Wheat Harvest 2015

Well, we have officially made it through our first wheat harvest as a married couple.  In fact, today marks our 6th month wedding anniversary!  It does not seem like half a year since we got married.  I guess it's true that time flies when you're having fun.  

We had a great year for wheat harvest.  The Farmer started cutting in the evening on Friday the 19th and finished on Thursday the 25th and did not have to stop one time because of rain.  Even the humidity stayed low, which meant the grain dried out easily and they could start cutting early each day. 

The Farmer's brother drove in from Colorado to help and was able to be here the whole time, which was awesome.  It's so interesting to me to watch them working together.  They seem to just know what the other one is thinking/needing.  For the most part, The Farmer drove the combine (cutting the wheat) and his brother was in the tractor pulling the grain cart (taking the wheat from the combine in the field to the semi waiting at the edge of the field).

I had a bit of vacation time left at work (it has to be used by June 30th or I lose it), so I was able to take a couple of afternoons off during the week.  Between the extra time off to make food and the food I had made ahead and frozen, there was no food shortage.  I really enjoy feeding them!

It was certainly a fun week, but I'm glad it's over now.  There's always a danger when working around heavy equipment, and it would only take one hailstorm or fire to be devastating.  God not only gave us a safe year, but brought the rains just in time to make the plants produce.  I think The Farmer's grandpa summed it up best when he told me, "You know, we can plant, but God gives the increase."  

Breaking Scientific News

In today's science lesson, we will learn that 

sun + rain = stuff grows!

Ok, not a news flash?  Maybe not, but Kansas is absolutely busting at the seams with gorgeousness as a result of a month of rain (May) followed by lots of sun the past couple of weeks.

The wheat is SO. CLOSE. to being ready for harvest.  My family (who lives about 60 miles south of our farm) actually started cutting wheat over a week ago, before getting rained out for several days.  The Farmer still hasn't started cutting his wheat, but he expects to start tomorrow (unless it rains tonight).

It is golden and beautiful!  The other day I went to go snap a few pictures of it in its ripe stage before it gets cut.

 

A few days ago we had a little rain shower move through.  Once it moved to our east, I saw a faint rainbow and took a few pictures on my phone.  Then I went inside to eat a piece of pie, and pretty soon The Farmer came running in.  He was on the phone with someone, but motioned to me frantically to come outside.  I ran outside and saw the most vivid rainbow I have ever seen.  It was so close that the color appeared in front of the tree row about a mile and a half from our house!

 

Of course, my little camera didn't fully capture the beauty of it, but it is still a cool picture.

Sometimes I get a little bored on my drive home from work (my job is a 30 minute commute).  I was driving home yesterday noticing how blue the sky looked, and then I drove by the most lush, green corn field.  I have no idea whose field it was, but I decided to stop and take some pictures.

 

How lucky am I, to get these kinds of views on my daily commute?!  I don't think I could handle a 30 minute commute in heavy city traffic, but I don't mind it when I get to zip down the highway doing 70 mph and looking at all this beauty.

 

Growth

Things around the farm are growing!  My garden has FINALLY taken off now that we are getting some sunny, hot days.

Here are my potatoes.  

 

I haven't peeked into the ground yet to see how big they are, but I hope to soon!  When I was growing up, my mom would fix new potatoes and onions and I LOVED them.  I'm going to attempt to make some soon, as long as there are enough small potatoes to dig up.

I also have one pepper plant growing.

  I've never grown peppers before, but our local greenhouse was having a "Buy 2 veggies, get 1 free" sale when I went to buy tomato plants, so for my free one I picked out a little pepper.  I figured it would be a good way to try something new, without feeling like I wasted money if it dies or doesn't produce well.

Speaking of tomatoes, I've got four of them.  A friend from church had given me four little plants that he had started from seeds this spring.  I cared for all 4 the exact same way, but 2 didn't make it and 2 are doing just fine.  I'm not sure what the difference was, but I decided to buy a couple more to replace the ones I killed.  Here are the two that I bought:

 

And here are the two that were given to me:

 

 I've also got two watermelon plants that are starting to get bigger.  Can't wait for fresh watermelon!

 

My cucumber is still small, but it at least looks healthy.  When it gets a little bigger I am going to put a tomato cage around it and try to get it to grow up the cage instead of spreading across the ground.

And we can't forget the sweet corn!  The first variety I planted is getting quite tall already.  When it was a couple inches tall I planted a second variety, which is also up and growing.  It's tall enough that I should be planting my third variety, but I haven't had time yet.  By staggering the planting dates, I hope to have sweet corn through several weeks instead of it all ripening at the same time and then being done.  In this picture, the first variety I planted is on the left and the more recent planting is on the right.  I'll add the last variety to the right of that.

 

It's too early to guarantee anything, but if all these plants produce like I hope, we will be eating good later this summer!

 

Kansas Beauty

Whoever says Kansas isn't beautiful has obviously never been here.  Okay, so I know I'm a little biased, but I truly do think Kansas has a unique beauty.  Maybe we don't have mountains, or crystal clear lakes, or sandy beaches, but I have seen so many beautiful things around the farm recently!

The wheat around our house is finally turning from green to brown (it needs to turn brown before it can be harvested).  We had a very rainy May, so it looks like wheat harvest will be a bit later than usual this year around here.  There was just hardly any sun in May to ripen the wheat.  A couple of weeks ago I noticed that the still green wheat made a beautiful contrast against the clear blue skies so I had to snap a few pictures.

The Farmer went to check on one of his fields and I rode along.

The wheat is much lighter now, and tonight as the sun was setting there were thunderheads all around us.  So I ran back out to the edge of the wheat that borders our yard to take some more pictures.

If you don't hear from me after today, it's probably because I got the West Nile virus.  Or malaria.  The mosquitoes were OUT. OF. CONTROL.  I guess they love all this rain we've had, but in the 10 minutes I was outside to take these pictures I got eaten alive.

When I turned around, the sun was setting behind the barn and I couldn't resist snapping a picture of that as well.

Of course, my trusty sidekick Harlee was with me the whole time.  She likes to check out the wheat.  All of her wheat inspecting duties must have made her thirsty, because she stopped at the water trough on the way back to get a drink.

The Garden

It occurred to me the other day that I've talked about the veggies I'm growing (okay, attempting to grow...keep your fingers crossed!) in the garden, but not about the garden itself.  Remember how I told you we moved into the house that The Farmer's grandparents built and lived in for almost 50 years?  Well one of the amazing things they left for us was the garden space.  

Because we live out in the country, it can be a challenge to grow produce that doesn't get eaten, trampled, or stolen by rabbits, raccoons, deer, and other wildlife. The Farmer's grandpa had marked off an area to be used as a garden.  He then fenced the whole area to keep critters out, and even lined the bottom half of the fence with panels of tin to keep small animals from being able to get in through spaces in the fencing.

 Here's a picture of the fenced garden.  From the spot where I took the picture above, in front of me is obviously the garden and behind me is our driveway.  Since the garden is one of the first things you see when you pull in the driveway, and it's not the prettiest thing, I'm adding some perennial flowers and shrubs just outside the garden.  Hopefully these will grow up tall and hide the tin paneling.

That in itself is a pretty sweet garden setup, but they didn't stop there.  Certain animals are pretty smart and can climb the fence, especially when enticed by almost ripe melons, sweet corn, etc.  To prevent this, The Farmer's grandpa went around the whole thing several times with electric fencing.  This time of the year the electric fencing is not on, because there is no ripening fruit or veggies yet for animals to want to steal.  We won't have to turn on the electricity until we have produce that's ripening.

A challenge about using this particular spot for a garden is that it is quite a ways from the house.  There is no pump or water source out there, so the water for it has to come from the house.  I don't know about you, but dragging a garden hose and trying to get it to go where you want and not kink up seems like a big pain to me.  Rather than drag a hose out there and then have to roll up the hose each time he wanted to mow, The Farmer's grandpa decided to hook the hose up at the house and bury the hose underground to run it out to the garden.

All I know is it's going to get very interesting once we turn on the electric fence.  For one thing, Harlee has never been around an electric fence and has no idea what it will do.  She knows she's not allowed in the garden space, even if the gate is open (I don't want her trampling my plants or digging them up, which are two of her favorite past-times), but she does sniff around the perimeter from time to time.  I'm guessing one good zap to her nose is going to scare her out of going anywhere near the garden, but time will tell.

Stay tuned for the "Harlee is terrified of the garden" blog post. :)