Super sunrise!

I guess I'm not much of an early riser, which is probably why I tend to always look at sunsets with much more interest.  I couldn't help but stand in awe for a few minutes before I had to tear out of the house to get the boys to school and get to work on time.  This was taken on 11/1 about 15 minutes BEFORE the sun came up.  I've seen the sun's rays do some pretty amazing things, but usually the sun is already up and shining.  I'm not sure if there is a name for whatever this is, but it's probably something that very few people ever have seen or if they did taken the time to stand and enjoy it.

Also living out in the middle of nothing like I do I get to see things like this.  My wife one night a year or so ago was very concerned one night when she noticed a big red fiery something on the horizon shortly after sunset.  It turned out to be a full moon rising - something she had never seen before living in the city.  She probably will hit me if she reads this, but I had a good laugh about it.  I wouldn't trade the small spot of heaven in Southern MN that I live in for all the tea in China.

Popcorn time!

As promised I took a few pictures today with my vintage corn harvester.  I need to do a little research to figure out exactly how old it is, but they made this model until 1962 so it is at least 48 years old.  It's really a neat machine and these machines were used until the ag industry came up with self propelled machines that would husk and shell the ears all in one.  It can handle two rows at once, but it is made for 56 inch rows and my planter which is only slightly newer than this plants 30 inch rows - therefore I only can use the outside row.

The corn goes in the front and there are two rollers spinning very fast that suck down the stalks.  When the ear of corn hits the rollers it pops off and goes up an elevator into a series of spinning rubber coated rollers which then suck off the husks.  They come out the side as you see below.  The corn then travels up another elevator into a wagon that is pulled behind.  The picture below is taken from the right side of the machine.

 This picture is what all the gears, chains, belts and other dangerous moving parts look like.  This drives all the different moving parts.  This is all driven by the PTO (Power take off)  from the tractor - I would have taken pictures explaining all of these things, but unless you can see these things they probably aren't all that interesting.

I took this last one while I was picking I ended up with a little more than double this amount of popcorn - mostly husked and ready to get shelled and dried.  I walked back through the field after I picked it and only found a few missed ears of corn.  If I would have picked and husked all of this corn by hand it would have taken me at between 8-16 hours of work and I probably would have missed more than this machine did.  This took me about 40 minutes (20 of that was fixing a chain that had jumped off it's sprockets).  I can't wait for 20 years from now when I can afford to buy a machine that was made in the 1980s that does all the husking and shelling in one step!  

I still have two more varieties of popcorn to harvest, I want to get this drying before I do that.  This is some hybrid yellow popcorn.  My favorite will be next - the shaman blue (or purple) and a new variety Lazer - which has red and brown striped kernels.

So I've been thinking I need to keep updating about the fall around here.  I've been more busy than I would have liked to have been this fall.  Still not sure how this keeps happening to me, but I guess for the most part that's OK since it keeps me out of trouble.  I've picked all the Indian Corn (I suppose Native American corn would be more appropriate) and I have never seen such vibrant colors in corn before.  Opening the husk of each ear is like unwrapping a present.  These were my favorites, they almost don't even look real.

What's fun about this is that there is a corn field around my property this year and I peeked at some of the corn there and found some ears here and there that have a spattering of colored kernels.  It's probably not enough for them to notice considering that it is a 155 acre field and if there is a good harvest it will yield about 250 bushels of corn per acre.  A bushel of corn weighs about 70 lbs depending on the moisture content.  So doing that math they will take away 2,712,500 lbs of corn from that field and given that amount of corn a few colored kernels will probably not be noticed - but for those that do I can imagine them wondering where these crazy colored kernels came from.

Next on the harvest agenda will be popcorn.  I think I will do quite well this year.  I plan on getting my harvesting machine all fired up this week and if I can remember I will take a few pictures in action.  I don't think they will do much justice though.  I will try to show how much of a death trap this thing could be.  It's probably about 50 years old and has only minimal safety guards on it.  It's the sort of machine that chops off fingers or rips off arms or other appendages with out even slowing down.  Since I always make sure it isn't running when I am off the tractor there isn't too much to worry about.

I am hoping that after October is done and all the crops are harvested, all the pumpkins are plowed under and the snow starts to fly that I will be able to have some rest.  I sort of doubt it though, my next project could involve more than I have ever taken on before and whether or not I will do it is something I will decide on in the next few weeks.  I want to write more about it, but I am exhausted right now and need some well deserved rest.

Harvest time!

I don't have any pictures to post this time, been too busy to take them lately.   Besides working and trying to be a part time dad I haven't been good about carrying my camera around with me.  Not that there hasn't been things to take pictures of.  Since my last post I've harvested honey two times, been picking Indian corn and popcorn, digging potatoes, carrots and sweet potatoes, canning salsa, pizza sauce, pickles and my fall duty of teaching has started.

In terms of the farming biz, this year has been great.  Just about everything did very well this year and the corn and pumpkins are looking good.   I still have the last sweet corn and I will probably freeze one more batch of that before the 1st frost kills it all off.   It's really satisfying to have a freezer and shelves full of my own produce that I will eat all winter long.  What truly astounds me is how much I could have if I had the time to weed my garden and pick everything before it spoils.  For example - the green beans were very strong and I froze almost 20 quart bags of them - had I kept picking them I could have frozen 20 more.  The same is true of cucumbers, tomatoes and broccoli.  I guess it's probably OK though since I would need to buy a bigger freezer and put up more shelving to hold everything.  Part of me doesn't feel too bad though either since I am not taking as much from the land by leaving some crop behind.

The honey harvest was exceptional this year (for my third year of keeping bees) from the three hives I kept I have well over 100lbs of honey left over from them.  I had sort of bee-keeping emergency - other than the swarming issues I had earlier this summer.  One hive had so many boxes on top that were getting really full of honey and they actually collapsed the base of hive.  Also some animal, possibly a skunk, had been digging around the base and the whole hive was swaying in the wind.  My dad came up to help extract the frames which we then put back on for most of the month of August.

Labor day is the best time to take all of the honey off to help the bees start preparing for winter and I did just that.  The nearly collapsed hive filled half of their frames with honey again and did most of the work this summer.  The other two hives though were new and typically these don't have extra honey to give.

Next year though things should go along better, the odds are in my favor that at least one of the hives will survive the winter.  Even if I loose two of them the one that survives can be divided and a new colony can be established.  

So the harvest and field work will continue into October and I'll try to take more pictures of things along the way.