Willa Anne Cowgill
Born September 28, 2010
7 lbs. 1 oz.
21"
Gorgeous.
Why I Married a Farmer
Two years ago yesterday, I did something I promised myself I would never do: I married a farmer.
I've never in my life made a better decision.
Jacob and I married in front of an historic red barn, with our friends and family surrounding us. The leaves on the cottonwoods were just turning and the air had that unmistakable fall crisp to it. The food came from Jacob's first farming experiment in Big Sandy and the flowers from my first large cut flower garden. It was the beginning of so many things for us.
I've never in my life made a better decision.
Jacob and I married in front of an historic red barn, with our friends and family surrounding us. The leaves on the cottonwoods were just turning and the air had that unmistakable fall crisp to it. The food came from Jacob's first farming experiment in Big Sandy and the flowers from my first large cut flower garden. It was the beginning of so many things for us.
Flurry
It's been a flurry of activity around Prairie Heritage Farm. Frost is now old news, Farmers' Market is nearly over, the plastic is on the high tunnel (finally!) due to the help of some very good friends, the barley has been swathed, the storage crops are rolling in, and the greatest crop of all (not for sale) is presumably days away. So here is all that, but in a much prettier format:
Putting on the plastic.
Glorious high tunnel.
Swathing barley.
Pumpkin barrow.
One big onion.
Onion barrow.
Baby undies.
Putting on the plastic.
Glorious high tunnel.
Swathing barley.
Pumpkin barrow.
One big onion.
Onion barrow.
Baby undies.
FROST!
Yes, FROST! deserves the all-caps and exclamation point for both the anguish it causes and the relief it brings. Our winter squash needs (a lot) more time, yet I'm so tired. We'll assess the damage when the tears (of sorrow, of joy) have dried. It happened early this morning. Guess what tonight's low is supposed to be: 50 degrees.
Lentils Are In
The Lowery Family Massey Ferguson 510, bought new in 1976.
Since not all the pods on a lentil plant mature at the same time, it's a balancing act to know when to swath and when to wait. If you cut too early, you may not get as many lentils. If you wait too long, the early pods may be bone dry and shell out onto the ground. Also, generally speaking, the early pods will hold 2 lentils per pod while the later pods may only have one lentil per pod. So, you want the early pods to be ready, but not overly dry.
A week ago I swathed the lentils and it was only a matter of waiting for the swath to dry. Lentils are poor competitors with other plants, so my swath also included quite a bit of volunteer emmer, wild mustard, some alfalfa, peas, grass, and lambsquarter. The whole swath pile needs to dry down before picking it up with the combine. We had a couple of nice hot days last week - in the mid-90s - but were faced with unruly weather for the weekend - cold temperatures and rain. My father-in-law Clyde had a break in his harvest schedule, so he came over on Friday to help me get the combine ready. It took us most of the morning and part of the afternoon, but we managed to loosen rusted parts (the combine probably hadn't been used in 15 years or so), fix a fuel line, and adjust the sieves and concaves. By early evening, I was in the field picking up the swath and watching the lentils fall into the hopper. It was pretty satisfying and I feel we've come a long way since last year on our grains and seeds.
Picking up the swath.
I've said this before, but one of our challenges as small-scale farmers growing grains is the equipment needed to handle them. We're piecing it together and will only get better and better at it. Our next challenge is to successfully market our specialty crops directly to customers. We're too small for most seed handling facilities to bother with (i.e. seed cleaners) and given our scale, it makes no sense to sell to the local commodity elevator where farmers get pennies per pound for their crop. Besides, were not growing undifferentiated commodities, we're growing high-quality, nutritious food.
Dumping the crop into the truck.
I harvested the first variety, Red Chief, and dumped it into the truck. After harvesting our second variety, Petite Crimson, the chain on the unloading auger broke, so the lentils had to sit in the combine hopper until the next day when I could fix it (and only a few hours before it started raining). The truck with our lentils is now safely backed into the quonset waiting to be cleaned, likely the subject of a blog post since it's bound to be an adventure, as I discover just how effective our little seed cleaner will be in removing all but the lentils (is it folly for us to try to accomplish the entire grain chain - plant, grow, harvest, clean, package, and sell?).
The harvested field.
Peas, alfalfa, mustard, emmer, and yes, lentils.
On another note, if you notice in the photo, our lentils are rather bland looking, unlike the bright and beautiful lentils you find in the grocery store. The reason for this is because ours contain every part of the seed. Many lentil varieties are decorticated, where the outer skin is taken off. This reveals their bright color and helps them cook faster. Unless a part of the seed is toxic (as is the case in quinoa seeds which are coated with the chemical compound saponin that has to be washed off before eating), removing something also removes important nutrients. There is good reason why whole-wheat flour is nutritionally superior to white or all-purpose flour (which also explains why white flour has been "enriched"). Our goal is to grow good food, not grow good food only to strip away half its nutrients.
Next up: bronze barley, black barley, Sonora wheat, and Khorasan wheat.
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