerial photo.Beans that were planted after the wheat harvest in the are shown in the triangle that is the upper center of the aerial photo.September 5, 2015.September 9, 2015. It took 4 days, working 24 hours/day to finish harvesting this field.September 23, 2015. Back to the beans. The dry plants have been put into windrows waiting for harvest.September 27, 2015.October 6, 2015. Field disked and bedded waiting for the next planting. I'm told that it will be planted to sunflowers this spring.November 29, 2015. If we have regular rain I can't walk across here because it gets too muddy. There have been very few days that we haven't been able to walk. December 1, 2015. View of our place, looking west across the field. We need to see more green on those hills.

Sustainable Cotton Tour - Part 2

I thought that this would be a one blog post event but there was a lot going on. In the last blog post I wrote about our morning watching cotton being harvested and ginned.  After touring the gin we loaded the two buses and drove to the Cardella Winery in Mendota where we had a great catered lunch. I admired the table decorations. We listened to speakers after lunch. Steve Melanca spoke about the movement he created, "My Job Depends on Ag" to raise awareness of how important agriculture is to the California economy. More about this in a future blog post.Lydia Wendt of California Cloth Foundry spoke and showed products that are produced from Cleaner Cotton and natural dyes.Lynda Grose spoke more about bringing Cleaner Cotton into the supply chain of manufacturers and designers. We got back on the bus and stopped not far from the winery to listen to Dan Munk, a UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor discuss cotton production and water use of cotton and other crops. Cotton requires 28" of water in a growing season. Nut and fruit trees require 48-52" of water. The western side of the San Joaquin Valley is in a rain shadow created by the mountains and receives only about 12" of rain annually. Surface water use has been curtailed or drastically reduced over the last few years of California's drought so people are relying more on ground water.The most available ground water is salty, coming from what was an old sea bed so wells must go down 300-500 feet for clear water. This is not only very costly but now some areas are having to deal with subsidence--where the ground is actually sinking from the loss of ground water. This becomes a major issue when you consider the effects on that on concrete roadways and major water canals. No matter the water source, when drip systems are used filtration systems (shown in the two photos above) are vital to maintain the systems in working order. Back to the buses.The last stop was at Frank Williams and Mark Fickett's colored cotton field. We learned about the perennial hedgerow that was planted to increase biodiversity and beneficial insect activity. Unfortunately it hasn't really been tested because since the hedgerow was planted there hasn't been enough water to plant these fields. Hillary Sardinas also spoke about her passion and recent PhD thesis, the huge variety of native bees that are important components of the ecosystem and provide more complete pollination for cotton crops. She represents the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation (think Audobon Society for insects) and was fun to listen too. I had no idea that we had all these native bees and that they mostly live in ground burrows.Plants along the half mile hedgerow had been labeled for our benefit.I got carried away walking up the hedgerow (right in this photo) and missed hearing the farmer speak about the patch of colored cotton on the other side. I think that it may have planted for our benefit because it is just a small area and it was filled with all varieties of cotton that have been parts of the breeding work that these farmers have been doing over the years.   

We were given bags and were able to pick as much cotton as we wanted to.

This is Dona and me back on the bus. The tour ended about 5 and we drove home. This was a full day and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this part of the valley up close and learning about the SCP and cotton farming in general.This is the cotton that was packed into my ziplock bag. My goal is to spin and weave it before the next tour.

Harvesting Tomatoes

I'm a bit behind on this blog post but I took a lot of photos and still wanted to share it. Do you remember when they planted tomatoes Across the Road in early May? Five months later those tomatoes were ready to harvest.  These are not big juicy table tomatoes on five-foot high plants. They are smaller canning tomatoes that can be mechanically harvested. This is the first time I've seen the  harvester that doesn't have people riding on it while sorting tomatoes. It's all done mechanically.Two tractors run side-by-side. One pulls the bins that hold the tomatoes.The other pulls the harvester.The tomato plants are cut off and pulled up a conveyer where the tomatoes are sorted from the plant and sent through that yellow chute into the bins. Unwanted plant material, including smaller tomatoes come out over the roller towards the base of the harvester.

 Here they are waiting for the next tractor and bins to catch up to the harvester. Is it any wonder that everything in my house is covered with a layer of fine dust.?

 Haresting of this field took a lot longer than I expected. They worked out there 24 hours/day for 2 1/2 days.

A few tomatoes spill out when the truck makes the turn onto the roas.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           This is a photo taken at the end of the harvest.