Farming in the shade

Michigan's Red Haven peaches are famous throughout the country. Michigan's first commercially succesful fruit was the peach, with the first peach trees planted in the 1780s. Michigan is ranked 14th in total U.S. wheat production, with more than 600,000 acres of winter wheat.

Farming is an up and down sort of business. But a lot of times, it's a really neat job. I'm going to outline today why food costs money, as there are some days that (shh, don't tell anyone!) farmers might be inclined to work for free--just for the joy of it. This was NOT one of those days. When The Farmer mixed up his daily batch of compost, he noticed a stray piece of metal sticking up out of the mixer wagon. The mixer wagon is where The Farmer measures and mixes exact amounts of manure and sawdust. After it's mixed, it goes into the in-vessel composter for a few days, and the out to the finishing pile. None of this process involves stray metal banging around in the mixer wagon. When he checked it out, he realized that the mixer wagon was rusting to pieces, and that stray metal was part of the bottom of the mixer wagon. Time to call for Captain Welderman. After cleaning out some of the future compost (which is REALLY nasty in its potential form), Captain Welderman went...

We don't do a lot of craft shows and fiber festivals. Three each year, to be exact. Maybe two next year. One show we really enjoy is the Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival . It's fun to see friends again, and this festival really emphasizes the sheep part of wool production, which we appreciate. Here's what our camper looked like after we packed for the festival. I suppose it could have been worse. We had about 8-10 totes of goodies and several bags of roving/top. We talked with one vendor who had 30 totes of yarn stuffed in her camper. As always, I heard a lot of stories from weavers, as well as from weavers' children and grandchildren and neighbors. Rag rugs bring stories out of people. We tried out a new booth configuration (hanging yarn from dowels between the black wire cubes). I like it. One person, after reading our sign about "Polypay Wool", asked if that meant that there was polyester added into the wool. (sigh) Think it's too late to get th...

The blog silence has been deafening, hasn't it? Here's a quicky update with no pictures. We've started harvesting pinto beans. The new-to-us combine has been sadly neglected in its previous life. So even after 7-8 days of solid fixing, we harvest a bit, take it back into the shop to fix the latest thing we've found, and then harvest a bit more. The up side of that is the guys are getting a great idea of the inner workings of this Case IH combine. That'll come in handy over the long haul. I've been buried in paperwork at my day job. Which means I haven't been able to do justice in the getting-ready-for-the-festival department. Ah well. We'll take what's ready and hand out lots of business cards. And enjoy the beautiful fairgrounds in Ogemaw County, home to the Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool Festival . Come and visit us, if you're close. Take your wheel or your knitting and sit and visit a while. Saturday's a bit busier, and Sunday's more ...

Exactly one week ago today we brought home the new old combine. Today is Day 7 of fixing (though to be fair, some of those days we were waiting for parts to arrive). It's a good combine, I think. It's just been sadly neglected in many, many ways. That's why we could afford it. I can't even begin to list the things that have been worked on in this combine. It's like remodeling an older house--as you fix things, you find more things that need fixing. The straw spreader (above) is a nifty place to set tools and supplies. Still hoping for a rye harvest, but no one's had the time or the heart to walk out back to check on the field. Stay tuned...

An acre of corn removes 8 tons of harmful greenhouse gas, more than that produced by your car annually. (Source: EPA) Thanks to new, innovative fertilization methods, today's American corn farmers are producing 70% more corn per ounce of fertilizer. (Source: USDA) 87% of America's corn crop is grown without irrigation. (Source: USDA)

In the middle of wheat harvest this year, our old combine failed. Completely fell apart--the frame broke, and in doing so the combine disemboweled itself. You can read more about it here . We ended up discing the rest of the wheat in--a major loss. (If you're starting to think this is the year from Murphy, you're not alone.) The rye has been ready for over a month, and we have not been able to hire anyone to custom combine, nor have we been able to buy a new combine. But I'm happy to say that yesterday we took delivery on a new old combine. We hired a trucker to help us get it home. Many prayers were said--during loading, hauling, and unloading. The combine was too wide for the trailer, so the trucker put the wings out with extra boards. Looks really stable, doesn't it? Everything's more stable with a mess of chains. We drove behind, with an "OVER SIZE LOAD" sign on the back of our van. We had only 3 close calls on the 2-1/2 hour drive home. Nutty drivers....

Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. -- Psalm 73:25-26

The same chemicals that give tart cherries their color may relieve pain better than aspirin and ibuprofen in humans. Eating about 20 tart cherries a day may reduce inflammatory pain and headache pain. There are about 7,000 cherries on the average tart cherry tree. The number varies depending on the age of the tree, weather and growing conditions. It takes about 250 cherries to make a cherry pie, so each tree could produce enough cherries for 28 pies! Today, in Michigan, there are almost 4 million cherry trees, each of which annually produces 150-200 pounds of tart cherries. You do the math... Source: Agriculture Council of America