Memories of Fall '13

Fall is past. Winter is most definitely here. And I am not prepared. This was such a hectic fall once again and my winter preparations were left to the last minute. With our farming properties spread out so much we are able to mitigate any damage from any one particular storm that usually occurs somewhere around us. The downside to this situation is the amount of time it takes to move equipment and get parts for repairs. We seriously need to consolidate our land holdings. The other thing that really hampered our harvest was breakdowns. There were two periods when the main combine, our Allis Chalmers L2 was down for days at a time with major repairs necessary. The end result though was that we did indeed finish our harvest. It was tough though. Many difficult days.

My daughter showed me this picture though the other day. I didn't know that she and her friend had taken some photos out in the Spelt field. They were beautiful! It made me realize that even though I had had a difficult Fall, she had enjoyed it. It brought me back to my days as a farm kid in the Fall and it made me smile.

Spring Seeding 2012

Garreth and a friend filling the small drills

The seeding season went fairly well. Between Chris, me and Dad we managed to get our fields tilled and seeding in record time this year. A full week earlier than last year. Even with our fields spread over creation, three people helped with the logistics of moving equipment and keeping things progressing. Son Garreth even got in some good tractor time helping out with cultivation and harrowing. He also helped here and there with cleaning out the seed drills and filling them between crops. We bought an old end-wheel seed drill for spreading Red Clover Seed in one of our fields. Our big drills don't have a grass box for such a task so it was necessary to purchase this old drill. It also worked well for seeding our smaller plots with the specialty grains. 

We are trying a few different things this year. As I mentioned earlier we planted some Red Clover. We did this as an underseed for our Oats and our Gold Flax. This will act as a nitrogen fixer in the soil for next years crop. We will plow it under next spring or perhaps this fall.

 Bags of Red Fife Seed

A few different wheats went into the ground this spring too. Red Fife, Park and Spelt. All three are heritage varieties and the Spelt is truly heritage as it is known to have been grown 6000 years ago!

Breaking Hayland

A lot of effort also went into breaking a piece of old hayland across the road. It is around 40 acres. Breaking hayland takes a lot of time and effort. The sod is difficult to break down into viable seedbed. We probably should have taken some time last fall to at least run over it with the chisel plow. But, we managed to get it seeded into Oats/Clover. Hopefully we will get a half decent crop of oats out of it and it will be ready for wheat next year.

Now, we gratefully watch the rain fall on newly seeded fields. What perfect timing! I finished seeding and it started raining the very next morning. The only things left to do is a little bit of harrowing on the oat seed, another disc of the field where the Hemp is going and then seeding Buckwheat in June. Fingers crossed for a warm, dry summer after some June rain. That's all I can do now.

Spelt Spaetzle recipe by Paul Shufelt, Blair Lebsack and Tony Le

Here is a tremendous recipe and article from yesterday's Edmonton Sun by Chef Paul Shufelt VP Culinary Century Hospitality. He and Chef Blair Lebsack and Chef Tony Le have come up with what I suspect will be an outstanding dish for Saturday's Slow Food Fundraising Gala...Roots, Shoots and Garden Boots. Stone ground mustard Spelt Spaetzle.

Organic Spelt Spaetzle by Paul Shufelt