Prairie Heritage Farm

True Food Shall Set You Free

A note from one of our bread customers:

Yes, it is true.

The Days

Lentils ready.

Lentils swathed.

Swath drying.

Turkeys gobbling.

CSA Shareholders eating (more later).

Garden growing.

My lovely wife with baby growing and due very very soon.

My mother dug up one of my brother and my old childhood toys and brought it to our baby shower. It's a big one, I'd guess 250 horsepower, with an articulated back end. The funny thing is, though I'd forgotten about it until I saw it again, it's the very kind of tractor that I've been thinking a lot about lately, as we try to figure out if we'd be able to farm to entire place in the future (260 acres - we're currently farming 15 of it). It's too bad she wouldn't let us play with a real 250 hp tractor when we were kids. Then she could have brought that to the baby shower. And if it came with a doe-eyed lion to help out around the place, even better.

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.