Wow did we underestimate the labor involved with this project!  It is one thing to plant the wheat; its a whole ‘nuther thing to cut it, thresh it, and winnow it!

Next year we WILL have a scythe.  The field is 70 x 70 which is bigger than most suburbanite homes.  We are cutting the whole thing down with a hand sickle which means being bent over and cutting the stalks off at ground level.  We managed to get half down and then it started to rain.  So now we have to wait for the field to dry before we can do the other half.

Because we have yet to put up a barn for critters and hay and such (the barn we have right now being for equipment), the hay is stacked in our basement on tarps.  From there we thresh it (the removal of the wheat heads from the stalks) and then it will be winnowed (removing the “shells” of the wheat berries by letting wind carry them away), leaving us with the end result:  whole grain raised with no chemicals, no synthetic fertilizers, and no pesticides.

I planted the field with 25 lbs of red spring wheat.  It will be interesting to see after all is said and done, if we harvested more than what we sowed.

The wheat field:

The harvested wheat:

The farmer with his ass in the air!  HOT!

The foot powered (treadle powered) thresher:

Zina hard at it:

Yet another project almost completed. 1200 feet of Lumite laid down with 600 pins. The grass and weeds and BINDWEED out on the prairie have eyes and search for unsuspecting vegetables, delicate plants and small children. This should keep it out of the walkways. Not to mention the awful, devil incarnate goat head thorns! Our “bottom” two beds are the wettest because the garden is on a slight slope. Zina pulled buckets of bind weed out this morning. Now hopefully we will be able to stay on top of it now that most of the torrential spring rains have subsided. Whoosh it was hot!

It is starting to feel like the JAZ Farm is getting more and more completed.  We signed our life away this past Friday and are having a Solar Array put up.  This isn’t a completely off grid system but it has a battery back up.  The power company becomes a back up system as well and will provide us electricity when the sun isn’t shining very brightly or if we use more power than the panels produce (not likely).  If the grid goes down the panels keep the room of batteries charged up.  Out here this is important.  With all of the chicken and pork going into freezers and the fact that our well pump is electric, this system will keep us from losing our food and also ensure that we have water available.

In addition, I will be installing water harvesting tanks to catch water from the roof for irrigation, drinking and providing water to the greenhouse….. which by the way…. is actually HERE!  Now that the Lumite is done (there is some that we need to wait until the fall to lay because we can’t disturb the beds and the pathways are fairly narrow) I can start eyeballing the greenhouse and get the frames assembled.  It isn’t the full length we agreed to during the 8 month fiasco that was the wait time, but we did get the original length and upgraded steel.

So after all of the torrential rains of May through the first part of June we are now having our first heat wave of the year.  Expecting a high of 96 and we are already pretty close to it.  The noonday sun drove us indoors after about a 3 1/2 hour work session.  It is definitely one of those days where you can drink a gallon of tea and not pee.

Everything is coming up in the gardens, the young laying hens are now starting to lay many eggs, the meat birds have gone out into the outdoor coop, and the pigs are slopping around in the wallow.

Of course, the vegetables aren’t the only things that like the good growing conditions.  The weeds have turned it up a notch and the prairie grasses could win an award for tenacity.  Son Aaron headed back to the Shitty early because the blooming grasses were wreaking havoc on his allergies.  Trying to keep the grass cut back is like trying to defend a castle from invasion.  That’s one of the big reasons we are considering cows.  Lawn mowers that create compost…. the best of all worlds.

Today we started laying down the Lumite weed barrier in the garden walkways.  It is all is being nailed down with 12 inch nails that have washers on them so the fabric doesn’t tear.  So far it looks pretty promising.  If it can keep some of the bindweed and goat-heads from invading, the garden will be a much easier place to be.  If you’ve never had the pleasure of goat-heads count your blessings.  They are evil awful things that are like stepping on or sitting on staples.

After the Lumite is all down then work will begin in earnest on assembling the greenhouse.  Yes it arrived.  It was the worst purchasing experience of our lives.  He didn’t honor his commitment of adding an additional 8 feet to compensate us for our patience and he claims he shipped some Hat Channel steal that is needed to square everything up and it did not arrive.  He is a rude, awful individual, and I am no longer going to fight it.  I need to re-find my Zen space and a continued fight with a person who can only be classified as an immature narcissist, is no longer in my quiver.  If you are ever in the market for a greenhouse, avoid Greenhouse Pro’s at any and all cost.

We go and meet with the Solar Panel folks this coming Friday. They are local, I can look them in the eye. Hopefully this experience will be a bit more positive and timely than the greenhouse was.

The Corn is coming up!

The Lumite weed barrier!  YAY!

The new sages and their swale.