Rio Grande River valley agriculture

Today started out windy and was forecast to increase, with wind gusts as high as 40 mph by 4 PM. I'm not sure it reached 40, but it was definitely windy. So in the interest of safety we rode "the cage."

From Rio Grande valley ag 3/26/09

(Note: Click on a picture to see all pics in today's album.)

Our first stop was Stahmanns pecan farm. Even though I'm retired, I still have a strong desire to learn about the agriculture in the areas we visit. Somehow, seeing thousands upon thousands of corn and soybeans in the Midwest seems "normal." But seeing thousands of acres of pecan trees seems "abnormal." We learned a lot about their operation at the retail outlet - and picked up some pecan goodies. Yum!

From Rio Grande valley ag 3/26/09

From Stahmanns we just drove around the countryside for a bit, amazed that they can grow crops in the desert. When I think of desert, I think of sand. So I stopped to examine the soil in a recently irrigated field and found it to be - SILT! Well, duh! This is the floodplain for the Rio Grande. So much of it was naturally quite fertile.

Tomorrow is forecast to be a high of 51 degrees - and windy again. Maybe we'll just stay home and snuggle. :-)