Summer Growth

Here are some pictures of stuff that is happening and growing on the farm.

A pole bean climbing up a corn stalk

Corn silk

A pumpkin blossom with a native pollinator bee

Sunflowers! my favorite flower

This one is growing in a unusual upright way

A down view of it.

Hand pollenating a zucchini blossom

The female zucchini blossom tied up with grass to keep the bees out.

A yellow zucchini blossom that is also tied, I hand pollinate to keep these zucchini from crossing with other c. pepo this is the family group that pumpkins, zucchini, and some of the other winter squash belong to. Then I will let this zucchini grow and make seed for next year. It is a bit of a challenge to do this, as I need to get out to the squash before the bees in the early morning. Also I try to get at least one male blossom from three different plants then the plant that has the female blossom on it, this is to insure genetic diversity. It makes me thankful for seed companies, but I want to learn this skill of saving seed as it is possible to adapt the plants to my locale microclimate by saving seed from the plant that do well.

Notice the wide space between the plants....

this is so I do not have to water.

Here are close up shots of the landrace and ancient grains we're trialling to see which ones do good in here in the area of michigan. The one above is emmer a very ancient ancestor to modern wheat.

Another type of emmer from Ethiopia called Ethiopian blue tinge it is planted in the spring. All the others were planted last fall.

I have cut and shocked the rye, it will dry for a little wile and then I will thresh it to separate the grain from the straw.

These are oats that I got from a gene-bank, they are no longer grown widely so have become rare I may be the only one growing them in the U.S. The one Above is an old variety called red rust proof. It looks like the oats that are grown here but taller.

These oats look a lot different then the others they must be a very old style that has not been toyed around with by plant breeders it is called Ujszegedi hungarian landrace oat.

The Hay Days

To day is very hot and windy. We have been very busy bringing in the hay both loose and baled, we get hay from a farmer in Buckley, and I have been cutting the loose hay in the road sides and on other small fields near are farm. So far I have cut and dried about a ton (2000 lbs) of loose hay and we will gather 800 bales of hay so far we have got 549. We got a load of hay last night all went well, we had extra help from my cousins and an other friends so we got it loaded and home quickly. we unloaded and stacked it early this morning, and went and got another load. Then we all went to the lake(lake michigan) for a dip, it was very refreshing, and the water was not too cold. It is a little dry so the corn is curling up a bit to save on water, but rain is in the for cast so it should be fine.

One of the hay fields in Buckley, the hill in the distant is Briar hill, the old timers say that when the this hill is blue it is good hay making wether. Our farm is to the west of this hill in the Marilla hills, Briar is in a range of hills Known as the Yuma hills.

After loading hay one evening we spotted this bow of promise when we were heading out from Nate's after getting hand dipped icecream cones. Nats's is a little store at the foot of the big hill that our farm is on top of.

Loading the trailer up.

Topping off the load.

Hooking up a bale.

Looking out from the top of the load.

One of my cousins helping fork loose hay into the hay mow.

This a video of me hooking up the last hay bale

Looking down on the lake from a bluff.

The Lake

The Beach

Rain Rain, And More Rain

It has been poring on and off for the last couple days. This is good for the garden and fields, but not for making hay especially baled hay. Despite the rain I have made over 1000 pounds of hay this would be the equivalent of a large round bale or 25 small square bales. One thing that is nice about cutting with a scythe is that the grass can be wet, the best time to cut is in the early morning when the dew is on. Also when hay is done by hand it is stacked this keeps the rain off the hay deep in the stack and then when the the sun shines the outside of the stack dries.

Today I did a little repair on the garden tiller, I replaced an oil seal and put new gear oil in, and put a new tube in one of the tires. So once it dries out it is ready to cultivate the gardens. The corn is growing very well and is up to my chest in some places. Now that it stopped raining I think I'll go back and work on the walk behind tractor that I am fixing up to hopefully sell since we do not use it any more, I do not want the farm to succumb to heavy metal disease.

The corn on it's way to "sky high by the 4th of July" the GMO corn across the road is not even nee high! Thumbs up for OP Wapsie Valley corn!

Input Output The Chemical Way

These to photos look very similar. The first is chemical fertilizer being transferred into a spreader the last is corn being transferred in to a storage bin. The fields across the road have become lifeless from years of this wrong way of farming and it takes tons a chemicals to grow any thing. This morning when the Agribusiness men came out to drive around in their state of the art equipment and spread chemicals it reminded me of how they harvest their corn in the fall.

Pictures of the fields and gardens

The french style garden

a close up of the beds

Potatoes that came up where they were planted last year they look good and no bugs have attacked them.

This is a new field garden. I plan to rotate crops in this area to build up the soil and then let it go back to pasture

Squash coming up in the corn.

I am trying out a few new types this year such as this cheese type squash it is like a Butternut squash but it is shaped like a pumpkin and can grow to 40 pounds.

The Buckwheat and Rye

The Oats and Barley

Another garden this is the same garden in my blog header picture

Another view of the same garden this corner is where I have the ancient wheat trials planted and other vegetables that go to seed their second year such as carrots which can be seen in the lower left corner.

The corn field

Weeders in the corn. The house is not our house I do not want any one to think that because there is a TV dish and true farmers do not have one, they don't have time to watch TV anyway!

Making more Hay

Stacking it on the rack to keep the rain of it

raking it

Finished haycocks

I found a nest of these when I was cutting the hay I let them go I did not have the heart to kill them even though they are eating up the neighbors garden.

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