I think my own tractor is SEXY

I am so sorry for getting behind on my blogging. When you are working about 12 hours each day, and come home exhausted, it's really hard to pull out the computer, turn it on, wait forever for it to boot up, and then type out all the words in my head before I am asleep!

But....I told my mother today that I was going to try and catch up.
Here is a picture to hint at what I have been up to:

 That's right! I drive a TRACTOR! Can you ever believe that I would be doing this? Me neither. But, after many circumstances that were out of my control, I ended up here in Cortez, CO. I work with Trio #3 and her good friend, Brookelynn.

 We get to drive MacDon tractors all day. They are called Swathers and they cut hay. The picture above shows the rows of alfalfa that are freshly cut.

 Sometimes we find interesting creatures in the fields. These elks were really close to us, and could care less. It was awesome to see them soo close.

 And sometimes, the tractors get stuck in the mud. It is nasty! And you feel embarrassed when you have to announce over the radio that you need someone to come and pull you out. This is Trio #3's tractor that actually did NOT get stuck in the mud, but in a huge wheel rut, left behind by the sprinkler pivot.

 SHE IS FREE!

 This is a beautiful owl that we saw one day. I was riding tandem with Trio #3 in her tractor, and jumped out with my camera and chased the owl through the fields. The MacDon test tech stared at me like I was CrAzY! lol

 This was a HUGE pond in the middle of the fields. It makes it really hard for us to work in an efficient manner. If you look closely, you can see the shady bridge that crosses this grand canyon.

 The order of operations for the job, is to GROW the crops. Then we SWATH them. After they are cut, RAKERS come and combine two rows into one. After the piles are combined, the BALERS come and make bales. Then the STINGER comes and puts them in nice tall piles. When people don't do their jobs appropriately, this is what you find when you are trying to cut. A huge bale left behind....and lots of money lost because of it.

**WARNING** To those of you who have weak stomachs....do NOT look at the following pictures!!!

 I was driving in my swather, and it started to stink really bad. I could not figure out where the smell was coming from...and then I saw this when I drove past again. I will leave it up to you to notice the details... :o]

 If you know me, you know that I never wear t-shirts and jeans.  I think that it is too grungy, and I don't really have reasons to wear them. Well, working on the farm gives me reason to wear grungy clothes. I scrounged up as many t-shirts as I could from home and brought them with me. Most of them have some sort of significant value...so when I ruined the first t-shirt, I was really bummed. So, to solve the problem, I bought some mens undershirts. Well, wearing white is not a grand idea....so we had some fun! We each took turns to tie-dye my undershirts. Look how awesome they turned out!!

Trio #3's design

Trio #2's first design

Trio #2's second design

Trio #2's third design

Brookelynn's design

my hands were blue and purple after the fact!