July Farm Update
Hi Friend,
We are knee deep in harvest right now on the farm. This is our most anticipated time of the year! Sixteen months’ worth of work and waiting are wrapped up in two hot, dusty weeks.
The combine ready to start another day of harvest.
How do we know the wheat is ready?
While the golden yellow color is a great indicator, we know the wheat is ready when the head can easily be snapped from the stem. You will see deer running through the field and kicking little heads of wheat up into the air. We also take a sample to the local elevator to have it tested for moisture content. We want our wheat to have a low moisture content so it stores properly and is keeps its milling quality.
Wheat ready to be cut.
Harvest is underway
Once we get the green light to start cutting, we move two combines, two large wheat trucks, and a tractor with a bank out wagon to the field, and get busy. Each combine hold 300 bushels (that’s approximately 18,000 lbs of whole wheat flour). The combines will unload into the bank out wagon on the go, and then the bank out wagon will take the wheat from the field to the trucks. The bank out wagon saves us about a day of harvest. Before the bank out wagon, the combines would have to stop for about 15 minutes each time they unloaded. That adds up quickly!
Some of our fields have the most picturesque views.
Storing Wheat
We store the wheat that will we sell for home milling on the farm in bins created specifically for storing wheat for a long period of time. We take it directly from the field to our storage bins to keep it clean, moisture and bug free.
Long day of cutting coming to an end.
Harvest is long, hot 13 hour days, but we enjoy it. We literally get to see the “grains” of our labor.
Best,
The Sieverkropp’s