"Let me now go to the field": Experiencing the Ohio Wheat Harvest

The title of this post comes from the book of Ruth, specifically chapter 2 verse 2: 

"And Root (Ruth) the Moavitess said to Naomi, Let me now go to the field, and glean ears of corn after him in whose sight I shall find favor. And she said to her, Go, my daughter." (Restoring Scriptures True Name Edition)   

What does the above Bible verse have to do with this post, you may be wondering? 

I was able to visit my mother's side of the family in Ohio this summer. This is an introduction to the Ohio agriculture that my family participated in back in the day, and what modern crop farming looks like today...so, '"Let me now go to the field". 

A little family history

The above photo is of my great great grandpa Henry Gautsche's farm reprinted in the local newspaper. This may or may not be the barn that his son Homer, my great grandpa, moved across the creek that stands as a double barn today in the next photo.

The Farm Today

My great grandparents, Homer and Ilva Gautsche's old farmhouse and double barn still stand in Northwest Ohio.

The Barn Sign

The farm belongs to someone else now, but the land is still farmed by extended family and I was blessed with the barn sign. The sign successfully traveled back to North Carolina to be hung on my much much smaller barn.

My Great Grandpa's Combine

We stumbled upon this gem while retrieving another piece of farm equipment from an extended family member's barn. They had purchased it at the family auction for $300 when my great grandpa stopped farming.

Family history fascinates me, and accidentally stumbling upon an old family heirlooms is the best.

The Modern Combine, a few generations later: 

This is the combine that I got to ride in during the wheat harvest. The header is a 40 feet wide, meaning that it can harvest a 40 foot row while driving across the field. This is huge! In just a few generations, agriculture has changed drastically in size and scale. Just look at the size of that combine!

An Inside View

Equipped with both GPS and a spectator seat...I occupied the spectator seat.

An inside view looking down at the header, with the grain cart out in the distance.

Looking at the combine from the rear, where straw is deposited in a row for baling.

Unloading the Combine

Every so often the orange light (seen in the mirror) would blink, an indication that the grain hopper in the combine was almost full and ready to be unloaded. Here, the grain is being emptied from the combine into the grain cart. It was so neat to see how all the mechanics worked in moving the grain from the field to the grain elevator.

The grain cart is then emptied into this semi truck to be hauled to the grain elevator nearby. 

Me, happily sitting in the tractor after learning how to drive it around one of the wheat fields after the grain was harvested. This is by far the largest tractor I have ever driven and it steered much better than my car!

My Main Job: Hauling Straw

After the wheat harvest, the straw was baled and left in the field. We had to go out to collect the bales for storing in the barns. These large bales had to be loaded onto the trailer with a loader, and my job was to drive the truck. 

I was amazed at how flat the land was and how many different farms you could see while standing in one place. 

In conclusion, being able to visit family and work a few days on the extended family's farm was an AMAZING experience. I learned so many new things about Ohio agriculture, and how different it is compared to North Carolina. This was a new kind of agriculture that I had not experienced before: Crop farming. 

Comment below with any questions.

Dreaming of Sunflowers @ Rooster Ridge Farms

"She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard." Proverbs 31:16

This wasn’t a vineyard full of grapes, but a field of flowers at Rooster Ridge Farms LLC. My cousin Taylor, and I were welcomed onto the farm for a tour. I had never experienced a flower farm before, so this was a very neat adventure.

A special thank you to Taylor Richards for coordinating this farm tour and taking all of the beautiful photos, visit Taylor's blog here!

Me on the left with Teresa on the right

Teresa Brown is a first generation female farmer and her dream was to grow sunflowers. This dream has come alive just in the last year when she purchased just shy of 23 acres in Bryan, Ohio.

Teresa is an art teacher in a local community school system. I am sure the artistic ability aids in arranging the flowers, but this is not your average art teacher! Teresa has a sunflower painting over fireplace and sunflowers growing outside!

In northwest Ohio, agricultural production predominately consists of the three crop rotation of winter wheat, field corn, and soybeans… But Teresa Brown has a different plan for her acreage. 

With being on the property only one year thus far, she has a great set up. Teresa has one main field in flower cultivation, but what an excellent view! Facing the woods, you’ve got a field to your left and a pond to your right.

The beauty is hard work, Teresa bought her tractors and got busy. She learns as she goes, which is a quality I very much admire. I once heard a saying “you just have to start”, and that is what Teresa has done at Rooster Ridge Farms. 

In the era of making money, Teresa has a different view. She does it for the aesthetics, it instills happiness in others. 

A few tips that Teresa shared with me:

*Cut your flowers early in the morning, so the stems retain their moisture.
*When marking your rows, use a pencil on your tags instead of permanent marker. The permanent marker may wash off!

Pricing

*Pint for $8 

*Quart for $10

*Refill for $3 this year

Flowers are now affordable, local, and perfect for “flower-bombing”.

“She is flower-bombing people”, Teresa told us of one of her customers. This now coined term refers to the customers that like to buy multiple flower bouquets at a time, and gift them to their friends. What a neat idea!

So, what does the future hold?

Teresa explained that there is a program called NRCS, which you can read about here, that provides high tunnels and irrigation for farmers, which she plans to pursue. 

A future for female farmers

I was very encouraged by Teresa’s start-up story as she talked to me about the resources available for female farmers, through Ag Credit and FSA(Farm Service Agency). Read more about these types of loans on the USDA website, here.

Resources

Teresa buys from Jonny’s seed company, check out their website here.

Field of Farmers Joel Salatin 

Midwest Gardeners Handbook Melina Myers

Contacts

Teresa Brown at Rooster Ridge Farm LLC

Facebook: here

or visit her at the Bryan, Ohio farmer’s market!

More Photos:

I took this photo of Teresa's farmer's market set up!

Fruits and Other Perennials

With my sophomore year at North Carolina State University coming to a close, moving back home, and interning on an organic produce farm...life has been quite busy.

I am happy to give you all a Practice Farm update. For more up to date photo posts, follow practice_farm on Instagram here.

Wild black berries found growing in the brush.

4 newly planted raspberry bushes.

The front flower bed is housing many herbs, including oregano, basil, mint, and sage.

Newly planted and trellised blackberries.

Granny smith apple tree. 

Close up of the granny smith apples. 

Another one of our apple trees has fallen over but continues to survive, unfortunately covered in poison ivy.

Newly planted fig tree from NC State, propagated by air layering and now planted in our back yard!

Diagonally growing cherry tree. We are not sure how it fell over, any solutions?

The not-so-tame muscadine vines, but the fruit is growing! I am hoping to learn how to prune them, because it appears that they were not pruned by the previous land owner.

A close up of the muscadines.

We have been blessed with this property. All of the fruit trees (excluding the fig) and muscadine vines were here when my mother purchased the land, and I am hoping for a bountiful harvest! 

"And I have given you land for which you did not labor, and cities that you build not, and now you dwell in them; eating of the vineyards and olive eytzim(trees), which you did not plant."

Joshua 24:13 (RSTNE)

Comment below if you have any questions.
Blessings,

Olivia 

Processing Your Own Meat

Having recently been interested in processing my own animals at home, I thought I would share my journey with you all.

Piedmont Culinary Guild

This search began with receiving an email through the ncchoicesnews list serve (which you can sign up for: here) about the Piedmont Culinary Guild's Food and Beverage Symposium, March 13th, 2016 in Charlotte, NC.

I had never heard about the Piedmont Culinary Guild before, but I have found the event that they are hosting particularly interesting, regarding ethical meats. To look at their event website, click here. 

Their featured lecturer will be Meredith Leigh, who wrote The Ethical MeatHandbook: A Complete Guide to Home Butchery, Charcuterie, and Cooking for the Conscious Omnivore. So I proceeded to download the preview of her book on my kindle to continue in my research, which I have read and very much enjoyed! I look forward to purchasing the book in the near future. 

Specific Cuts of Meat

Then, in one of my classes at NC State, we learned the basics of how they determine the cuts of meat that consumers buy in the store. This is a standard system, for example if you order a certain cut of steak, it will come from a particular part of the animal. This further sparked my interest in wanting to learn how this is done.  

Additionally, I was told that there are kosher meat markets in Raleigh, NC, and because I would like to invest in kosher meat, I must check into this. For literature on kosher slaughter, check out this article titled "Religious slaughter and animal welfare: a discussion for meat scientists", by Temple Grandin and Joe M. Regenstein, here.

Raising My Own

So all of the previous info got me thinking...I could raise my own market sheep to be processed in a kosher fashion at a slaughter house. The I could further process the meat by dividing the carcass into particular cuts to add to our freezer. Thus we could eat the kosher meat that I had raised! 

Cabarrus County Fair 

NC State Fair

I must admit that if I do implement this plan, it will take real emotional strength. I have raised market lambs in previous years, but have sold them after the county fair show season. 

My main point in all of this is: 

I feel as though eating the meat of an animal I have raised would better honor the system. 

A system of carnivorous eating that I would learn to better appreciate. 

An appreciation for the life of the animal, rather than the blind consumption of meat that most Americans experience today. #consciouscarnivore 

The purpose of raising my own livestock would be to counteract the saying:

"I just thought that chicken came from the freezer isle of the grocery store".

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Thanks!

New Zealand Agriculture

The people you'll meet on a flight from Chicago to Charlotte.

While flying home from winter break vacation in Ohio, we flew out of Chicago. On an hour and twenty minute flight, we met a 23 year old from New Zealand. The young man studies at a Christian school in Chicago and hopes to pastor a rural township church back home in New Zealand upon graduation. What originally started as a discussion about faith between my mother and the studying pastor reguarding the Feasts of the Lord described in the book of Leviticus, turned into a long discussion about primarily new Zealand agriculture. Which the Bible and it's parables are largely related to agricultural concepts, so it all fits together quite well.

I find it incredibly bizarre to have such a long conversation with a total stranger about something so near and dear to my heart, something such as agriculture. I will do my best to hit the high points of the conversation, the notes I took on my phone are kind of extensive. You may want to settle down with a nice cup of coffee because this is my longest post yet. Here we go-

He told us that New Zealand agriculture is known for sheep and diary farming. For a girl that has never contemplated going to New Zealand for agriculture, the discussion was fascinating. One of the main breeds of sheep is the marino. Although there are multiple breeds raised in New Zealand, that was the main breed that came to mind when the fellow worked back in the agriculture industry.

He told us his main job was to bag wool during sheering time.

To give you a little background, he told us that New Zealand has paddocks of sheep ranging from 150 to 5,000 sheep. His next door neighbor had 150 sheep, but also raised beef cattle and pine trees for forestry.

When asked about any crazy stories associated with sheep farming, he told us of what he called "desexing" time and fly strike. During desexing time, they would castrate the male sheep and dock all of their tails. This was a time when they had to chase after the sheep, one reason it came to mind. He also communicated the gross scenario that is fly strike, which has to do with flies in the sheep wool. If y'all are terribly interested in fly strike, I am sure there is plenty of literature out there about it within the agricultural community.

I got to hear about how dairy farming is done in New Zealand, which is the avenue in which I have the most experience. He told us that two of his four brothers used to work within the diary industry. There would be two milkings a day, where the cattle would receive some sort of feed supplement in the morning and then graze for the rest of their feed during the day. Although it largely depends on the specific farm, most had an off season during the winter. The usual "milking season" would start in august, when the cows would calve, and dry up around February. I don't know of the exact logistics, this is simply what I was told. Continuing on with the conversation-

New in New Zealand 

Their seasons in New Zealand are the opposite of ours, which means that it is currently summer. When it is summer time here in the United States, it is winter in New Zealand.

Another fun fact, if you've seen the Lord of the Rings movies, you've seen New Zealand. As far as land mass is concerned, New Zealand is comparable to the state of Colorado and there are about 4 sheep for every person living there!

We where told that another trend that seems to be picking up over there is deer and alpaca farming. He explained that the deer were grown for the velvet on their horns that is used medicinally in Asian countries, mainly China. Alpaca are being raised for their fiber, similar to sheep wool. Although in the young man's opinion, the alpaca seem more tolerant than sheep - easier to keep alive that is.

Agricultural Education in New Zealand

We were told that farming is a big part of New Zealand and they have what is called "Farm Show". From age 5 to age 12, students will hand raise a young animal within the more rural communities. Then there is a whole day dedicated to what they call "Farm Show", where students showcase their animal.

There, you can pay $20 for a lamb to raise and then sell to a farmer at a higher price, or have the animal slaughtered for your family's consumption. Additionally the students could raise calves to then sell as yearlings for meat. I asked if there were specific agriculture classes within the public schools, but was told that agriculture is incorporated into the social studies class curriculum. 

I got to learn a bit about high school in New Zealand, and I have come to find out that it is rather different than high school in the United States. There, you attend high school from the age 13 to 18 years old, but you are placed on a specific track: University or Trade. When you are planning to attend university, students are placed in higher end english and math classes. When you are on the trade route, students are placed in more practical classes and set up with placement opportunities.

Through these placements, students gain experience within the trade that they are interested in. For example, if you are interested in culinary arts, you may have a culinary placement opportunity and/or take extra course at a culinary school. Of course this is also influenced by location, based on the size and location of the community/school and whether the community is more rural or placed in a larger city. I personally like the idea of tailoring education more towards the student's personal interests, rather than a strict curriculum to meet certain standards. 

Keep in mind that all of the information in which I am sharing with you came from the lovely individual I got to speak with, practically interview, on a plane flight from Chicago to Charlotte. Excluding my own personal comments that I have been including along the way, I am not doing additional research or pulling information from external sources, it is all coming from extensive notes taken within this hour long talk. I find this absolutely incredible. With the internet being at our fingertips, I feel like this person-to-person learning can be easily lost with the attitude that "oh, I'll just google it later".

I am incredibly thankful for opportunities like these, in which I believe is truly an act of my God, YAHWEH. 

"Listen and hear my voice;
pay attention, and hear what I have to say:
Does a farmer sowing keep plowing forever?
Does he never stop breaking up and harrowing his land?
No- when he finishes levelling it,
he scatters his dill-seed, sows his cumin,
puts the wheat in rows, barley where it belongs,
and plants buckwheat around the edges;
because his God has taught him this,
has given him instruction.

Dill must not be threshed with a sledge
or cartwheels drive over cumin;
rather, dill one beats with a stick
and cumin with a flail.
When crushing grain for bread,
one doesn't thresh it forever;
one drives the horse and car wheels over it
but doesn't crush it to powder.
This too comes from YAHWEH-Tzva'ot (LORD of Hosts)
his counsel is wonderful, his wisdom is great."

Isaiah  28:23-29 (CJB)

As we near the Charlotte airport, we are reminded "64 degrees upon landing".

After receiving an invitation to New Zealand, I am beginning to entertain the idea of traveling there. Next year in New Zealand!

Planting Spinach

Hoss Tools

First off, I would like to introduce you all to the company that produced the wheel hoe I used before planting the spinach [see video below]. More specifically, the hoe had the oscillating hoe attachment: Check out the company website here. 

Using the oscillating hoe, I went over the row where the spinach would be planted and uprooting the existing weeds. These were the weeds that grew while the previous crop was there. I must say that these tools use a different set of muscles, that irregular farmers like myself may not be used to exercising... aka I was hurtin'!  The cool news is that Hoss tools states that you can adjust such tools to your personal height, which may be helpful for short folks like myself.

Seeds in the ground:

1. Within the desired area make 3 rows that are equally spaced apart the length of the row. This can be done with something as simple as a the end of a shovel stick.
2. Place a seed in the carved out row, each seed about 3 inches apart. 
3. Carefully cover the carved out row with dirt using a garden rake.

And there you have it, the directions that I received to plant a ton of spinach and now I have relayed them to all of you. I'll keep you posted as to whether my planting skills follow through! Here is the completed product at the end of the day. 

Who knew garden planting could be so simply stated....now we wait!