Summer draws to a close.

This has been my 5th summer in the Teton Valley and by far the driest and warmest.  Still no need for air conditioning, but warmer than I have experienced before.  Usually by late August snow will have fallen on the highest elevations of the Teton Mountain Range.  Not enough to stay all day, but a dusting.  Has not happened this year but frost is predicted on the morning we leave.  Guess I better leave our a pair of socks for the first half of that day.

The past week has been barley cutting time.  Barley fields are beautiful, pretty green turning into such a great shade of gold.  You know "amber waves of grain".  Cutting barley requires some really large equipment and it is immediately loaded into tandem 18 wheelers.  Barley cutting is also very dusty.  Here's a picture of barley;

One of these years I hope to be here during potato harvest.  Even though harvesting potatoes is more automated than it used to be the schools still close.  In years past all hands were needed, even those of children.  We did drive by potato fields the other day and saw the equipment crushing the vines.  I'm not sure if they rake away the vines or burn them before turning over the earth to expose the potatoes.  When I was a child the potato farm near my home in Connecticut burned the vines.