Friday, January 14, 2011 - Percha Dam State Park, Arrey NM
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Onions along the Canal, Arrey NM, March 26, 2009
More onions please
Eleven months have passed and we see the same onion field, shot from a different perspective. We ate last years crop; we need more onions. We have burgers to top.
Skyline Produce, Hatch NM:This high-tech facility typically unloads 35-50 trucks per day, all in the evening after the weather cools down. Their state-of-the-art dryer can hold up to 120,000 pounds of onions. Nearly 16,000 fifty-pound-bag equivalents flow through the facility each day. The sorting equipment can process 1,500 to 2,000 bags per hour. The onions are all harvested mechanically. [source link]
Southern states grow short-day onions. As the northern latitude increases, the day length requirement for bulbing increases. During the summer months, northern latitudes will have longer day-lengths than southern latitudes. Need to prevent bulbing in order to get large plant otherwise small plant, small bulb. Long-day cultivars at northern latitudes grow longer before bulbing than short-day cultivars. Conversely, Long-day cultivars grow in southern latitudes never reach critical day-length for bulbing so grows a large plant with out bulbing. [source link]
Night camp
Site 23 - Percha Dam State Park, Arrey NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Go to the Percha Dam State Park website
- Locate Percha Dam State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather in Arrey NM
Rice Toss
After the dinner our hosts conducted us to the beach. Among the presents was a large supply rice for the fleet. It was put up in straw sacks or bales containing about 125 pounds each. By the pile stood a company of athletes or gymnasts chosen from the peasantry for their strength and size and trained for the service and entertainment of the court. At a signal from their leader, who was himself a giant of muscle and fat, a sort of human Jumbo, they began transporting the rice to the boats. It was more frolic than work. Some of thembore a bale on each hand above their heads, some would carry two laid crosswise on the shoulders and head, while others performed dextrous feats of tossing, catching, balancing them, or turning somersaults with them. I saw one nimble Titan fasten his talons in a sack, throw it down on the sand still keeping his hold, turn a somersault over it, throw it over him as he revolved, and come down sitting on the beach with the sack in his lap. Beat that who can. If you imagine it "as easy as preaching," try it the next time in a gymnasium. But let me advise you, first make your will.
The Logbook of the Captains Clerk, John J. Sewell, Lakeside Press, 1995 pg 256