Farming in the shade

The $450 operators manual we recently purchased for the combine that we’ve owned for 8 years has paid off already. We were able to find the problem and get the grain head hydraulics to work again. The first of the small grains are in the bin. This year we are harvesting four small grains--einkorn (an old variety of wheat), oats, barley, and rye. Much of the field drowned out in the Monsoon of Fall 2018 or the Monsoon of Spring 2019. But it looks like we will be able to harvest some of each of what we planted, and we're grateful for that.  For more on our combine woes through the years, search “combine”. It’ll make you feel better about your life, I promise. 

The problem du jour is nothing new. If you can’t afford new farm equipment (and really, who can?!), you buy what you can afford. And fix it when it breaks. Some of it is pretty specialized equipment which is only used once or twice a year. We try to maintain and care for the equipment after each use and before we fire it up for the next go-around. But we do have a saying for this part of farming: “Stuff only breaks when you use it.” Equipment can look good, start well, and run smoothly, but when it’s time to actually do the work, some little thing will go wrong. Right now it’s the wiring on relay switches in the combine. Right at wheat harvest, of course. With oats and rye waiting their turn. Yes, we have had our share of problems with this combine. The former owner used it hard, and it shows. Some have asked us why we don’t just buy a different combine. The answer is near the top of this post—go ahead, scroll up. I’ll wait. YouTube is good, provided the person making the video actu...

We made arrangements to sell the wheat recently. Our buyer wanted the wheat in totes. These are some pretty hefty totes--you need a forklift to move them around once they're full. You also need a forklift to hold up the totes while you're filling them. Each tote weighed about 2,500 pounds and held about 43 bushel of wheat. We carefully loaded them on a borrowed trailer, and set off. The short version of the story is that, after borrowing a trailer and fixing two sets of brakes, we still had to replace four tires on our trip across the state. Two tires blew, and two were ready to blow. So this "borrowed" trailer thing didn't work out all that well for us. But the wheat is sold and delivered. On to the next thing...

Last year at the normal wheat harvest time (which is mid-July for us) we had a bit of equipment trouble. We harvested some of the wheat, but the majority of the harvest was lost. This year, due to an early spring and extra warm summer weather, the wheat was ready about two weeks earlier than normal. We can tell that the wheat is nearly ready by walking out to the field, picking a head of wheat (not from the edge, but from in the field a ways), and testing the kernels with a thumbnail or a pocket knife. If it's squishy, it's not ready. It needs to be dry. The new combine worked wonderfully (though not without adjustments and slight repairs). The combine sweeps the stalks and grain in with a rotating head. The stalks are cut with moving knives at the base of the rotating grain head. The stalk and head are pulled into the combine where the kernels are separated from the rest of the wheat plant. The kernels go in a bin in the upper back of the combine which can be emptied when it ...

Did you know? A bushel of wheat contains approximately one million individual kernels, and yields approximately 42 pounds of white flour or 73 one-pound loaves of bread. The average one-pound loaf of bread has 16 slices. 73 loaves of bread would have 1,168 slices and those slices would make 584 sandwiches.

Did you know? The United States uses over 3 million bushels of wheat each day. More foods are made with wheat than any other cereal grain. There are over 400 varieties of wheat grown in the United States.

What can be produced on one acre* of land? 2,694 pounds of wheat. One bushel of wheat produces about 42 pounds of flour, which can be used to make 42 loaves of bread or 42 pounds of traditional pasta. One bushel of whole wheat yields even more: 64 pounds of flour to make 64 loaves of bread or 64 pounds of pasta. *An acre is about the size of a football field. --from Food and Farm Facts, American Farm Bureau

Did you know... ...a combine can harvest enough wheat in 9 seconds to make 70 loaves of bread? ...wheat farmers make about 4 cents from each loaf of bread sold? ...one acre of wheat can produce enough flour to furnish a family of four with bread for nearly ten years? --from Montana Wheat & Barley Committee

Each American consumes, on average, 53 pounds of bread per year. Assuming a sandwich was eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner, it would take 168 days to eat the amount of bread produced from one bushel of wheat. A family of four could live for 10 years off the bread produced by one acre of wheat.