Common Crops

I'm ready with my next crops update, but it occurred to me that not everyone knows how to distinguish the common crops here in southern Ontario.  I've only learned myself, haltingly, the past few years.  So here are the 6 common crops we grow (not counting the hay I talked about yesterday).

Let's start with the three common grain crops, from right to left above, wheat, oats and barley.  I actually picked two stems of each and put them in my handy-dandy vase to photograph up close.  I hope the educational value of these will offset the loss to the farmers!

This is winter wheat, nearly ready to harvest.  Like all other grasses, it has bracts holding the seeds, and long 'awns' extending from each seed.  But compared to barley (below), these awns are shorter than the length of the seedhead.

In comparison, barley has very similar seeds, but very long awns, longer than the length of the seedhead, that makes each stem look feathery.

Oats are very different, not a dense seedhead like wheat or barley, but an open group of seeds or inflorescence.

And here are the corresponding fields, first winter wheat, which will be ready for harvest soon.

The only oats I have found is in a field of peas and oats, being harvested as forage.  You probably can't even see the oats in here!  I'll keep searching for a field of oats by itself.

And a field of barley, with that beautiful feathery surface that catches every breeze.  This field must have been planted very early to be so golden already; all the other barley I have seen is still green.

The last of the big cereal grain crops is corn, which I think everyone can recognize, a grass species with very wide leaves, that will be very tall when it's mature.

There are two other crops that are not grasses or cereals, but legumes.  The first of these are soybeans, some young ones shown here, just like bean plants in your garden.

And a field of soybeans.  Soybeans don't like excess rain, and a lot of soybean fields are looking rather poorly this year as a result.

Finally, another oilseed crop, canola, our prettiest crop when it's in bloom.  Canola is a brassica, related to cabbage, and the lower leaves look like it.

Right now canola fields are looking like this; you can see why it's our prettiest crop.  Hope you've enjoyed my pix of the big six common crops here - tomorrow an update on how crops are doing.

"Making Hay While the Sun Shines``

It`s a proverb that means take àdvantage of the opportunity when it arises`.  But it is also literally true - farmers need to get their hay harvested while the sun shines at this time of year.  We`re now into day 8 of sunny and reasonably warm weather, and the farmers have been busy!

The landscape is dotted with big round hay bales, the first major harvest of the year.  It`s just one of those iconic things about `seasons in the valley` around here.

It starts out with the farmer cutting the hay, and then raking it into swaths, fluffing it up a bit to dry out.  You can imagine the farmer checking the maturity of the crop with one eye, and checking the weather forecast with the other eye, to judge when to cut it.  He wants a couple of days of sun to get it cut, let it dry, and bale it before it rains.

Today I saw these two farmers baling hay as fast as they could go.  Haying is usually a two or three person job to get it done efficiently.

One farmer is gathering in the bales and loading them on a big double wagon; here the last bale goes on.

The other is pulling the big round baler down one of the last swaths of hay.

Reaching the end, he turns around and heads back.  Meanwhile the other farmer has hitched up to the wagons and is headed out of the field.

I knew what was coming, so I waited to see the baler stop and discharge a big round bale.  Then it carried on.  Meanwhile, the other tractor and wagons was coming straight toward me as I was parked on the lane into the field.  I waved and drove on, glad to see this little vignette of the hay harvest (and not have to do any of the work myself)!

This vignette shows a totally different way of harvesting a forage crop.  We saw these two tractors pulling big wagons and the harvester working a field considerably south of the valley as we returned from Kitchener the other day.

The harvester is picking up the hay from the swath, chopping it, and blowing it into the deep wagon.  This will be stored in a silo or big silage bag rather than baled.

The wagon looked about full to me, and sure enough the first tractor pulled away, and the second pulled up beside the harvester.  It`s a totally coordinated operation!

The first tractor is headed back to unload.

And the harvester and second tractor-wagon combo continues down the field.  Since I drove by this field two days earlier, I know it`s not a conventional hay field, it was a field of spring grains, probably oats and barley, being harvested before it was mature as grain, as forage for cattle next winter.  It provides a more nutritious forage, and is probably destined for dairy cattle.  I`m learning quite a lot as I chase pictures of crops this year!

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Grass Flowers

I've been practicing my macro shots trying to photograph some grass flowers.  They only bloom briefly, and they never stand still, as the slightest breeze blows them back and forth.  It's a challenge to get clear pictures, even with a tripod!  And unfortunately I have had no luck learning to identify grass species, so these are all anonymous!

Grass flowers are wind-pollinated, and so specialized that an entire separate vocabulary is used to describe them.  Gone are things like the petals, replaced with bracts and awns.  But they still have stamens (the long yellow pieces here), and stigmas (the white feathery parts).  The stamens release the pollen, the stigmas try to catch it.  You can see the green bracts, and the sharp-pointed awns that extend from them in the second picture.

These two grasses were nearly 6 feet high, and at first I thought they were an ornamental grass in our garden.  Turns out they were just invading grasses.

 Both the entire plant, and the individual stamens in this picture were moving with the breeze.

A similar bunch of stamens, but a different species of grass.

Not sure what grass this is, but it shows the stamens (yellow) and the stigmas (white) really clearly.  The whole thing is about 1" long, just one small piece of a grass seedhead.

Both the stamens and the bracts are obvious with this species.  I don't know what draws me to grasses, but some year I'll spent some time and try to learn them, and get better pictures.

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Summer Barns

It's been awhile since I've shared any pictures of barns around the valley.  Can't help but pick up a few of these shots while I'm out chasing pictures of crops - which I'm doing a lot these days.  First, a couple of my favourite barn views.

I've got pictures of these two barns in all four seasons.  Someday I must pull them all together.

This unusual barn we've visited, because it's the site of an interesting garden that used to be open to the public.  This time we passed it driving over to Bruce County near Lake Huron, visiting our son and daughter-in-law in the old house they've bought.  It's unusual enough to find these overhangs or 'forebays' on a barn in Ontario, but I can't remember another barn with this on two sides.  Nor can I remember one on the west side of a barn.  They're usually placed on the east or south to provide winter shelter for the cattle.

These barns are not doing so well in contrast.  This one stands forlorn, the farmhouse that once sat with it long gone.  It's remarkable how many years a barn like this can still stand; the timber framework of big posts and beams, all notched and pegged together, is very strong.

This barn, and its accompanying drive shed, has been going downhill for several years.  The house still stands here, but vacant.  A vacant unheated house over a winter or two here is a disaster.  It's still a mystery how farms like this can fall into ruin and apparently be abandoned, but it happens.

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The Barn Collective

It's Butterfly Season!

The first butterflies showed up here about a month ago, when the Lilacs were in bloom.  Then the Ninebark came into flower, and the garden started buzzing.  Soon after that the very fragrant Valerian joined them.  It's been busy with various butterflies ever since, one of my favourite times in the garden here.

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail was one of the earliest to show up, and the largest I've seen yet.  It likes the Lilacs, but here it is visiting the Valerian, just the other day.

The Red Admiral has been around several weeks too, looking just a little tattered.

This is our big Ninebark shrub, covered in masses of intricate white blossoms for about a week, and absolutely buzzing with bees, wasps and flies when it's at peak bloom.  You can hear the entire shrub buzzing with hundreds of insects  as you get close.

All the tiny pistils and stamens obviously have what it takes to attract insects.  Of all the shrubs we have here, this is the best for pollinators.

 This Little Wood-Satyr has spent a lot of time on the Ninebark blossoms.

This to me looks like a Pearly Crescent, though it's missing one antenna.  I have to take a really close look at an enlarged picture of this and compare it to the one below to see the difference.  (and there's an intermediate form too).  I use the simple "Photo Field Guide to the Butterflies of Southern Ontario".

And here is the very similar Northern Crescent, perhaps the most tattered one I have ever seen still flying!

A healthier looking Northern Crescent.

The smallest of all these, though the picture makes it seem big, is the Spring Azure, a tiny butterfly that appeared just white to my eye.  More butterflies to come; these are just about half of the species I've identified.

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