Winnowing the wheat

Taking the wheat that we gleaned a few days ago, Steven has been threshing it down and winnowing it to make it ready to grind into flour.

In these photos, he is near the final stage. Now he just needs to separate the rest of the chaff from the wheat, so he has the grains out in the open on a windy day. He lets them trickle through his hands and fall to the tarp, as the wind blows away the lighter chaff. He does this many, many times until the wheat is pretty much thoroughly cleaned of the non-kernel parts.

We haven't yet decided how we want to go about grinding it into flour. There is still much wheat we gleaned to get to this stage.

Last Friday (yep, Independence Day morning) we butchered the one Cornish-X chicken that Amanda had gained from her work and given to us. It was a little more laborious project than I had planned, and that was one FAT chicken, but it is done and in the fridge. I hoped to put it out on the grill last night, but the weather did not cooperate. Today, it is raining, so I don't know that it will get cooked this evening, either!

This is a photo Steven took of me when I was gutting the chicken carcass. He said with my hand inside it like that, it looked like I had a "chicken puppet"! :)

And I'll end with a photo of a beautiful sunrise the other day that greeted me in the morning. The alfalfa field across the road from our house had just been cut...

(this is not our field or our cutter. It is just right in front of us, so I wanted to capture the image)

Ducks & Botulism

Well, a couple of our newer ducks were quite ill yesterday with what we believe was a type of botulism that affects ducks.

However, after separating them into a cage and giving them fresh food and water for a day, they seem to have recovered fine. With all the rain we've had these past two months, there is a lot of rotting vegetation and places that would harbor that bacteria. We cleaned out their "pool" thoroughly and cleaned all water dishes. Hopefully that will be the last of that problem for this year.

Seems like I always have a lot I want to post here, but find no time to get around to posting it.

There was quite a windstorm at the farm over the weekend, while I was gone to Missouri. It took out a very large tree limb from one of the front yard elms, and several smaller limbs. We spent most of yesterday evening with the chain saw cleaning that up. The goats thought it was a bonus, because every branch that still had leaves on it went into their pen, which they loved. Cut the biggest portion into firewood chunks.

The wind also played havoc with the neighbors alfalfa field, which is directly across the road from us out the front door. They had just cut and windrowed the field when the storm came up. It blew all their newly cut alfalfa south across the other road and into a wheat stubble field. Steven and I hope to glean some of that, since I know they won't bother with picking it up from there. We will probably go pick it up by hand tonight, because it is supposed to rain again tomorrow. The rest of the alfalfa, that was left in the original field, they windrowwed again several times to try to get it back together, then baled it yesterday and hauled it off.

Gleaning

"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.... you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord your God."- Leviticus 19:9-10

We consider ourselves poor in this context, and all the area farmers were busily harvesting their wheat fields with their huge combines this week -- most times missing the edges and corners completely just because their huge machines can't turn or cut that closely to the edge. It is a waste, and will probably be burnt off when they burn stubble (another waste of straw) in order to hurriedly get the ground ready for their next crop.

So Steven and I gleaned the corners and the edges, as we could. We began Friday evening, and gleaned until near sunset. Then we did a different field on Sunday afternoon.

"When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle, on your neighbor's standing grain." - Deuteronomy 23:25

We actually found that was the easiest way to harvest anyway - just plucking the heads off. It was also easier to evaluate which were the better, fuller heads, and skip those that might show signs of mildew or emptiness.

Several months ago, when the bank where I work was clearing out some supplies and converting to some new processes, they unloaded thousands of muslin(?) fabric bags that used to be used for transporting coin. They are stamped with the bank name on the side, but other than that are very attractive bags - about 12" at the short end, by probably 28" or more in length -- like a long, skinny pillow case. We modified a couple of these bags to be gleaner bags (will still need to add a strap to make them easier to carry), and they worked out beautifully.

It will take a lot of wheat to make enough for even a few pounds of flour. Steven is going to do the threshing or winnowing to get the kernels from the heads we plucked, and then we will dry it thoroughly and begin thinking about how best to grind it to flour with what basic tools we have.

We realize we have no idea what variety/type of wheat we have gleaned, although it is most probably a hard red winter wheat that is common in Kansas, like Jagger or Jagalene. While it is still subject to the chemicals/fertilizers they put on it in the field; at least it won't also be treated with the chemicals they put on the kernels after harvest in the holding bins and when being processed into flour (processors put tons of insecticide and anti-mildewing perservatives, etc. on wheat kernels on its path from the local grain elevator to the bakery).

I'll update as we go through the process of trying to turn our gleaned wheat into flour for our home use.

Misc.

Such a busy time at the farm! Of course, I'll admit Steven does most all the work; while I had to do the commute to town for the cash work *wink*. But I would much rather be home farming.

Yesterday, Steven went out and hand-gleaned a bunch of rye and volunteer wheat. He bundled it and we will store it for feed for the goats for winter. I imagine he will do that off-and-on all summer, as gleaning opportunities are around.

I had originally suggested maybe he put it in the "attic" area of the garage -- which is currently just the open area above where I put the car in the old shed, which just got a new roof last year. Building on that, he said yesterday (and I agree) that it makes more sense to create a holding area like that in the barn itself. It has a fairly low roof, but it does have an "attic area" of sorts in the rafters. If we attach lengthwise boards, and maybe some chicken wire, that would be a good, dry, and handy place to let the hay sit until needed in winter. Then they would already be out in the pen, as well. So with a bit of planning, we will probably do that.

Worked on the ceiling in the living room of the house last night. Hot, dirty, nasty work. The old horsehair plaster-n-lathe work from this 1880s part of the house is crumbling. Big chunks of plaster had fallen off the lathe work and weighed down the acoustic ceiling that had been added below it. We had to take off much of the acoustic panels, clean out the broken plaster and stuff, and try to put the acoustic back up for now. This ended up being a much bigger job than we hoped it would be - and it is apparent that in all reality the entire ceiling is going to have to be torn down and re-done; but we got it patched for now. I was sneezing black dust out of my nose the rest of the evening, even though we wore bandannas over our faces to keep from breathing all the dust. I'm sure this plaster, most of it, at least, really began to break away and fall when we had that roofing crew putting on the new roof two years ago. Lots of pounding on the roof will vibrate that old stuff loose.

We also weeded in the garden for quite awhile. The frequent rains have made the garden wonderful, but has also been a boon for the weeds; and the mosquitoes! So I worked on the bean rows for quite awhile, which Steven did the squash and strawberries. We got our first fresh ripe strawberries of the season too! Delicious! They are loaded, so we are bound to get many more.

More spring babies

I can see why everyone loves springtime on a farm! So many new things and new babies!

Our Rhode Island Red hen that has been faithfully setting for 21 days, hatched her brood last Friday, May 23rd. We noticed the first "pips" of the shell, and within 24 hours, 9 of the 12 eggs were hatched into new baby chicks. (of the three that didn't ever hatch, two appeared to be unfertile, when we finally removed them from the nest, and one was undeveloped). That is an excellent rate of return for 12 eggs. And we've nearly doubled the number of our flock with this year's hatching.

Of course, we won't know until later how many females we have, to keep. The males will become freezer meat at some point.

It was great to watch this process using the real 'natural' method of the mother hen, and not an incubator. And watch how she protects them and talks to them and teaches them. It is awesome.

This is the nesting box Steven built for her -- using part of an old bee hive box and a portion of a metal barrel. She seems to like it.

For now, we have put a wire crate over her nesting area in the hen house, so that the babies are protected and stay in there with her until they are older -- yet that allows our other hens to continue to come and go as they always have.

We also got two new little white chicks from my daughter, who works at a farm supply store, and had bought two chicks to study in the science lab at college. Since the college was shutting down for summer, those young chickens came home with us. One is a pullet we will keep as an egg layer. The other is a broiler breed -- too heavy to survive long. That will become food.

Steven was given six new ducklings from our friends the Friesen's. (I don't have a photo of them yet). Multicolored and a basic mutt background, but Steven is thrilled with them and hopes to raise them out in the goat pen. He learned with the Cayuga's that once they imprint a certain area as "home" - it is hard to get them to roost anywhere else (the Cayuga ducks still think they have to be in the garden -- but they eat all the spinach!)

We had a wonderful gathering of people out here on Memorial Day, enjoying the chance to see all the new baby animals, and play softball, and games, and have a cookout. It was loads of fun (until the rain started) :)

We've had a very wet past couple of weeks. Two and a half inches on Monday alone -- and 11.5 inches for May overall. Makes for lots of weeds and lots of mowing, but it is good for the garden.

Steven also planted his 'milo field' in the middle of our front yard -- a protected area -- to grow our own chicken feed for this coming winter.

Amanda was home to enjoy the baby goats, and David helped to feed the doe a bit. We also have tons of baby kittens - which I always forget to mention because I'm not much of a cat person.

Summer pains

Ah... my muscles hurt so much this time of year getting back into shape with farm work. I have done a lot of mowing, and weeding, and general clean-up this week, and I'm feeling it. Sometimes I'm glad I have an job "outside" of the farm, just so I can rest!

Plowed up a portion of the front yard this week with the tiller - Steven wants to put milo in that plot, to grow for organic feed for the chickens for this winter. The front yard is one place the chickens can't currently get to. Since Steven hasn't planted it yet, though, or put wire around it, the dogs are loving their new freshly-plowed dirt ;). I took me four repeats over it with the tiller to make it really workable!

Other than that, we are very busily and hurriedly trying to get the place cleaned up and presentable for the big gathering we are having next Monday (Memorial Day) of Steven's friends from church. That, on top of our regular chores, it making for all-work-no-play for awhile. I'm sure there will be some stuff left undone despite our efforts. We hope the roof for the shed will get finished up this week as well (if the contractor ever comes back).

Chance of storms tomorrow - which means we will do cleaning inside the house while the weather is bad outside. And I'm taking the last two days of this week "off" from my regular job, just so I can stay home and get things done.

New Baby Goats!

FINALLY, we have new baby goats!!! The younger doe (T21) had twin girls on Saturday morning, May 10th. Of course, she picked the busiest scheduled day of our month for us! But we found time to get them over to the barn and separated from the rest, so we could check them out and make sure they were nursing.

One kid is much stronger/bigger than the other, and momma favors it when nursing. So we've had to "help" the other one quite a bit. The doe has a very lop-sided udder, with one side pretty normal and the other side very engorged. The strong kid nurses out the 'good' side until there is no milk, and the little runt can't get a good latch on the engorged nipple because it is too big. So we've had to do some intervention.


Probably later today I will also look at getting a bottle, and milking the doe into the bottle, then feeding that kid with the bottle until it gets big enough to latch well, or the doe's udder becomes more uniform.
They are adorably cute! and very vocal. They are so soft and cuddly.

It is a blessing that this went pretty well, after the disaster with our first kidding earlier this spring.

The daddy Boer has a much darker head that the doe, and the kids definitely take after daddy. One has a solid colored head, and the runt has a little white on her forehead.

So we have increased our herd by two -- and we will keep these to be breeding does for us over the next few years.

I'm also very happy that last week I got a "new" farm truck. Since the engine got blown in my '71, I was able to locate a 1969 GMC truck that will work with our stock rack. Runs like a top. Drove it to town on Saturday to put gas in it (although I forgot I didn't have a tag for it yet!) It will be a good, basic, dependable farm truck.