Blog-Harmony

Who would have ever thought that blog world could and has brought true love? 

My son and Willow Witch met through my blog, and after months of courtship, and a week of vacation time, Evan is heading to New York to live forever with Willow Witch. (This is a four-day road trip).

We have had the wonderful pleasure of Willow Witch flying in on Friday to spend a few days with us;

 

help Evan pack up a few belongings-including his dog a teacup poodle and some ducks, to drive back to New York State with her ‘guy’.

Welcome to our family, Willow Witch!  We ALL love you!

How the Header Works–and a Flat Tire

Here is the header in action….down go the stalks and in goes the corn

And of course things always have to have a down side.  One of the back tires when flat. 

 

Surprisingly the back tires are like the front tires of the car, they do all the moving of the combine.  The BIG tires on front support everything.  This always gets me confused, makes me feel like I’m backing up a trailer all the time.

But in the ’spare’ combines was the perfect tire!

Last year one of the front ones went flat.  It’s nice to have parts.  (These tires cost bunches and bunches of money)

 

Harvesting Corn — From Beginning to End

When field corn (as opposed to sweet corn or ensilage corn) is dry and ready for harvest it looks like this.  The moisture in the corn needs to drop, meaning leave the cob, the stalks and leaves to a proper level so it won’t mold.  We harvest (pick) corn around a 12 or 14.  It’s 12 in this photo.

This is a deer run.  You can see how they beat a path through the rows.  They even make beds inside the corn, which show up on Google earth like circles.

This is the corn combine. We have another one to combine beans.  Our equipment is old by most farmers’ standards, but it works for us and it’s paid for.  We joke because DH has several combines, five to be exact, but two of them are for parts.  When you have old equipment you need to have parts for when they break down…we live too far away from Tractor Salvage yards so we keep a small herd for repairs. 

You can see the combine moving down the field.  This combine takes four rows at a time.

This is a better view.  Beacause of how DH plants the rows a four-row header works the best for us.

The combine strips all the corn off the cob and spits it out

And leaves the field looking like this!  Later on in the year (the hay has to be totally dead or it will bloat the cows) we will turn the cows out to run the whole 80 acres.  They love these cobs and stalks and the corn that gets spilled.  It’s a favorite food to them.

The combine stores the corn until the HOPPER is full.  Then DH dumps the corn into the back of our truck.  I call this liquid gold.

We take all our corn to the Delta Elevator, but other people have contracts with Foster Farms.

Delta Elevator also sells some of our hay for us.  We have customers that come to the farm, but the Elevator also contracts with us. 

Here the corn is turned into feed for all types of corn eating animals.

Each load is weighed in before unloading.  After unloading the truck is weighed again.  This is how the farmer is paid.  I’m not sure what the price is this year, it’s down from the last couple of years. 

I would have gone in to take pictures of the corn sliding into the shoot, but they didn’t want me in there….something about safety.    

And it starts all over again until the field is completely done for another year.

Hand Prints in the Cement

We are moving right along on the barn

In-between harvesting the corn and hauling hay-

And the bad weather

(Blade……Linkin….Tallen…2009)

We have the foundation in place!

The storm is leaving so DH is back in the corn field!  We didn’t have rain! 

YEAH!

The 2009 Corn Harvest Has Begun!

We (meaning DH really) started combining corn late yesterday. 

The moisture content is 12. 

Now if the rain will just hold off …

Linkin’s Chickens

Linki’s chickens have finally started laying eggs.  She was SO excited to bring Grammy some of HER eggs.

They are Blue!  Oh! My!  Aren’t they just beautiful! 

I took pictures of her eggs up against my Rhode Island Red eggs.  (I have one hen who lays a small egg.)

It’s really fun to have grandchildren and more than delightful when they like the same things you do!

Wordless Wednesday

“Ain’t We Got Fun?” (Richard Whiting / Gus Kahn / Raymond S. Egan 1921)

Today’s world has brought to us the riches of wonderful and thoughtful friends. 

Far Side sent to me these darling photo cards as a thank you. 
What a wonderful time we live in, when friends from around the globe can be made in the twinkle of an internet second through blogging.

Thanks you, Far Side!  Your photography is beautiful; I will enjoy mailing these cards to friends and relatives near and far!

Life in the Old Barn

Although we stopped milking cows, (we still raise beef cows)

and we stopped using horses, (we use four-wheelers now)

 and we stopped raising pigs (the price of baby pigs is too much).

We still have life in the old barn.

 

 These little bugs are a pain.

They are helpful…they prey upon lots of garden pests, they feed their young on lots of invertebrates which cause damage to plants and flowers such as aphids and caterpillars, and they pollinate flowers.

It’s good to leave them alone so as not to disturb the natural control of pests and reduce the need for insecticide.

But they ruin your work, they get into your hair and face and, of course, they sting.

As annoying as they are, wasps are very beneficial and interesting insects, with a highly developed social structure. Wasps work really hard during their short lives and maybe deserve a break from their status as the creature we most like to eliminate.

Generally you are unlikely to get a wasp sting until autumn, unless you accidentally put your hand or foot on one and they are defending themselves, or unless you disturb a wasps nest. (Which could be anytime you come near one).

Up until late July and early August they are busy bringing up and feeding larval wasps, chasing insects, and foraging for food and maintenance materials for the wasps nest. After that their job is mainly done and they gorge themselves on the food they collect, especially on ripe and fermenting fruit; they become more and more dependent on sweet foodstuffs like these and will aggressively seek it out.

Additionally it will be getting hot and very crowded in the nest. It is at this time when they are most likely to sting humans, partly due to bad tempers caused by the heat and overcrowding in the nest, and partly in a semi-drunken reaction to being obstructed in their quest for sweet food.

I thought about going and on and on about these beneficial pests but I’ll stop here.

The old walls of the barn were full of these tiny creatures, it was rather disturbing to them and us (stings are not fun) but the walls had to come down and they had to move on.

I’m sure they were able to find a new house to rent close by!

Rainbow Snow

It’s cold here! 

We started a fire in the wood stove, it’s just that cold.

According to the Farmer’s Almanac winter is going to be rough for some of us.

 Sadly we seem to be jumping from almost fall right into winter.

But in the midst of the rain, wind, sleet, hail, and almost snow I saw this!

 

(Look real close-I forgot to enlarge it)

In spite of everything there are still rainbows.