So, life has been crazy for awhile, and to be honest, my YF&R duties have been low to the bottom of the totem pole. But, as I am trying to get back on track and get prepared for state convention, I am working to get the blog update and have useful or informative links on it. If anyone is interested in sharing what is happening in their end of the state, or what their involvement in Agriculture is, I would love to share it on here--just send me an email and let me know and we'll work it out. 
The other day I had the chance to pull out my camera, and though I am an amateur photographer, I love, love , love taking pictures, and one of my favorite subjects happens to be the beautiful Meadow Valley of Lincoln County, that I call home. My family helped settle this valley in the late eighteen hundreds, and has been here ever since. The pictures are some that I took over the past week--amazing how incredibly beautiful the valley is for this time of year, how lush and green it is, considering the unusual and wonderful amounts of moisture we have received. I hope you enjoy some of them as much as I do. This is the land that I love, and agriculture is such a huge part of that--the cows in the background of some are my Grandpa's herd of Black Angus. He started his angus breeding program here in the late fifties, and will be turning 82 in January. Out feeding cows every morning, baling hay in the middle of the night or whenever the dew is right, calving during below zero temperatures of winter, he does what he loves though he says every day that he is not sure if he can keep it up--I don't think he could live without it. He goes hand in hand with this land. 
The spring is our community swimming hole, and with water temperatures in the high 70's to low 80's, it is often used year round by some who are braver than others. My kids were still swimming there just a couple of weeks ago . At one time the spring was the community's drinking water, along with being alarge source of irrigation water as it is piped through the valley. In the picture with the horse, you can see the steam rising from the stream of water that flows from one of these pipes about a quarter of a mile away. 
As a former FFA/4-H Range 'Geek', I love grasses and plants. Intermediate Wheat, Great Basin Wheat, Crested Wheat, are all found around are area. Indian Rice grass happens to be my favorite, but I had been wanting to snap a picture of this intermediate in the morning sunlight as we pass it each day on the way to school and back. Golden wheat fields are somewhat an icon of american agriculture.
Across the road from the spring in Panaca is somewhat marshy, and used mainly for pasture, the Yerba Mansa isn't a really beneficial plant to have around, but it is really pretty this time of year as it starts to turn red.
This picture was more of a quick shot just to show how incredibly green the country is at the end of October. This is also shows more of the irrigation lines from the spring, being used throughout the valley.
One of the Mathews cornfields with a view of the trees and what we call 'Court Rock' in the center of town, and the cedar covered hills beyond.
The drastic contrast that is often foun in Nevada, lush green bottoms with dry, deserts around the edges. Lincoln County's main agriculture production is hay and cattle. 
This hay would have been really high in protein after the last couple months of very mild temperatures, not too hot and not too cold, but it has been to wet to cut and the last few days have started to bring heavy frost, so it will most likely end up being grazed over the winter, instead of being cut and baled. Sometimes with hay production you just can't seem to win--too wet, too dry, not long enough of a season, just get it down and it rains, you just get a deal to sell and then the stackyards get poured on the day before it's supposed to go. Every once in awhile you might get it grown, cut, dried, baled, and sold without a problem from the weather, but that's only if the swather runs, the baler doesn't die, and then you still have to or three more times to try and do it agian that year. Makes you tired just thinking about it, doesn't it. Ah, but it sure smells good when it's just been cut. ;)
This pivot is in what we call our 'front yard.' We joked with my grandpa when he put it in that if we could get a rainbird on the end of it we wouldn't have to water our front lawn. It's a little bit further than that from our house, but it goes on from field to field through the valley, giving us a pretty wonderful view from the front of our house. The trees and shops that you can see through the bottom corner of the pivot are where the main corrals and shops are for the farm. My great-great grandpa first bought that piece of land when it was nothing but sagebrush.
