Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[Ex-California]

I'm going to make some of those for starting fires at the beach

[Speaker to Animals]

Dryer lint works really well.

[Fife]

Yep, pack it in tight in old medicine bottles. Fantastic tinder in your backpack.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Wheat Threshing (Day 1)

Well, this was certainly a learning experience. The harvesting was relatively easy, even though I didn't finish it last weekend. The threshing process however...

I went to Ace and built myself a drill-flail pretty easily. To his credit, the salesdude didn't really laugh when I told him what I was doing. 1 Paint Mixer, 4 little Carbiners, and 4x3" pieces of chain, and I was in business.

It seems that there are 2 options for the actual threshing - either pick the heads off the wheat, or thresh the entire thing.

I started by trying the second option, and was disheartened by tangling up my chains in stalks, and not getting enough of the grain out of the heads. So, I started picking wheat heads. It seems that I severely underestimated the number of actual wheat stalks that I had grown. 7 hours later, I was halfway through the pile, and losing heart. I did have some grain threshed, though it seemed to take a bit more drilling than expected.

Finally, as the sun set, I just started cutting the stalks in thirds, and stuffing them in my bucket. To my surprise, this actually worked pretty well. It takes around 2 minutes of drilling to get the seeds loose, and stems chopped up, but I had a nice bucket of chaff afterwards.

Winnowing was pretty easy, just pouring from bucket to bucket in front of a box fan. Even at top speed, the seeds just fall right down, and the chaff is blown away.

The yield looks to be around 20lbs, from 5 lbs of seed. Definitely not a full bushel, but enough to work out the milling process with.

Key Mistakes:

Not protecting my harvest from the local bird population. Those fuckers took about half of it right out of the sheaves.

It seems that waiting too long to harvest has given me a minor case of "Sooty Head Molds" (https://cropwatch.unl.edu/documents/Whe ... cation.pdf) Not an actual problem, but something to keep an eye on in the future.

Not fertilizing enough. I had a plan for this, using a friend's horse droppings, but a truck breakdown left me without.

Not having enough time to keep the weeds out. This isn't really my fault, but something to remember for next time.

Future Plan:

I'm going to seed the entire field with winter wheat - about 10-15 lbs of it, and then plant veggies in the spring. This should give me a decent crop rotation, with a small period for tilling/fertilizing in between harvest and planting. I'll also be able to supply our home with plenty of flour, using the entire field. I expect a yield of roughly 120-180lbs, once I get the soil bulked up, and learn to put my damn wheat in the shed while it cures.

[Hastur]

That sounds really interesting. I hope I get the chance to do something similar one day. I probably would look around and try to find an old hand cranked threshing machine and a winnower.

Video in Swedish. They got about 20 kg of spring rye.

[C-Mag]

Nice work BroGrump. I enjoyed being along for the ride.

[Montegriffo]

Wheat Threshing (Day 1)

Well, this was certainly a learning experience. The harvesting was relatively easy, even though I didn't finish it last weekend. The threshing process however...

I went to Ace and built myself a drill-flail pretty easily. To his credit, the salesdude didn't really laugh when I told him what I was doing. 1 Paint Mixer, 4 little Carbiners, and 4x3" pieces of chain, and I was in business.

It seems that there are 2 options for the actual threshing - either pick the heads off the wheat, or thresh the entire thing.

I started by trying the second option, and was disheartened by tangling up my chains in stalks, and not getting enough of the grain out of the heads. So, I started picking wheat heads. It seems that I severely underestimated the number of actual wheat stalks that I had grown. 7 hours later, I was halfway through the pile, and losing heart. I did have some grain threshed, though it seemed to take a bit more drilling than expected.

Finally, as the sun set, I just started cutting the stalks in thirds, and stuffing them in my bucket. To my surprise, this actually worked pretty well. It takes around 2 minutes of drilling to get the seeds loose, and stems chopped up, but I had a nice bucket of chaff afterwards.

Winnowing was pretty easy, just pouring from bucket to bucket in front of a box fan. Even at top speed, the seeds just fall right down, and the chaff is blown away.

The yield looks to be around 20lbs, from 5 lbs of seed. Definitely not a full bushel, but enough to work out the milling process with.

Key Mistakes:

Not protecting my harvest from the local bird population. Those fuckers took about half of it right out of the sheaves.

It seems that waiting too long to harvest has given me a minor case of "Sooty Head Molds" (https://cropwatch.unl.edu/documents/Whe ... cation.pdf) Not an actual problem, but something to keep an eye on in the future.

Not fertilizing enough. I had a plan for this, using a friend's horse droppings, but a truck breakdown left me without.

Not having enough time to keep the weeds out. This isn't really my fault, but something to remember for next time.

Future Plan:

I'm going to seed the entire field with winter wheat - about 10-15 lbs of it, and then plant veggies in the spring. This should give me a decent crop rotation, with a small period for tilling/fertilizing in between harvest and planting. I'll also be able to supply our home with plenty of flour, using the entire field. I expect a yield of roughly 120-180lbs, once I get the soil bulked up, and learn to put my damn wheat in the shed while it cures.

How dangerous was your homemade thresher Most of the ones I've seen on you tube look lethal. I'm disappointed you didn't try the bicycle wheel I was curious to find out how well it worked.
Dont forget you can just thresh the wheat as you need it, there is no need to do it all at once. Also you can cover the shocks with a fine mesh netting while it cures in the sun, this will keep the birds from eating your corn and prevent it going mouldy while it dries.
Did you find any ergot in the wheat?
I look forward to seeing pics of your first loaf of bread.
The weather has turned wet at just the wrong time here and farmer Paul is now behind in his harvesting. It's been too dry since May for a really good yeild and the straw is shorter than the thatchers like so not a great year.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I'll get a picture of the flail for you tonight. It's definitely dangerous to anything you stick in there, but with the lid on a bucket, it's perfectly safe to use.

No purple grain - it's all a uniform brown color. I was really excited when I started winnowing and saw it all coming out correctly. That was a pretty amazing feeling - much more satisfying than picking some veggies here and there - a uniform product that all comes out at once. It's good to know that this is something that I'm actually capable of, if needed.

We got a weird rain shower about 20 minutes after I finished last night, so I guess whatever is left in the field will have to stay there. The main point was learning, and I've definitely done that.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That sounds really interesting. I hope I get the chance to do something similar one day. I probably would look around and try to find an old hand cranked threshing machine and a winnower.

Video in Swedish. They got about 20 kg of spring rye.

Those machines are amazing.. I've never seen anything like that around here, and it would probably only be sold as an antique. Maybe I'll get lucky though.

I was thinking yesterday that this would be nearly impossible without electricity. I'd definitely need to find/build something like this to make it manageable.

[Hastur]

That sounds really interesting. I hope I get the chance to do something similar one day. I probably would look around and try to find an old hand cranked threshing machine and a winnower.

Video in Swedish. They got about 20 kg of spring rye.

Those machines are amazing.. I've never seen anything like that around here, and it would probably only be sold as an antique. Maybe I'll get lucky though.

I was thinking yesterday that this would be nearly impossible without electricity. I'd definitely need to find/build something like this to make it manageable.

They say in the video that those machines were used by small farmers who weren't part of a threshing collective. The collectives had larger machines that they shared.