From Rancher To Farmer

 Yet another gorgeous day in sunny California.  Not too hot, not too cold, but just baby bear perfect.  I was pretty wiped out from Bingo's late night, so Cooper and I snoozed on the couch longer than necessary.  I have to say he loves sleeping next to his Mom, so I stayed extra long while catching up on a little Reno Rodeo on TV.  

Then I was off to the repair shop.  This is weird ... I think I know these guys.  I had a kind of deja vu when I walked inside.  I talked to the nice young guy for a bit, telling him what the problem was, and he actually listened.  That's unusual when talking to mechanics since I'm a gal.  Yes, they really do treat you differently ... usually discounting everything you say.  

He said they would check it all out, trying the air cleaner suggestion first, then possibly replacing the air sensor.  Maybe their diagnostic tools can provide more information, I don't know.  The problem is me ... I should have done this two months ago.  Once the light goes out, which it does after a few days, I forget all about it.  They can't get me in until Monday.  That doesn't leave me much time, so I'll just have to wing it.  Worst case, my diesel RV towing buddy said to slow down going uphill.

Back home, spending WAY too much time thinking about the truck, I finished sewing these pieces together.  YAY ...  no more piles of little pieces on my table.  I admit, I was distracted with the truck and Cooper when I discovered I sewed not one, but TWO rows on upside down.  RATS!!

There's nothing like spending another hour taking rows apart and resewing them.  Big sigh!!  It's done for now and in a to-go box that will be going to Tucson.  I'll add borders and finish it up there.

So let's get back to ranching.  There's a difference you know ... ranching involves livestock.  Farming involves growing things.  It's the old fight between the cattlemen and the farmers from back East putting up fences and taking away the land the cattlemen used for grazing.  We ended up on both sides of the fence.

Once the approval was given, the heavy equipment arrived in full force.  All the neighbors worked us into their schedule of discing and making contours so the water would meander across the fields.  Once that was done, we opened the big check valves and flooded the entire ranch for several days before letting it out the far end.

That's when the real fun began ... planting.  It was done by airplane, dropping the seed into the wet muddy soil.  You've seen those crop dusters skim the top of the fenceposts?  It was always so fascinating to watch.  Not so fun getting all that seed out of your hair though.  

In later years they used helicopters that would land on a platform on top of a one ton truck.  Once planted, we let the water back onto the fields and kept it there the entire time.

I didn't get to help out with any of that ... sniff sniff, but you KNOW I was out watching them every day I wasn't at work in town.  It takes about 5 months to grow a crop, depending on what type of rice you grew.  Since we were producing for a specific guy who had his own markets in Japan, we grew the rice he actually invented.  No kidding, he had his very own variety of rice.

Everyone has their favorite, and the Japanese people are VERY particular about their rice.  If you don't grow the right rice with the properties they love, they won't buy it.  Everything went along fine until in the 1970's, thousands of Hmong people were dumped off in our area with no acclimation and no instruction in how to get along in the U.S.  

They are farmers ... they live off the land ... and where they were from, no one owed the land except the government.  They thought they should be able to do the same here ... just go harvest whatever they wanted.  Time and time again, we would find them in our fields, chopping down the rice.  They even set up their kitchen and cooked it right in our fields.  It was a problem we had to deal with for years.

It is why there are no longer jackrabbits, crawfish, bullfrogs, coyotes or catfish left in this area.  None ... zero.  They literally ate them into oblivion.  It's too sad.  I used to love walking along the ditch banks with a flashlight, catching frogs for dinner.

Finally at harvest time, the big guns came out.  The harvester on the left would cut the tops off and "sift" out the chaff, then feed it through the extension to fill the bankout wagon (on the right).  The water had been drained out of the fields, but they were still really muddy.  Even with those huge tires, the bankout wagons would get stuck.  

When full, the next wagon would come up behind and slide under the extension so there was no stopping. The full wagon would drive to the nearest hard road where trucks were parked, waiting to be filled up.  The trucks hauled the rice to the hulling plant where it was processed, bagged and shipped out to Japan.  

As soon as the chaff dried out enough, we began the process of getting ready for next year's crop.  That's where my love of heavy equipment began, but in the interest of keeping this short-er, I'll relate that part tomorrow!!