Urban Grains

On the farm the rain has actually been welcomed – Jim worked like the dickens to get all the spring wheat seeded before the deluge and he succ(s)eeded!  And thus the kernels of spring wheat are soaking up the moisture and readying to burst into plants.

The knack of planting does not come without a knack for troubleshooting, so lest you think the life of a farmer is only dampened by premature rains or hungry ducks, we include a picture of Jim wrestling with the seeder.  A person needs to calibrate the machine, to control the amount of seed per row per spread of the spigots on the seeder.  Personally I have used a yardstick, a tape measure, or a length of wood, but I am planting one seed and one row at a time in the vegetable patch!  The seeder saves a person that amount of effort, but mathematical calculations on distance between rows and kernels, over the span of the seeder and the length of the rows, calls for a bit of head scratching, scribbling on paper, and then a sample weight of seed dispersed into a bucket by manual rotation of the cog, to make sure the planting is optimal. A mere few hours later, Jim is back in the driver’s seat and studding the field with kernels of wheat.

Our second image on this rainy day blog is of the fall rye on a glorious day earlier last week, planted in the fall and now thigh high and a luscious green – Mount Cheam looms in the background, our mountainous touchstone and companion in all we undertake in this part of the valley.  And a shot of Yoshi’s garlic, readying for harvest in July.  His potato starts are still thinking about things.

And then we include a big hello from a bear.  We walked, Yoshi, Diane and myself, as well as Bella and Axle the Dogs, around the circumference of the farm of an evening, and the next late afternoon, I discovered that the bear(s) were back.  We delight in sharing the farm, with ducks, swallows, bears and beavers, owls, the occasional skunk, and of course the frogs.  The bears are of special stature, and we appreciate their calling cards.  They leave wet paw prints on the road, crushed patches of grass where they too like a good roll, bits of fur on the barbed wire, and stool samples, black and showing evidence of a diet of grasses at this time of year.

Stay dry – the week ahead promises some sun!

Henrie