Improvised Coffee Maker

 My old drip coffee maker broke down so I came up with this. I like the contrast between all the different elements.

 

Hurry Up and Wait

 We're so close to getting this organic spring wheat in the ground. Two days ago we starting taking equipment and seeds the twelve miles to the fields, but it started to rain, making it impossible to continue. It's been a couple of days of light rain, with up to 1/3 inch tomorrow, but then there should be 3-4 days of sun and temps in the mid 60s, which should give us a chance to drill the wheat.

 

 

(Click on any picture to make it bigger.)

 

 

The wheat will be underseeded with Berseem clover via the grass seed box on the drill.

 

To give you a rough idea of our plans: The approximately 15,000 lbs (or 250 bushels) of wheat seeds should yield around 225,000 lbs (3,750 bushels) of wheat at harvest. We're planting the "Bolles" variety which will give us the best chance of making "food" grade, for which we'll get paid a premium above the "feed" grade. I wrote more on that here.

Loading Seeds into the Tender

 A long couple of days. I'll come up with a less taxing way to do this in the future. I'm hoping that the rain holds off tonight and we can drive everything 12 miles down the highway and drill the 90 acres of wheat over the next couple of days.

Forgot to say in the video that I'll be underseeding the (hopefully) food grade organic wheat with Berseem clover. Once the wheat is harvested in mid August the clover will continue fixing nitrogen and stabilizing the soil until its winter killed. In 2022 I'll plant organic beans on this ground.

Seeds Delivered Today

After getting an unexpected call this morning that the delivery semi-trailer was five minutes away, I went out and started up the loader tractor.

(Click on any image to make it bigger.)

First off the truck were six pallets, holding a total about 15,000 lbs of organic wheat seeds. Shown in the picture below, they will get drilled - and underseeded with Berseem clover - on roughly 90 acres. As soon as it dries out, probably in 3 to 4 days, Dad/Gramps and I will get that done.

The seeding rate for wheat is much higher than for corn.  The corn seeds pictured on the pallet below, roughly 2200 lbs, will cover about 100 acres. They won't get planted until the soil is much warmer, probably at the end of May.

Below is the invoice for all the seeds I bought, which includes grass/hay and oat seeds in addition to what is pictured above. The grass/hay/oat seeds will be used to rejuvenate a small area of pasture. My neighbor, Rodrigo, of Cala Farms, has plans to rotationally graze sheep on that ground. Before that can happen I want to improve the ground, first by adding lime and turkey litter that the soils tests require and then reseeding it with the Deere 750 no-till drill.

I wrote a little bit about how I chose all the different seed varieties, here.