Heading to Pick Up the Pickup Header

The header heading home.

Last Saturday after the Farmers' Market I took a bit of a trip. I drove about 230 miles and never left the Golden Triangle. I borrowed a trailer in Dutton, cut across to Carter, picked up some kid with a pocketful of change trying to get to Fort Benton, drove down into Fort Benton on the Missouri River, drove north to Big Sandy and loaded a pickup header from a farmer. I then drove to Tiber, over the dam, and connected up to the Ledger Road just north of Conrad. For hauling something on a trailer, it was remarkably painless. There were no problems on all the dirt roads I traveled, and loading the trailer was easy with the header fitting perfectly. I'm guessing I will be hauling many a piece of equipment in my lifetime as a farmer (and I can only hope it will be a lifetime). We may only get one flawless haul during that time, and I'm worried I just spent mine.


Some farmer in the middle of nowhere harvesting winter wheat.


One big sky.

I traversed some incredible country - wide open, huge sky, vast expanses (read This House of Sky and High, Wide, and Handsome by Ivan Doig and Joseph Kinsey Howard, respectively). Some places I drove by, Lewis and Clark walked past over 200 years ago. In particular, the Marias River was one notable landmark for the confusion it caused the party (was this the Missouri or a tributary?). Silly explorers - I knew exactly where I was.



Tiber in the background.


The Marias River after the dam - nothing like what Meriwether saw.

The pickup header will fit onto a 60s-era Massey-Ferguson 510 diesel combine. As opposed to a straight-cut header, which cuts the grain standing in the field, a pickup header is narrower and picks up windrows that have been left behind by a swather. I expect to swath again this year since there will be some green material in my fields that will need to dry down before I run them through the combine. I asked the farmer I got the header from what he wanted for it and he said nothing. I offered him my first born (only 7 more weeks!) but he said no thanks, he has enough kids. He said to donate the profits from our grain to poor people. That will work out just fine. I can just donate those assured profits back to us.


The Sweetgrass Hills in the background.

The Generosity of Friends

Our good friends Patrick and Abby drove out from Wisconsin for a visit. They put in some good hard hours at the farm and we got a lot done. Essential work, actually. I can't even fathom accomplishing what we did if they had not come. In addition, on Saturday they helped us with the farmers' market. Patrick is a talented photographer. Following are a few of his photos.


Baked bread Friday evening.


Bread and hands.


Opening up the greenhouse before sunrise.


Abby in the window.


Loading the pickup for market at 4:30 in the morning.


Lydia sharing my breakfast on the drive to market.


Chard.


Squash.


Market table.

All Hail Hail

Hail doesn't think about who has been good and who has been bad. Hail may decide to wipe out your neighbor's fields, but leave yours untouched, or vice versa. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for where hail hits and how much damage it does. Sometimes it's a benevolent God and other times a wrathful one.

We've been fortunate this year. Hail has wiped out friend's gardens in Lewistown and ripped through greenhouse plastic and shattered windows in Bozeman. Other areas in Montana have been hit just as hard. We avoided it until a few weeks ago when it started to hail and all I could do was pray that the teeny-tiny ice balls bouncing on the ground didn't get any bigger or come down harder. Thankfully, they didn't.


Ice ball daintily resting on a leaf.

A couple evenings ago, when our friends Patrick and Abby were visiting, we were standing outside our rental house in Conrad admiring the dark clouds swirling overhead when it started to rain...then hail...then hail harder...then hail larger. We all ran out to the car to drive to the farm, because as Court noted, if it's going to destroy our crops, we may as well get to watch it. We started to drive, but I got worried about the car's windshield, so we waited briefly under a tree before heading out to the farm. By the time we got there, the hail had stopped. The damage was thus: a few holes in a few leaves. Once again, we'd dodged a bullet. Or a few hundred thousand bullets. Thank you, God.


Bean leaf window.


Chard with more ventilation.

Weeds? What Weeds?

We've got weeds. Or, more accurately, the weeds got us. Most days it's too much for two people, or even three or four, depending on our help. Plus, we easily prioritize other things over weeding and this is the result:


The garlic. Yes, the garlic.


The garlic, after crawling, pulling, cursing.

Some beds are better than others, but nobody can ever say we don't grow a good crop of wild mustard, lambsquarter, and mallow.


A July truck farm.

Field Crop Update

Just a quick field crop update.

I plowed down the peas yesterday evening. Despite the fact it looked like a field of mustard, I did plant peas and they were there underneath all that yellow. They hadn't yet flowered, but it was a matter of either waiting for them to flower (and maximize the amount of nitrogen they would fix) and let the mustard go to seed, or work the field before the mustard goes to seed and get whatever nitrogen the peas had fixed up until now. I chose the latter. There will still be some good nitrogen, and look at all that plant matter!


Disked peas.

The lentils are starting to flower. It's been cool recently, so we've been lucky. If heat hits while they're flowering, it'll be hard on the lentils.


Lentil flowers.

The Sonora wheat is tillering nicely.


Sonora wheat.

The barley is beginning to form heads. When you slice open the stalk, you can see the beginning stages.


Baby barley head.