Harvest Continues

I finally caught up with a farmer combining a field of mixed grain the other day.  Wheat harvest appears to be over, and mixed grain is underway.  Soybeans and corn will wait into the fall.

I actually heard this combine before I saw it, the dull roar from two farms over when I was out walking the dog.  I hopped on my bike when I got home and rode up the road and there it was.  This is a moderate sized combine, probably owned by the farmer himself, the type that has a built in grain hopper.

He got to the end of the row, parked beside the grain wagon, and the auger swung out to transfer the grain.  Fairly small wagon too, not like some of the huge combines that are followed around the field by a second tractor pulling a big wagon, and a transport truck waiting at the end, with the large custom operations!

The auger transfers the grain quickly, and he headed back down the field.  You can see a bit of the head of the combine on the right.

 Inadvertent shadow self-portrait.

On a different field, where the wheat was harvested a week or two ago, I saw this enormous outfit.  I stopped to get a picture, and guess who pulled up beside me - the farmer!  We had an interesting chat about the equipment and their operation - obviously a big one!

At first glance this looks like the epitome of industrial agriculture.  I'm torn two ways when I see equipment this size.  One of the nicest things about living here is the availability of local food direct from farmers, but increasingly farmland is selling for a good price as world crop prices rise.  We do need to feed people.

Once I looked closely, I realized the investment these farmers had put into their operation.  The wide tracks on this tractor minimizes any rutting in the field, though you hardly ever see this style of tractor here.

And the huge wide tires on the manure tanks do likewise.  The liquid manure system didn't smell, and with enough storage is a way to ensure that the manure gets applied when it should, just before a crop is planted which will use up the nitrogen, which is the case here.  Personally I think liquid manure is a better choice than a heavy dose of artificial fertilizers.

A day or two later the farmers were back with a different outfit, this time a huge chisel plough, getting the field ready for planting - probably winter wheat or a cover crop.

Behind the chisel plough (designed to minimize erosion), came the rollers.  What a change from the days when it might take a few weeks with a horse-drawn plough to prepare the fields on this farm.  With this outfit it probably only took 2 or 3 hours.

Whatever you think of modern industrial agriculture, I come down on the side of respecting the farmer himself (usually it's a him doing the field work) for the work he does.  I enjoyed meeting the farmer in this case, and will now watch these fields with a bit more interest, and perhaps try to have some conversations with other farmers in the area.

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Nuts and Bolts and Garagey Things

I've been cleaning out the garage recently, trying to start getting rid of stuff.  Not many interesting new excursion pictures, so I thought I'd step beyond my usual and see what would make some interesting macro shots.  Haven't used that lens for much other than flower close-ups this year.  So here are some nuts and blots and other garagey stuff - not much need for comments.

This is a small bit of this year's garlic crop.  It's been drying in the garage, still on the stems, for about 3 weeks.  Now with the stems cut off and sent off to the compost pile, it's ready for cleaning up and storing.

Meanwhile, it's been a refreshingly cooler day here, with lots of wind as the cooler air settled in behind the front that went through overnight.  The wind kept the clouds scudding fast across the sky all day.  I took advantage of it to get back to some outdoor work; there's no shortage of it that needs doing!.

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A Frog and a Toad

Tried to come up with some critters for today's post, but all I have recently is photos of an American Toad, Bufo americanus, and a Spring Peeper, Pseudacris crucifer.  Both of them came right up on our deck (and one on the table) to say hello!

The toad was out there on a rainy day, just sitting in the rain quite close to the house.  It certainly didn't hurry away from me though I had to tip toe along the side of the deck to stay under the eave to get the pictures.

A bit of a side view lets you see the ear just behind the eye, and the somewhat yellowy throat.

There are clear 'warts' on the back, but contrary to the old wives' tale, handling them doesn't give you warts.  Both of these are ampibians, along with all the rest of the Salamanders, Frogs and Toads, having eggs with no shells that are laid in ponds in the spring.

The Spring Peeper was truly tiny.  You don't think of them up on a dry deck in the sun, but once they spend spring in the pond breeding and echoing their loud distinctive call, they do disperse to live in leaf litter in the woods until the following year.

Close up, the eyes are so similar in colour to the nearby skin that it's hard to make them out.  I feared in would be hurt jumping the 2.5 feet down from the table, and have no idea how it would get up on the table!  Spring Peepers are one of those frogs that can actually survive some of the fluids in their body freezing, one of the first you here in April here, when there is probably still some ice in the pond.

The diagnostic 'X' on the back was very clear on this tiny frog.  Some descriptions of this frog do label it a tree frog and suggest it can climb, so perhaps it climbed up the glass on our deck railing and jumped to the table!  Still a very long jump for a creature only a bit more than an inch long.

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The Afternoon Sky Fades

I was sitting on the deck after another busy day after I finally quit working at something or other, and just reading.  But I noticed the clouds scudding across the sky were looking interesting, so I started shooting.  Over the next 6 hours I watched the afternoon sky fade, and the full August 'Sturgeon Moon' rise.

In the Great Lakes region, the August full moon was known to the native peoples as the 'Sturgeon Moon' because it was the best time of year to catch the sturgeon (then presumably more plentiful than now).

At first I was just watching the clouds drift across a deep blue sky.  I even thought there might be a bit of an interesting sunset, but as often happens in the evening here at this time of year, the sky cleared as the temperature fell.

A fair bit of time elapsed between these three photos - dinner and cleaning up, a short walk for the dog, a bike ride and last night's blog post.  I didn't just sit there for 3 hours!

And then when I came down later, the moon was just rising.  There was just enough light to silhouette the trees in front of it.

There's so much happening in our lives these days that I can't remember what day it is!  I have to look at the calendar to remind me, so I'm running a full day behind on linking to my favourite 'Good Fences', 'Skywatch Friday' and 'Saturday Critters' memes - but better late than never.

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The Yellow-flowered Fence

I'm not sure of my identification of this plant, but it's the tallest flower in our garden.  We have 3 huge patches of it, and they routinely reach 8 feet.  The stems emerge in a patch about 2 feet across, but by the time it's full grown and the stems bend outward, it easily covers 8 feet horizontally too.

This is the flower.  It might be a False Sunflower, or Heliopsis, or it could be a Coneflower or Rudbeckia.  In any case, it's a big landmark at this time of the year at the back of our garden.

And here's the fence, yellow-flowered when viewed from behind.

That rusty bit of metal is a giant flower sculpture that disappears behind the leaves of a Clematis, and only emerges again in the winter.

The rooster is a sculpture that Mrs. F.G. picked up at a high school years ago.

I really do have to look up at these flowers, towering over my head.  But they add a lot of colour to our garden at this time of year, and for several weeks to come.

Running a day late, but 

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Helenium

I think I wrote last year that Helenium is my favourite fall flower.  It's one of those surprising flowers that looks better from below that from above, and it's fairly new in our garden.

Maybe part of what I like is just the colour, because we have so many yellow flowers in the garden just now; a flash of orange or red is really noticeable.

It's actually a mostly yellow flower from above.  Last year it was five feet tall; this year it's only 3.  I hope it's not going to die out, but I put it down to the extremely dry month we've had.

This is the whole patch we have in the garden, offset nicely by the purple Phlox.

So I had to lie down on my elbows and look look upwards to get these pictures.  It's a stunningly different flower from below.

The flower centre starts out green, but opens up to a raised golden-brown.

And eventually, this interesting pattern of dark brown with golden squiggles!  It's one of the nicest additions to our garden in recent years.