Friday, August 3, 2012

Farm to Fork, Harvest Report 2012, Days 6-7

What we grow (along with the rest of the USA farmers) will end up in some version on your dinner plate.... so come along and read how one farm family is growing some of the food you and your family will eat.

Thursday found the Anderson Farm crew not harvesting winter wheat, but doing last minute equipment updates and repairs.  I had made a parts run for Farmer Joe on Wednesday night, so Thursday was spent doing last minute things to the trucks and combines that had not been found earlier during routine maintenance checks.  Also Farmer Joe said some kind of strange code was showing up on his combine monitor - so the mechanic was going to meet him out in the field on Friday morning to take a look.  Hopefully it will be a minor fix.....  The new combines (when sitting in the cab) have sounds that are exactly like something from a Star Wars fighter jet.  My personal thoughts on all the sound effects is that some young kid who grew up watching  the Star Wars movies became a design engineer for Case IH ( the kind or brand of combines we drive) and integrated the "sounds" into the controls when the operator is doing different tasks within the cab.... I swear if you heard the sounds, you would think a Jedi was shooting his laser guns at something.... so have I piqued your interested in this??? Well good, and I'll make that a "honey do task" for Farmer Joe to record the sounds that his combine makes.  =)


Repairs are made directly  out in the field if possible

Farmer Joe posing just before moving the combine to another field to continue
harvesting the winter wheat
Another harvest video from the first day of harvest, but it is what we are encountering each day and it is narrated by Farmer Joe, so it gives you an up close and personal view from the seat of the combine. (click here if unable to view)


As added interest, this is what test plots in a farmer's field looks like when companies (or universities) are testing out new crop varieties  in real life conditions.  Each little cute square is a different variety.  Wheat research is an on-going effort to be able to find the best grain varieties for our area.  I guess I would compare it to always searching for that perfect purse or pair of shoes, some are good, others are great - but the search for the best one is always an on-going effort.  Farmer Joe will probably roll his eyes over my comparison - but as I think most of my readers are women (right?) you can appreciate what I am talking about. =)

Test field plots
As always, thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to check in on how the progress of our wheat harvest is going. As always, I'm just an email away, so drop me a line at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment. All my best, Gayle

P.S. I'm experimenting with a new dessert and if it's blog worthy, then I'll tempt you to mess up your kitchen with this newest recipe that has lemon and coconut.....yummmm. Talk to you soon.