[Just ignore the dates. There's so much going on, I'm more than a little behind on the log.] On location, day 3 - We spent most of the day following around Chad, a 32-year old farmer in Mapleton. Along with his father, he works several hundred acres of land around town, including the fields he leases from my grandparents' farm. Here's what we spent the day shooting:
Changing the course of irrigation water: While the irrigation ditches we shot on Wednesday are concrete-lined with pop-out steel gates, the water Chad changed today was in a field with an unlined dirt ditch. He had hip waders as he took up and moved an 8' plastic tarp that served as a dam, and then he used a shovel to close the 6 or so openings in the side of the ditch that allowed water to flow into the field. It was freakin' (sic) hot (100+ degrees) with no shade. Jeff waded into the ditch to shoot, while I scampered along the bank, pushing through weeds with the boom mike (which is tethered to the camera), trying to keep up.
Feeding lambs in their pens: Completely deserving of their reputations as stupid animals (the theme of Babe notwithstanding), sheep are also extremely smelly. At least when they're in pens where straw and their own manure make up the groundcover. They basically stampeded around behind each other, kicking up dust. Oh, and they licked the hell out of the lens, necessitating several midshoot wipedowns.
Cutting grain: We followed and rode along as Chad and his 10-year old nephew cut a field of grain with a combine (Check out ebay to see what a combine looks like.), which kicked up mad amounts of dust and chaff. Their field is located right across from a small subdivision, which was built on top of an alfalfa field. All in all, it was a hot, dirty, tiring day, and I felt like a total city poseur by the time it was over.
So after dinner, we went to Ream's, a grocery/western wear store, and bought big silver belt buckles with our initials on them. (Sure put a stop to that whole "poseur" thing, let me tell ya).
