We Plough The Fields

AH, life in the country! We're in Germany visiting Oma and Opa, and just a few streets away is the edge of town and field upon field of crops. Whether you consciously observe it or not, you can't help but notice a change in the season when the landscape literally changes colour. We were fortunate that our trip coincided with the wheat harvest. We saw combine harvesters at work, watched tractors pulling trailers of straw bales into their barns, and noticed how some bales were round and others rectangular. Emma wondered why she could see 'lying-down stalks' in some harvested fields and 'little tiny stalks all still standing up' in others. I didn't know the answer to this one so had to research how the whole harvest works.
So here's a suburbanite's understanding of the harvest:
First the weather has to be warm and dry (ever mown the grass in the rain?)
The combine harvester both cuts and threshes the wheat. During threshing, the grain is separated from the stalk and chaff and collected in a tank, which is periodically emptied into a grain truck. The leftover bits are dropped back onto the field among the 'little standing up stalks'.
Then a baling machine comes along and gathers the stalks into straw bales, which are used mostly for animal bedding. (Hay is grown in its own right, rather than a by-product, and is more nutritious than wheat stalks, which become straw.)
Finally the last bits of stalk are tilled back into the ground.... and the 'short standing-up stalks' (stubble) are now 'lying down'.

The wheat crop was the most obvious, as it was being currently worked on, but we have also been driving, walking and riding bikes through fields of corn, rye and oats. Today we picked a sample of each of the cereal crops and then went home and looked in our cupboards for things that were made from these plants.

Day on the Farm

ONCE again the weather threw us a curveball. A planned day on the farm filled my head with dreamy thoughts of children skipping around barefoot among the lambs, full of the joy of spring... then I checked the forecast and landed back on earth with a thump. Despite the freezing temperatures, our tour of a local dairy farm was informative and fun. We saw the shed where cows had been milked since the 1920s, at 4:00 AM and 4:00 PM every single day. That's quite a commitment. Though of course electric pumps are now utilised, each teat (four per cow) is washed with water, wiped dry, sanitised twice, a little milk expressed, attached to the pump, detached from the pump and then swabbed with iodine. All by hand. How amazing to find that these days. Emma was quite intrigued by the similarities to human breastfeeding, and caused a few smiles with innocent questions and comments that only a child can get away with.

After the horror stories that abound about battery farming, the chicken shed was another breath of fresh air (well, country air). Around 200 chickens had a total of seven acres to roam in! They were huddled in the shed for warmth when we visited, but could come and go outside and eat grass whenever they pleased.

Our picnic was thwarted by the cold, but we still managed to pet some more baby farm animals before dashing off for a hot drink. But the real benefit of the visit was being able to show Emma the supply chain by buying some milk and eggs at the farm store, then taking them home to cook for our dinner. How many city children don't know where these things come from?

Farmer Mary's Goat Farm

THIS week we visited a working goat farm with our Waldorf Homeschoolers group. We first met the babies, then Thunder Sprite was invited up to the milking station and we all got a chance to milk her! Between us we squeezed out half a pail of warm frothy milk. I wonder at what age children can make a connection between this, human breast milk and a carton of milk in the fridge?

Next it was off to the other wildlife. A rabbit shared the chicken coop, and when Emma wandered off I found her round the corner comfortably stroking a kitty. To her dismay the enormous golden retriever was passed out behind a fence with his goat friends and she couldn't go to see him. Instead, we made our way to the woods where Farmer Mary had thoughtfully laid out some treasures for the children to find. Animal bones, snake skins, a bird foot, and then onto the living as she managed to catch a crawfish in the creek. I didn't even know we had crawfish in Georgia!

We made our way back to the meadow, and enjoyed freshly made goat's milk feta, mozzarella and cream cheese along with our picnics before returning home. What a beautiful day!