Indy's Birthday

By now most of you have met my dog Indy. Today is Indy's third birthday, that is 21 in dog years.
He's the best dog I have ever had. He cracks me up every day.
He's good for my health. He is very insistent about our daily walks. It is pretty hard to skip a walk when you have a hundred and ten pounds of bouncing puppy dog thinking it is W-A-L-K time.

   Is that one relaxed puppy dog, or what? When he is really happy every molecule of his body is spread out as far as possible. He is a Zen Master, or at least a NAP Master.

   It's hard to explain the sense of contentment for Indy and I when I am working in my office and he is sleeping at my feet. I don't think cat people get to experience anything like that.

   We have been everywhere together. Not only does he come to the ranch with me [when he wants], we have gone hiking and even to Shakespeare in the Park. The folks at church probably remember when I brought him one Sunday when I was preaching. [I still think there is a pretty strong parallel between God's unconditional love for us and Indy's unconditional love for me.]

   I didn't have a pickup dog for twenty years. It was time and I couldn't have asked for a better furry friend.
Thanks Big Guy! Many happy returns on your big day.

Meanwhile-back on the farm:
   This will be the last week of irrigation on the cotton. Next week we'll pick up all the irrigation equipment and head for the shop. Time to go through all the equipment and fix all the dings from the season.
   We got one orchard ready to sweep up almonds and the other field ready for shaking.
I was really struck this week with how much is going on in farm country. There are crews, harvesting equipment and trucks everywhere. Almonds, grapes, carrots, tomatoes, garlic, and onions are being harvested...and that's just in my neighborhood. Busy times. Fortunately the weather is cooling off a little. Much more civilized.

You can find this week's radio pieces at-
http://www.940kyno.com/index.php?c=68

I hope Y'all have a a great week.

Cut Out

The heat is finally starting to break, a little. You know it has been hot when the high 90's feel good. Talking to a dairyman the other day he said we had 12 days of 105 plus weather. That is just too hot.
   The first summer we were up here, the very first three weeks I was on the farm we had three straight weeks of 100 degree plus heat. I was driving a D8 Cat and in those days there was no air conditioning on the big tractors. This little ole San Diego boy was wondering what he had gotten himself in to. Trying to be helpful a neighbor kept saying there were usually only two or three 100 degree days then things cooled off. After the second week I was beginning to get suspicious that someone was pulling my leg.
   But, the heat is part of farming. We need sunshine to make the crops grow.

   Speaking of growing, what you want to see now in the cotton is what we call cut out. If we have managed the crop right it stop growing, run out of fertilizer and water and then next month we can start defoliating. The first step is to get it to bloom to the top, it is a sign the plant is maturing. In the picture above you can see we are right on schedule. The fields are blooming to the top right on time.
   Of course, the banker and my boss are asking if we have a three bale crop out there. There is a saying about counting chicks before they hatch. I think the same thing applies to cotton. It looks good, but there is still plenty of time to screw it up. We'll know when it is picked, ginned and baled and not before.

Hard to Explain It to Your Kids

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright July 2012

You want to teach your kids that If they work hard, pay attention to details and put in the extra effort you can succeed in life. And, I think that is true. But, it is hard to prove it in farming. You can work hard, put in the extra effort and pay attention to the details and… a hail storm hits or rain fall soaks your cantaloupes or it’s just a bad year and the weather for the season as a whole is not conducive to growing a bumper crop.

            Perhaps it is true that the successful farmers  who work hard, and pay attention to the details are more prepared  to take advantage of the good years and survive the bad years. But, it is hard to explain it to your kids when they are growing up.

            Please don’t get me wrong- I think farm kids have some great experiences and great advantages in their lives. The work ethic they learn growing up on the farm will stay with them all their lives. But, I think some of them leave the farm because they figure there just might be a more sure way to make a living.

http://www.940kyno.com/index.php?c=68

I hope Y'all have a great week!

P

The Original Solar Power

Do you remember the grapevine photos from last Spring?

This is what the grapes look like these days. Almost time for harvest. We turn sunshine in to yummy goodness.

It has been wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too hot this past week, and the coming week doesn't look much better.

While it has been too hot, we do get a lot of sunshine. Below is a recent radio script about how we use that sunshine.

Farming: the Original Solar Power

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright July 2012

                If you look at it in its simplest form what I do on the farm is convert solar energy into food energy. That would make farming the original solar power.

            There is a whole lot of hoopla about alternative energy these days and that is fine. But, let’s not forget what farmers are really doing out there. We are turning sunlight into food through the process of photosynthesis. I remember learning about photosynthesis in elementary school. I didn’t know I would be making my living by photosynthesis and I sure didn’t understand everything we see and do, our whole society depends on this amazing process.

            Modern agriculture is amazing. I know food prices are climbing, but we still spend a historically small percentage of our income on food. We also spend a fairly small amount of our time preparing food. It wasn’t too long ago it would take all day prepare, cook and clean up the meals for a family. But, all our modern wonders wouldn’t happen if we didn’t have sunshine to turn seed, soil and a little water into the food we all eat. Pretty amazing isn’t it?

I hope Y'all have a great week.

Careful out there in the heat.

Almost Caught with My Pants Down

It's almond harvest time again!


Even though I had everything ready a week ahead of usual, the first field was a little too dry and we had a lot of almonds stuck up in the trees after the shaker went through. The second field is better, but we are going to have to hand pole to clean up the first bloc. Arrrgh. I was ready a week ahead of time and I was still a week behind.


In other news-We are watering the cotton and working the wheat ground. A little more water and fertilizer and the cotton will be done. We'll open the wheat ground and leave it for a few weeks then bed it back up next month.

Community Gardens

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright July 2012

                First Lady Michelle Obama sparked a renewed interest in school and community gardens. You know me—I support anything that re-connects people and their food.

            In this case I absolutely support school and community gardens. I think when kids work all summer watering and weeding their school gardens and all they get is a salad they will have a new appreciation of what farmers do. When they watch bugs eat up their garden or find worms in those nice big ears of corn they’ll have a new understanding of why farmers use those ‘nasty’ pesticides.

            This is no joke and I am not just being a smart a—leck. I really hope every community and school garden flourishes. Growing food is one of the essential activities of life itself.

I am not sure I can explain why but, Corn is sweeter when we grow it ourselves. Tomatoes are tastier when they come from our garden.  There is a sense of satisfaction that is---priceless.

So, I salute all those community gardeners. My hat is off to every student working in a school garden. As a guy who make his living growing food I wish you all the very best.

I hope Y'all have a great week.

P

Bone Yards

Bone YardsBy Paul H. BetancourtCopyright June 2012

                Before the price of scrap iron spiked a few years ago, every farm had a ‘bone yard’ where old equipment and broken bolts went when they died. They were kind of picturesque. As a photographer I could find interesting shapes and colors to shoot. The rusted equipment looked good in color or black and white.

            The enviros want us to recycle. Well the price of scrap went up a few years ago and it was finally worth the gas to load stuff up and haul it in. We had over 20 years of stuff piled up in the bone yard. I hauled over three tons of stuff to the recycler before we got serious and got a dumpster out there and really started tossing junk out.

            Now the yard looks a lot cleaner. Even the neighbors noticed. But, wouldn’t you know it? Cleaning up the yard is like cleaning out the junk drawer in your kitchen, no sooner do I finally toss something and I can think of a dozen ways I need it.

So, the yard is cleaner, but I can’t find anything! And I have to look harder to find interesting pictures.

Hope Y'all have a great week watching the Olympics
USA! USA! USA!

Bugs and Water

   As you can see from the photo, the cotton is growing. That is my bug net in the foreground. This time of year we are checking fields at least once a week for bugs. We monitor pest and predator populations. As long as there are more predators than pest species we can skip spraying. But, remember, the predators have to eat something don't they? So we are always at risk of some pest damage. By keeping a close on it we can balance the need to produce a crop and care for the environment.

   We have been spoon feeding the cotton some fertilizer. Instead of dumping it on all at once. We run it in the irrigation water. The amount we put on is determined by leaf samples. The plant tells us when it needs more food. That way our fertilizer goes into the plant and doesn't get flushed down in the groundwater.

   In other news, wheat prices are up $80 per ton since last month. This has been caused by the drought in the Mid West. Their yields will be much smaller than expected and with a fixed supply the price goes up.

   We are about three weeks from the start of almond harvest. We will start preparing the centers for harvest in the next week or so. While the dogs were taking me on our walk this morning I realized it is late July already. Wow, that was fast. We must be having fun, because time sure is flying.

Here is one of this week's radio scripts-

It’s Soil, Not Dirt

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright June 2012

                I was reminded last year of something even farmers forget- it’s soil, not dirt.

            A lot of people, even some farmers, think all the dirt does is hold the plants upright. There is a lot more to soil than holding the plant up.

            Last year Fresno State previewed a film by Deborah Koons Garcia titled Symphony of the Soil. In the film Garcia shows the amazing complexity of fungi and bacteria in the soil. I have been farming for thirty years and I had forgotten that there are fungi in the soil that help some plant roots grow. Pretty amazing.

            As Garcia illustrates there is a complex symphony of things happening in our soils. It’s not dirt, it’s soil and it’s full of life. There is complexity that staggers the imagination that’s below the surface at the molecular level. Leonardo Da Vinci wrote six hundred years ago, “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” Not much has changed has it? We’ve been to the Moon, but we are still surprised by what’s underfoot.

I hope Y'all have a great week.

P

Dang, that was hot!

No matter how you slice it 109F is hot. The good news in our Valley is the mornings are 30 degrees cooler and humidity isn't an issue.

   Cotton blooms are yellow the first day, then fade and turn pink. When they drop off they leave a little cotton boll which grows and gives us the cotton fiber.
   This week I got the petiole results back from the lab. It showed two fields were short on nitrogen. We started a water run of nitrogen fertilizer in the fields we were irrigating.We boost the other fields this next week.

I wish I had a good picture of a cantaloupe for this piece from the radio this week.

Fresh II

By Paul H. Betancourt

Copyright June 2012

                Previously I mentioned how we used to grow cantaloupes. We don’t do that anymore. Growing fresh produce isn’t for the faint-hearted.

                Growing fresh fruits and vegetables is a roller coaster. If you hit the market you can make serious money. If the market is down you get nothing, but bills. There a no guaranties. The first year the family grew melons they netted over thousand dollars an acre.  Some years we disked the field in. Over the years I figure we broke even on melons, but it is tough on the nerves and makes for crazy cash flow. Bankers are rarely impressed.

                We had no idea when we planted if there was going to be any money in it. Even as harvest started all we got was a daily pack out sheet telling us how many loads and the daily spot price. Current spot prices don’t tell what the fruit actually sold for, we didn’t find that out for thirty days. So, we have all the expenses and work of planting and caring for the crop and no real idea of what we made until a month after harvest. On top of that melons are really perishable. They are at peak freshness only so long.

                Can you see why we quit? Everything we grow now be boxed, baled and stored. It’s easier on my blood pressure.

I hope Y'all have a great week.