And Still Farther South

8th October
Drive - not much else to report - Just down the road across South Dakota and into Nebraska. Just across the borderis a nice RV park about 6 miles prior to Valentine Nebraska. We stayed at it last year. It is pretty well out in the country, but does have all the amenities, even good WIFI We did stop briefly in Fort Pierre, at the Casey Tibbs memorial, as we do have a sort of connection to him.

Casey and the Bronc

Again!

In His Memory

 Denice's cousins' husband, Disco, is Casey's great nephew.  Also coming through Pierre we had a chance to check the heigth of ELTORO. There was a truck route around the city, but we wanted to see the sites, so we decided to drive through. On route there is a railroad underpass with a sign indicating 11 feet 3 inches clearance. There was a flashing light indicating over heigth and splash marks all over the bridge rail. Denice says, " Can we make it"? We went through last fall so I guess we must be able and we are already there ----  The antennaes make contact, but there is no load crashes, so I guess we are under 11 feet 3 inches, but I don't think I will try that again. Signs are not always exact!!  Then on south on 83 to highway 90, west for 20 miles to Murdo, then south again on 83. Coming across South Dakota on Highway  83, we noticed that it is a dedicated heavy haul route. We saw lots of heavy oilfield trucks, mostly hauling 400 bbl oil tanks and we presume they are headed to Williston North Dakota and the oil boom going on there now.



And a backup of traffic behind it!!!

  We must have met 20 to 30 of them, each hauling two tanks. This would likely be the shortest distance between where ever the tanks are made, north across South Dakota to Highway 90, then west to Rapid City and on to Sturgis and then north on 85 to Williston.  That was about all the excitement for the day. This was South Dakota!!!!
9th October
Laid around this morning at the RV Park here in Valentine, as it was quite windy and cool, but after lunch took a drive out through the sand hills and the Ogalalla aquifer area where Enbridge wishes to build the pipeline to Texas. Not sure how close we were to the actual pipeline route, but in the general area. Easy to see the opposition to this area as it is home to a myriad of birds.

Google Map of area south of Valentine in the Sand Hills

 We were a little too early in the fall to see many of the migratory foul, and being a windy day, many of the smaller birds were hidden in the grass. But we were still able to see many different ones, and even quite a few wild turkeys. Also white pelicans, Canada geese, a few swans, and lots of kinds of ducks.



A wood Pecker



White Pelicans

Tornado Shelter

Thanksgiving Dinner

Fire Lookout built by the CCS a long time ago

A Sparrow  ------------- (I think)

Brick work in Valentine

More

And a sunset

Returned to ELTORO for supper.

10th October
Just a good day of driving again. Left the RV Park at Valentine at 8:30AM and headed south on 83 once more. Went through the Nebraska sand hill again and continued on to Kansas.

Conveying harvested corn into a pile

Now there is a pile of corn!!

Will make lots of corn flakes

This area is definitely a farming area with lots of corn, sunflowers, and millett still to be harvested.

Sunflowers

Sunflowers

Millett

More Millett

Stopped for the night in Oakley, Kansas at High Plains RV Park.



As the sign says

  It was quite windy so we were ready for  rest. ELTORO is noticeably pushed during high winds, espacially if they are broadside, and this makes my co-pilot fairly nervious. And besides, we are retired and in now real hurry to get anywhere. Just as long as it is warm and there are no snow drifts!!
11th October
Short Day today - only 150 miles from Oakley, Kansas to Liberal, Kansas. All flat land with little of real interest and worthy of blogging about. Checked into Western RV Park near noon and got settled in.

Denice on her walkabout on the Parks exercise track

 Then went to Walmart for some groceries. The Lady that owns the RV park came over this evening to collect her $25 fee for the night, and since she is a Farmers wife who owns a large spread and indeed the land where the RV Park is situated, I asked her what the crop was that is growing along the Park. This is the same one that we have been seeing for the last few hundred miles, and we have been calling it millett, but she enlightened us and said it is milo, or sorgum.



Just a item off the Internet




Close up of Milo

 They apparantly grow lots of it, so she should know. She says it is primarly for pig feed, and the stocks for cattle feed. Cows cannot eat the grain as it causes them to bloat and may even cause death.  An even greater use nowadays is for ethanol, as it is better than corn for that use. Now go back a day on my Blog and change those pictures I called Millett to Milo. Well, how was I supposed to know!!  I was from a farm, but we never grew any of these crops, only wheat, barley, and oats.

12th October
Just stopped and smelled the roses today. Had some plans to go 60 miles to Texhoma to where a Great-Aunt of Denice's is buried, but somehow that just fizzled and we just read and rested. The only real thing of interest was a million blackbirds performing aereal ballet. We believe this behavior is called murmuration Here is a desciption of that performance:
A behavior is an amazing phenomenon of coordinated movements involving masses of birds that is breathtaking to see. It’s called murmuration and can involve thousands of birds. The purple martins put on a spectacular show in Richmond every year but the blackbirds dazzle us with their aerial ballets just about everywhere. The masses seem to collaborate as they dip and dive and rise and divide in unison. There is no leader. How do they do this? Are there any rules? No one really knows but it’s awe-inspiring to watch.

To get an idea of the beauty of murmuration, check out this video of two young people, Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith, who paddled their canoes in wet, winter weather and caught all the wonderful cloud action of starlings on film. Spectacular! (Double click on this link to view the video)
http://vimeo.com/31158841
The ones we saw were a mile away but with our high zoom cameras we were able to record some of those maneuvers.

We had heard before of them doing this, in fact watched a video from the UK of a lady recording an event, but this was a first for us. We first noticed them in what looked like a black cloud leaving the ground, but then it looped and twirled in various directions before returning to the ground. Since they were more than a mile away we decided to take a closer look.

A bunch of Blackbirds - Is that called a "Murder"? or is that only for crows??



Check out every available spot is occupied by a bird



 When we got near on a gravel road, we could see a big black line across the road. Closer inspection showed thousands of black birds sitting there. We drove closer and they would get up and fly, but soon returned to the road again. We weren't able to get any good shots of their ballet performance, but did get some of them flying about.  As this was late in the day we headed to Applebee's for dinner, and then home to ELTORO.

13th October
Son Ross's Birthday today. My goodness 45 years old!! How old does that make us??

We kind of procrastinated this morning. Hummed and hawed about moving on or just spending another day in Liberal. Checked forcast for on down the road and tomorrow appeared better than today. Less wind, today was up tp 25mph and that does buffet ELTORO quite a bit, so we kind of decided to wait it out for another day. But Lo and Behold after about 9:00AM it seemed very nice so on the spur of the moment decided to get going. On the road by 9:30. We did hit some wind and by the time we got to Childress on 83 it must have bee the 25mph, but there we turned east for 20 miles to an RV Park that we have been in before at Goodlett, called the Olde Town Cotton Gin. Checked in there by 2:00PM. They were quite fulll as a big power line is being build across the state near here, and most of the spots are taken by the workers and their families, but we were able to get one. It was now time for tea. When I checked in the clerk/owner advised a possibilty of strong winds and maybe even hail late this afternoon. Sure hope not!! Oh, by the evening it had never materialized. Just strong winds. Along the way today  we saw lots of cotton growing in various stages, and of course this intrigued me so I had to google it once we were parked, and here is what I came up with if you are interested:

Denice'
Denice's picture of growing cotton

How Cotton is Grown

After cotton has been harvested, producers who use conventional tillage practices cut down and chop the cotton stalks. The next step is to turn the remaining residue underneath the soil surface. Producers who practice a style of farming called conservation tillage often choose to leave their stalks standing and leave the plant residue on the surface of the soil.

In the spring, farmers prepare for planting in several ways. Producers who plant using no-till or conservation tillage methods, use special equipment designed to plant the seed through the litter that covers the soil surface. Producers who employ conventional tillage practices, plow or “list” the land into rows forming firm seed-beds for planting. Producers in south Texas plant cotton as early as February. In Missouri and other northern parts of the Cotton Belt, they plant as late as June.
Seeding is done with mechanical planters which cover as many as 10 to 24 rows at a time. The planter opens a small trench or furrow in each row, drops in the right amount of seed, covers them and packs the earth on top of them. The seed is planted at uniform intervals in either small clumps (“hill-dropped”) or singularly (“drilled”). Machines called cultivators are used to uproot weeds and grass, which compete with the cotton plant for soil nutrients, sunlight and water.

About two months after planting, flower buds called squares appear on the cotton plants. In another three weeks, the blossoms open. Their petals change from creamy white to yellow, then pink and finally, dark red. After three days, they wither and fall, leaving green pods which are called cotton bolls.

Inside the boll, which is shaped like a tiny football, moist fibers grow and push out from the newly formed seeds. As the boll ripens, it turns brown. The fibers continue to expand under the warm sun. Finally, they split the boll apart and the fluffy cotton bursts forth. It looks like white cotton candy.

Since hand labor is no longer used in the U.S. to harvest cotton, the crop is harvested by machines, either a picker or a stripper. Cotton picking machines have spindles that pick (twist) the seed cotton from the burrs that are attached to plants’ stems. Doffers then remove the seed cotton from the spindles and knock the seed cotton into the conveying system.

Conventional cotton stripping machines use rollers equipped with alternating bats and brushes to knock the open bolls from the plants into a conveyor.

A second kind of stripper harvester uses a broadcast attachment that looks similar to a grain header on a combine. All harvesting systems use air to convey and elevate the seed cotton into a storage bin referred to as a basket. Once the basket is full, the stored seed cotton is dumped into a boll buggy, trailer or module builder.

Now both you and I know how cotton is grown.  Maybe I will later show how it is ginned as shown on Wikipedia.
14th October
Sunday, a day of rest. Need to go to church anyway. Ours is the Mother Nature Church.