A Glorious Life of an Idaho Farmwife

2012-02-04T06:35:00.000-08:00

The moon says Hello!

It is 4:07am and my cold & flu ridden body has announced that it’s time to get up because it feels better. Geez, I’m a morning person, but this is a tad extreme (I’m sure the dairy farmers are up long before this so I’ll quit whining) …. And so on this cold dark February morning let me catch you up on what has been going on at the Anderson Farm. 2 days after getting back from the Hawaiian field trip, Farmer Joe had wheat industry meetings to attend, both in Boise and then a few days later in our national’s capitol. This year he is the president of the Idaho Grain Producer’s Association (IGPA) and his volunteer duties include lots of winter meetings as the farm fields lie in wait for the warmth of spring to come.

Yup, the farmer cleans up pretty good! =)

This year's trip to Washington DC was uneventful and Farmer Joe along with his IGPA officers and staff met with some of our congressmen and the EPA on farm issues. The group began talking about the next Farm Bill ( of which I'll give some insights on that in a moment). When I say this year's trip to DC was uneventful, let me explain that last year's meeting as the national wheat industry farm leaders conference ended up in the same hotel as a "leather fetish" convention was being held. So if you can imagine conservative farmers, who talk about what kinds of seed we will plant this year - coming face with to face with slightly wilder versions of the "village people" running amok... well you can say, the farm boys knew they were a long way away from the farm!   This year the farmers chose a different week to conduct their meetings and I must say, the nightly phone calls from Farmer Joe weren't as "colorful" as last year. =)

Anyway, back to the Farm Facts, many people think the farm bill is designated only to aid farmers, but did you know that:
~ Only 11% of funding in the farm bill goes to farm policies.

~ More than 84% of farm bill-related spending goes to food and nutrition programs like food stamps, not to farmers.
~ Farm policy funding has fallen sharply in the last decade. It was slashed in the 2008 farm bill by $7.4 billion, and again in 2010 by $6 billion.

~ U.S. farm policy costs Americans just 2.3 cents per meal of 6.9 cents a day.

More facts can be found on the link supplied above or again, click here.

Have you ever noticed that major events and holidays are always associated with food? Super Bowl is tomorrow and one of the biggest days on record for our consumption of pizza, beer and other traditional football fare.   And so, on behalf of the barley, wheat, dairy and animal agriculture farmers,  we are glad you like what we produce. =) And with that my friends, I hope you will click on the link and read about the farm facts, because as the political season kicks off I'm sure there will be lots of talk about cutting agriculture support along with many other funding issues, so at least you can go to a site to get the straight facts on funds spent on behalf of agriculture.

As always, thanks for stopping by. I am still trying to get my other farm field trips lined up (didn't realize it would take so long for approval to go on their sites).  For more on Life on the Farm, click here and hope your week-end is a good one. Just like the Lowe's store slogan, you have questions.... we have answers, so please email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com and ask away! All my best, Gayle

Field Trip to Hawaiian Farms

2012-01-13T09:26:00.000-08:00

I have so much to tell you about my Hawaiian field-trip to see what other "Paradises" look like.....

Our journey began on December 30 flying over to Honolulu for a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands. One of many firsts for Farmer Joe and myself, so combining a little business and lots of pleasure, we dug out our summer clothes & headed out to see firsthand the kinds of crops the tropical farmers raise over there. Our Hawaiian Field-trip included an innovative coffee farm, a cacao farm, and a pineapple plantation.

Coffee Farm

We took a tour of a coffee farm called "Kona Joe". This particular farm has started training their coffee trees to grow on trellises like the wineries do for their grapes.

Farmer Joe by the coffee roasting machine

A view of the coffee trees

The beans are hand-picked when ripe, sorted and then roasted.

The beans being sorted into different categories

Freshly roasted beans.... the smell was heavenly

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One new thing I learned was that dark roasted beans have less caffeine than a lighter roast. Below is a video of the beans being bagged once the process is complete and ready for sale.

Cacao Farm

Next stop was a tour of a local Cacao Farm.... Coffee and chocolate, does it get any better than that!? Plus they had samples too.

The only chocolate grown and processed all in Hawaii

The chocolate farmer explaining his crop

Cacao pods that grow on trees and are harvested by hand every 2 weeks

A pod cut open

A view of the bean when it has been cut out from the pod and the extraneous
(white part) removed from the bean

The beans are placed in a special box to allow the extraneous matter around the bean to naturally dissolve

Next the beans are placed in the open air drying rack to help them cure. The
nice warm weather and sun helps this process. The beans are then roasted
and it looks much like the coffee roasting bin.

THEN the final product.... yum chocolate as seen below.

It looked like an overgrown fondue pot and made our
mouth's water

Once the chocolate is ready to be poured into forms for their chocolate bars, it will be refrigerated until it's set up. Of course seeing the liquid chocolate helped the sales at the end of the tour. =)

Dole Plantation:

A few days later we went to the Dole Plantation took a tour of the pineapple farm all from the comfort of a little open air train through the grounds. All of the pineapple grown on this plantation are now for tourists to purchase and ship home. Dole now raises pineapple overseas where it is also canned there as well due to high labor costs in the USA.

Farmer Joe & I in front of the plantation, they had "Dole" spelled out with plants

A picture of the in the gift shop of the original roadside stand

The sign says the cycle has 3 fruit harvests, the 1st pineapple is ready to pick in
18 months, second is at 32 months and 3rd is 45 months

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The train as it winds its way through the plantation grounds

The plantation had many other plants, such as banana trees, other exotic fruit trees, sugarcane fields and many other kinds of flowers & plants.

This is what a field of pineapple looks like.

A pineapple in the growing stages.

A picture from the showroom of what an actual harvest looks like

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Info on the varieties

The beautiful grounds on the plantation has many kinds of trees as well and I just wish I could grow one of these in my yard....

I loved the "gum trees" they did not look real,
but they were. The bark is so unusual.

Close up of the gum tree. It looks like a painted tree

A banana tree

Sugar cane fields

Well there you have it, a snapshot of how coffee, pineapple and cacao are grown (some of my favorite foods & drink). Everyone has their idea of paradise, and for this farm-wife and her farmer, ours' is rural Idaho, but it is fun to see what else is out there. I hope you enjoyed this tropical crop tour. The next field-trip will be closer to home and I am in the process of obtaining permission to film it (so make sure and come back soon). More pictures of the trip can be found on the At Home on the Farm page. I hope 2012 finds you healthy and happy and I am looking forward to a new year of adventures. As always, please feel free to email me if you have any questions at idahofarmwife@gmail.com and I love the comments. All my best, Gayle

Christmas Blessings from an American Farm Family

2011-12-22T14:36:00.000-08:00

A very merry and blessed Christmas to you

Thanks to a great blogger buddy(thanks Judi Graff), I have a new media gadget to show off, so I have updated the blog to showcase our farm family highlights of 2011!

Does anything say Merry Christmas like a little red tractor with a green wreath on it?

As we gather for this blessed holiday, I as well as the rest of my farm family, hope the holidays are a time of love and togetherness for you. I'd love to know what your special traditions are, so please feel free to email me and share what makes your holiday special. As for us, this year we needed to shake things up a bit and my family seems to let me be the crazy event planner (sometimes they wonder what I'm getting them into -but generally they co-operate). And what are we planning this year? Well being German descendants, we usually open gifts on Christmas Eve day, so we are doing a "progressive Christmas Eve Dinner" with my side of the family (along with a couple of college kids who couldn't make it home for the holidays) and we will open gifts at each of the homes we visit. This way we get to see each other's houses all decorated up and spend the day together laughing, eating and enjoying each other and more eating. We all will gather and start out at 8am for coffee & pastries/fruit at my baby brother's house, then about 10:30am we will arrive at my other brother's house for hors d' oeuvres (thankfully this brother is no longer single as a few years back we came to his house for hors d' oeuvres and he set out a head of broccoli and a head of cauliflower still complete in the bunch with a bowl of dip..... =) and my youngest daughter said "you are such a bachelor", poor guy), then around 1pm it's off to my oldest daughter's house for salad, there the little ones will go down for a nap, then around 4:30pm we will head to my house for the main part of the dinner (turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing & gravy). Shortly before 7pm, we'll head to church, then about 8:20pmish we'll end up at my mom's house for dessert and finish off the day.

Christmas morning finds Farmer Joe & me having breakfast at our oldest daughter's house where we can see what Santa brought the little girls. Then later on that day we will gather for a dinner with Farmer's Joe & Jay's side of the family as his sister Laurie & family will be here from Seattle. Lots of eating seems to be the main theme here. Just thinking about it makes me feel like I'd gained 5 lbs. =)

As always, here is a taste tempting treat..... Pumpkin Truffles. If you know me well, you will find out I don't like complicated recipes with lots of steps, so I modified the recipe for ease - so make sure and read the tip on dusting the truffles with cocoa powder. The recipe is on the OMG Dessert page. I hope you get to make it and enjoy it. It goes really well with a good glass of red wine!

Pumpkin Truffles

It just isn't Christmas until you see the local Christmas play at church. Of course, the cutest little kids were the "cows" (yes I'm a bit partial) and make sure and watch the video where one of the cows was mis-behaving during one of the songs, more on that at the At Home page.

Last minute instructions before the play

As always, many thanks for stopping in and I hope you share your special holiday traditions with me (idahofarmwife@gmail.com). Who knows, maybe we will copy what you do as we are always looking to do something new for the holidays. I will be taking some time off and won't be posting until mid-January. I am looking forward to 2012 and hope the new year finds you happy and healthy. All my best, Gayle.

Agra-Diva 101, Perceptions and Choices

2011-12-15T12:51:00.000-08:00

A New Day is Beginning (from harvest 2011)

Okay, I lied, this blog will not be about family like I said in last week's penning (although you can read about that on the At Home Page), as a recent event got my “tinsel all in a wad” …… First let me start out saying that I consider myself as a goodwill ambassador for our farm; farming is our passion and way of life. And my job is to explain what we do, why we do it and how we live it. Because we do our job, it allows other people to do something else. Not so long ago, our ancestors had a daily mission - to go out and find food so they could eat that day. My mom tells me of the times while growing up in rural Montana during the depression how her mom would go out in the early morning hours to fish so they would have some kind of protein to eat for that day. Today, we are fortunate as we do not have to focus on foraging the woods to put food on the table, we as Americans, enjoy the luxury of going to the well stocked grocery stores and purchasing high quality food and not using 50% of our income to sustain ourselves.

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So let me tell you what just happened, as it has been an interesting week for this farm-wife. If you read last week’s blog you will know about the low spot of me losing a loved one and so a bright spot was being asked to write for a food publication newsletter about food, farming and being a farm-wife. The purpose was to connect the consumer with the farmer. The editor and I had spoken a few times and I was to start contributing to her newsletter in January. Although it was not a large publication, she did mention that one of her writers had recently gotten a book deal, so I could see some possibilities here and was excited to start down this new path. When getting down to the nut and bolts of what she wanted from me, content, etc, she mentioned in a P.S. sort of way, about what did I think of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and did our farm use Monsanto® products? Because if we did, it was a deal breaker (her words) as she had a friend who told her all about the evils of this company. Well… I pondered my response, and as the editor has had cookbooks published, I used the following analogy to put this on a personal level for her. Here is what I told her, “imagine you created the most perfect recipe after years of trial & error, copyrighted it, marketed it by selling franchises, so that the franchisees were in a contract with you and enjoying the success from the recipe you created, then one of them decides they no longer want to pay you for the use of your recipe, but still wants to use it in their line of business to make money – well that would be a breach of contract and you would use legal actions to stop them. It is no different than with farmers using Monsanto products as they developed seed and products to help the farmer, and when we use their certified seed, we enter into a contract with them. Plain and simple, you honor the contract rules.” So I told the truth that yes we do use some Monsanto products on our farm, we do not use GMOs, but not because we don’t value the technology to help feed the world, but because it isn’t available in the crops we raise. I further tried to convey that this company spends an untold amount developing a better seed to help farmers feed the world and asked her to please try to see them in a different light. And what was the editor’s thoughts, was she open minded? I was promptly “uninvited” to write for her publication. This is unfortunate as I fear the editor was listening to the half-truths and opinions from the Food, Inc movie and that she was completely fixated on what her friend told her. In fact, if you go to Monsanto’s website, it summarizes what I was trying to say and they did it perfectly, “if there were one word to explain about Monsanto, it would be about farmers. We create the seeds, traits, and crop protection chemicals that help farmers produce more food with less resources.” No I am not a paid Monsanto employee, we are a customer of theirs and are one farm family out of the other 259,000 of us who are charged with task of feeding the next 2 billion people that are predicted to be our neighbors by 2050.

Am I a little disappointed? Yes, but I know there will be other opportunities to write for other publications, and I will continue my blogging and farm advocacy work just as I am doing and “telling the farmer’s side of the story”. This recent setback just reinforces the need for farmers all over the country to be ”real and to be open about what we do” and most of all, be approachable. So with great anticipation for next year and because I am the “boss of me” I choose to persist, be positive, to innovate and be a significant factor for American Agriculture and to tell its story.

Thank you again for stopping by, I read every comment & love ‘em and above all, please email at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have any questions. I’ll sign off for now as a farm-wife, a mom and agra-diva. All my best, Gayle.

Tis the Season, A Celebration of Life

2011-12-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

Greetings my friends! All is quiet on the farm front and since I last posted my Thanksgiving blog I've had happy and sad events that have shaped my little world. I was privileged to have been invited to share my farm advocacy story at the 1st Executive Women in Agriculture conference in Chicago last week and met awe inspiring & amazing women from all over the country. It was a great experience and one I will always treasure. But just before I boarded my plane, I received word that my beloved step-dad had passed away from his courageous 6 year battle with bone cancer. So this past Monday, we buried him and were thankful that he was no longer in pain and know that he will be missed by all who knew him. My step-dad loved the holiday season and was so much a part of our lives that even though he is no longer here to celebrate with us, I am finding my family is banding closer to each other more than usual, and it is like a comforting, warm blanket of love. Despite having a hole in our hearts, we recognize the need to get up, brush the dust off of ourselves and live our lives. We are all aware we need to continue making those precious memories, as when the end is near, all you have is family & memories. With that thought in mind, the next few blogs will be focused more on this farm-wife's family as December is a quiet time on the farm. But next month I'll start taking you on "field trips".... and I have some interesting things planned.

And as the air is getting crisper, we have had our first snowfall, and the holiday decorations are going up all over our town, it's getting me into the holiday spirit, Tis the Season! Here are a few pictures of how our farm house is decorated for the holiday season.

I've found many of my treasures from yard sales, estate sales and shopping at thrift stores. The stains on the vintage table cloths would tell me the tale of laughter, drinks and good food during a gathering, so I embrace the stains and holes as well as dents, chipped paint or whatever from my other treasures, as just knowing that perhaps these items were lovingly used by previous owners make it all the more special to me.

Snacks in mason jars that are in an old milk bottle basket

I love old enamel ware

The table that greets you when you walk through the front door

The sign on the bear says "1 day of coal
364 days of fun, I'll take my chances"

For some reason, my one of my daughters said that sign was "so me"..... I think that is a compliment. =)

I had candy canes on the bottom shelf, but
our dog kept eating them, so had to move the goodies
up to another shelf

These are acutal toys that my grand-angels play with when they come over

And yes, I've been baking.... this little goody is a White Chocolate cake. I am undecided on what flavors mean "Christmas", so I've been driving my husband crazy by baking so many different kinds of cakes. I made a Gingerbread bundt that was okay and a few others that looked good on paper, but the results were disappointing. This one was good and it is blog worthy for my reader friends.

White Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Cream cheese frosting
(look for the recipe on the Cake of the Month page - for December )

As for Farmer Joe, well he has been busy attending Ag related meetings in his role as president for the Idaho Grain Producers Association and working in the farm shop.

So for now, I'll sign off, but as always I am SO GLAD you stopped by and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a comment. All my best, Gayle

Happy Thanksgiving From the Anderson Farm to You

2011-11-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving

As we gather to celebrate a bountiful Thanksgiving with family and friends, this farm-wife would like to give you a insight on who the Anderson Farm family is, so as you sit down for your dinner, you might feel a connection to those of us who grew the wheat for your rolls, breads and baked goods. Plus you might be interested to know that if you are serving hummus for an appetizer, there is a very good chance it came from this area & maybe even our farm, and lastly, if you are spreading mustard on anything, it could have come from our farm too. We are 1 farm family out of roughly 259,000 more full-time farm families who, just like us, grow the food we all eat. And as you are saying your prayers, and if you think of it, please include a special blessing for all of these hard working farm families. =)

Me, Farmer Joe & Josie - the spoiled dog

Farming has come a long way from the days of Farmer Joe's grandpa and dad as shown below

to being able to provide more food with less ground and less of a carbon footprint

Below is a short Flickr photo sideshow of our farm family. Although our girls chose different careers and no longer work on the farm as they once did, none-the-less they are proud to have been raised with an Agriculture background. So far, the 2 oldest grand-angels have told their grandpa that they want to drive the tractors and combines. Zack, our nephew and son of Farmer Jay and Lisa is a great worker when he goes out to work on the farm and he likes to hang out with his dad and uncle Farmer Joe. So who knows, we may have Zack, Brinley and Natalie running the farm in a few years.

And lastly, as the Thanksgiving holiday is a focus on food, I wanted to know what consumers thought and what questions they would ask a farmer.... so last Sunday afternoon, Farmer Joe and I went out and posed that question to random folks. We went to several different grocery stores from national chain stores to the local organic food co-op to ask the question, "if you could ask a farmer a question, what would you ask?"..... and here is what I found out.

Here are the answers to the questions asked:
• 97% of U.S. farms are run by families, farmer partnerships or co-ops, per Farm Facts. If a family farm is incorporated (i.e. Corporate Farm) it simply refers to the organizational tax structure of that farm operation.

• The crops grown by the farmers are based on what can be grown in their particular area as well as what is profitable to grow. For instance, we grow garbanzo beans vs peas as the market price is much better for garbanzos than dried peas.

• The use of herbicides or pesticide on crops is only used when needed and the products we use are highly regulated and tested by the Food & Drug Administration. The rules that govern what can be used are far more stringent in the U.S. than in foreign countries. When we use products on our crops, it could be compared to when a person gets sick and goes to the doctor for medicine to help them get healthy; it’s the same for plants- we are trying to keep the plants healthy for optimum yield results. We eat the same foods we produce as the consumer eats and as a practice, I try to only buy products grown in the U.S.A.

• We have not noticed an increase in conventional farmers converting to organic methods, but a few farms may do small organic sections as a speciality. We feel the consumer should have a choice of conventional vs organic. Typically organic is more expensive, for example one grocery store had a dozen eggs for $1.39 produced in a conventional way vs the $4.59 for organic, free range eggs. It simply depends on what the consumer wants to pay for their food. Americans spend just 9.5% of their income on food- less than any other country, plus it is the safest as well, per Farm Facts.

• As for the question about baby animals from dairies, it depends on the sex of the animal and the operation of that dairy. As we have friends in the dairy business, the females may be kept and added to the herd for milk production, and as for the males, they may stay for breeding or get sold.
• And lastly the women who talks about Ireland’s practice of telling you who raised that product… well it goes back to what I am trying to do, connect the consumer to the farmer. Let them see the regular American Farm Family who raises the food that they eat.

And I can't let you go until I share my latest cake find located on the Cake of the Month page...

Pumpkin Poundcake

Are you drooling yet?

Again, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Please make sure to check the At Home on the Farm as I'll be posting more on what a farm engagement party looks like. We have invited our family and farm friends to meet Kaitlyn's financee, Andrew on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so quality time in the kitchen is definately in store for me. As always, thanks for stopping by and let me know if you have any quesitons by either posting a comment or emailing me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com. All my best, Gayle

When Nature Gives You A Break, You've Gotta Take It

2011-11-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

Today is Veteran's Day and we give our eternal and heartfelt thanks to all who have served to make our country safe.

In our part of the country, any nice day after October 20 is a bonus as the weather can turn cold, rainy or snowy and we can count on being out of the field until Spring. After last week's light dusting of snow, Mother Nature has granted us a few more spectacular warm Fall days here on the "Palouse". Farmer Joe and Farmer Jay took the opportunity to get a few more things done on the farm as the weather forecast is calling for rain and snow this afternoon as well as the rest of the week.

Here is a video from the seat of the tractor cab to give you a peek at what it looks like driving down our country back-roads.

Next are two videos Farmer Joe shot of us planting some grasses and plants along the ditch as part of our on-going wildlife conservation efforts. Farmers take our environmental conservation efforts seriously as well as do our part in promoting wildlife habitat. The first video shows the tractor planting the grasses and the second video shows you what it looks like from the seat of the tractor.

And of course, I wanted to share my newest and perfect Fall yummy, "Apple Butterscotch Squares" on the OMG Dessert page.

Tomorrow this farmwife will be heading 100 miles away to see the newly engaged daughter try on wedding dresses and where her older sister, Jen will also be trying on bridesmaids dresses. So my part, as well as my mom's, will be doing the appropriate "ooohs and aaawwes" as the girls try on all sorts of dresses. =) More on that will be on the At Home on the Farm page.

As always, many thanks for stopping by, I hope you will try some of my favorite recipes and settle in for cozy moment with a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy your baking efforts. Please feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave comments, as I love to read them and appreciate the time that you have put aside to read the blog. All my best, Gayle

2011-11-06T07:08:00.000-08:00

The wheat has been seeded all comfy in their beds, with visions of harvest still in our heads…. okay so maybe I won’t quit my day job to write off-beat versions of that favorite Christmas poem, but I am a serious holiday junkie and now that harvest is over and our "fall working season" is on the down-hill slide we are rolling into a quiet time on the farm and straight into the holiday season! I love this time of year and am seriously thinking of starting my holiday movie watching tradition a bit early as we just had our first dusting of snow….. But first, here on the farm, Farmer Joe kindly taped a short video to show you what we are doing on the farm before it goes to sleep for the winter.

As for life on the farm..... well we have some big news, and invite you to read about it on the At Home on the Farm page

And if you love desserts, check out the Pumpkin Chocolate cake with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting and a chocolate ganache glaze ...... yummmmm on the Cake of the Month page.

As the quiet winter season on the farm is settling upon us, I will be taking you on "field trips" such as getting to see barges being loaded with wheat that will make their way down the river system to get shipped overseas and whatever else I can think of. Plus if YOU have any requests, let me know and I'll see what I can do to make it happen. As always, thanks for stopping by. Well my friends, take care and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a post. All my best, Gayle

An American Farm Family Telling Our Story

2011-10-21T15:25:00.000-07:00

Hooray! With great pleasure I have added the video from our 3rd annual “Dinner on the Farm” that Farmer Joe and I host during two week-ends in September. This is a free event and our way of connecting the farmer to the consumer. My friend and former co-worker, Camille Rigby taped & edited this magnificent footage from one of our dinners held last month. The images she captured show the true quintessence of what I try to say in every blog: that we love farming, we are an American farm family who makes our living providing food for the consumer, and we want to tell you our story as well as answer your questions and concerns about American agriculture.

I’ve been blogging about our farm for the last 2 or so years and this blog has taken on a life of its own. It shapes the way I think and view things around the farm. Farmer Joe and our hired-man, Cody have joined with me in giving you a “hands on insight” of what we do, day in and day out.

One of my goals with this blog is to be able to have a broader audience and give the consumer that connection to where their food is grown and who grows it. I also hope to someday garner the interest from one of the major women’s magazines and have a regular column that answers questions from the consumer about where their food comes from. So far Better Homes & Gardens, Country Living and a few others have repeatedly turned me down or just ignored my suggestion and offer to write for them. So I will keep doing what I am doing and am thankful for each and everyone one my blog readers. =)

In December, I will be in Chicago to be on a forum for Top Producer’s Executive Women in Agriculture to talk about being an “Advocate for Ag”, and if you have something you would like me to share about what you like most from this blog, please post a comment or email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com . Thanks and as always, appreciate you stopping by. All my best, Gayle

Seeding Wheat the "No Till" Way, Fall Work 2011

2011-10-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

On our farm, we are no till farmers, which basically means we seed our crops directly into the soil with minimal disruption of the ground. This is a soil saving process as well as a cost saving one for us and we feel, a better carbon footprint for the environment. It takes special equipment (which is expensive) and, while we, and many other farmers in the area utilize this practice, not all farmers buy into the "no till" way of doing things. It basically comes down to what is best for your own farm.

Here is a short video of Cody (our hired man) in the tractor pulling a shredder that breaks up the wheat stubble into little pieces. It is sort of like composting and it helps the crops and the soil by helping keep weeds down, keeping moisture in the ground, preventing erosion of the soil and making it a better condition for the tiny wheat seed to grow.

Hot off the press from Farmer Joe..... a look at seeding wheat.

Thanks for stopping by, email me if you have quesitons at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or feel free to post a comment. All my best, Gayle

Fall Seeding

2011-10-07T20:19:00.000-07:00

Just as the weather has seasons, so does farming. Well besides the inside farm joke that "the only seasons we know are before harvest, harvest and after harvest", we actually do have 3 distinct farm seasons and we call them "spring work, harvest, and fall work". And our life, both personal and business, revolves around those farm seasons. In fact I can still remember (27 years ago) being newly engaged to the farmer and finding out the that the only months that would not interfere with farming were November - February..... so we had a beautiful winter wedding. So when I say our personal lives revolve around farming, I am serious. =)

As I look out my kitchen window, all of the fields have now been harvested, the weather has turned from summer into fall and our new focus is on getting 1/3 of our farm planted into winter wheat. What does a typical day in the life of a farmer look like in Fall Work? Well come along and I'll show you.

But first, here is a picture of Cody washing up Farmer Joe's combine before it gets put away for the year.

The combine is put away without it's header

Farmer Jay doing maintenance on the seeding drill which puts down fertilizer & seed

Anhydrous ammonia truck filling the tanks on the tractor

And Farmer Joe explains......

A still shot of the "nurse truck" being filled

Each year, to aid the University of Idaho, we set aside some acreage for the wheat lab to do test plots in actual field conditions. Here are two staff members plotting out the areas for different wheat varieties they want to grow down at the Tammany farm.

Test plots being staked out

And finally (yea) it rained. The ground has been rock hard, so the rain was very welcome and it will make the process of seeding go much easier.

As always, thanks for stopping in, and now you get to see what a fall seeding day looks like. If you want to see what the farmwife does while the farmer is working, check out At Home on the Farm page.

Feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment. All my best, Gayle

A Day in American Agriculture

2011-09-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

Okay..... I couldn't help myself and had to show off the pictures & videos that Cody, our hired man took on the last day of the Anderson Farm garbanzo harvest so one more last look at garbanzo harvest of 2011.

Plus today is designated "A Day in American Agriculture"

As it is important to connect with the consumer and share what we do, I had to post more pic/videos as Cody has some great footage. Plus take a look at what the old days of farming looked like back when Farmer Joe's grandpa, uncle and his dad farmed. I was excited to come across some great family photos.

Farming then and now...

Old combines in wheat harvest, Joe's dad "Andy" is
driving the 2nd combine.

Notice the "open air" combines.... that meant lots of dust and chaff for the driver. I love the little old truck that was used to haul in the grain to the warehouse (big change from the semi used now!)

L to R, The Anderson's, Joseph (Farmer Joe grandpa), JD ( uncle) &
Andy (Farmer Joe's dad)

Back in the old days it took more man power to get harvest completed, smaller trucks and combines.

Farmers Joe & Jay in their big red combines

Our guys like the "Red" brand of combines

Harvesting garbs in tandem

Today we are taking the trucks down to the Tammany Farm so we can begin preparations to the fields to begin our Fall seeding of winter wheat; we are taking our land rent checks to our landlords.

Pictured below is a small stubble fire that started when a bearing went out on a piece of equipment that breaks up the wheat stubble (by breaking up the stubble, it helps it decompose better). Good thing Cody is a volunteer fireman, as he and neighbors had to put out the fire. It only burned about 10 acres and thankfully no one was hurt or no equipment was burned up.

Stubble fire

As always, thanks for stopping by and feel free to contact me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a comment. Also, I received an email telling me my blog was selected as one of the 50 Best Farm Blogs! Now that is a really huge compliment and I am so flattered! The "badge" is listed at the top of my farm blog next to my other Farming award. (Yup, I'm thinking today is pretty special and it's good to be me today) =)

Garbanzo Beans from our Local Farms to Your Table

2011-09-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before, our crops are our paycheck and everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief when the crops are cut and in the warehouse. So last last Saturday, when Farmer friends Ron Hermann and his son, Ryan called to ask if we would help them get their final field of garbanzo beans cut before the rain came, we didn't hesitate a bit. Here's a final look at a garbanzo harvest.

Most farmers in our area have semi trucks to haul their crops to the warehouse

Ryan talking on his cell phone while waiting for his
semi to get filled with the beans

A close up view of what a garbanzo plant looks like in the field

The pods contain a garbanzo bean

The short video below is when I arrived out in the field and filmed Farmer Jay's combine close to the road and was waiting for Farmer Joe to come so I could hitch a ride. =) (it was breezy out so pardon the noisy video background noise)

Farmer Joe says:

Filling up one of the semi trucks

Very dusty

Here is a video of what it looks and sounds like when the dried garbs are coming into the bulk tank of the combine. Sort of sounds like marbles hitting the glass.

A view of the hilly kind of fields that are common in N. Idaho

To give you a view of how steep some of the hillside are..... I can tell you, driving a combine or a tractor on a steep hillside is scary, so good thing our farmers are brave.

One more video of the auger loading the semi trucks

Just one more view of the plants going into the reel on the header on the video below. Legume crops are not tall plants, so the header on the combine is really close to the ground. Sometimes the header will pick up a rock from the field and that is not a good thing as it can (usually) breaks something. Although this was not the case in the Hermann's field, but we are always on the look out for foreign objects that the farmer doesn't want to come across (It is dusty out there and sometimes it is unavoidable). In one or two of our fields, we have "rock patches" and each spring the farm crew will go out into the field and "pick rocks" so come harvest, the header doesn't come across a rock or two.

And here my friends, is what dried, newly harvested garbanzo beans look like.

And lastly, as an added bonus, our friends at the Pea & Lentil Council sent me a short video of a combine harvesting lentils to share with you as well, http://youtu.be/RPcPu1a0Tfg .

So now the Anderson combines have had their oil changed, the dust has been blown off of them, they have been washed and put away for the season. I hope you have enjoyed seeing what harvest time looks like for an American Farmer on the "Palouse" as our region is known as. In the next week we will be getting the fields ready for Fall planting of the winter wheat. So more to come.

As always, thanks for stopping by and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a post, I love comments. Thanks and all my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Days 26-28 of Harvest 2011

2011-09-22T12:47:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the garbanzo fields in Idaho! Many farmers like us are in the midst of harvesting their garbanzo bean crop and thankfully we have been having unseasonably warm sunny days - which are perfect harvest conditions. The garb plants are dried and crispy, but the plant stock will get "ropey" due to ground dew in the mornings and evenings and when that happens, it makes it hard to harvest. So generally we don't get out into the field until late morning or early afternoon to begin cutting the plants and the crunchier and crisper the plant is, the better it goes through the combine.

In the early morning hours, farmers will usually start getting the fields prepped for the fall wheat crop to be seeded. The video clip below, Farmer Joe explains that he is spraying out weeds that have started growing in the harvested wheat stubble.

Farmer Jay finished the garbanzo bean harvest down at the Tammany farm and moved his combine up to the Genesee farm. The header on the combines need to be removed for highway travel.

Farmer Jay's pick-up pulling the header

The picture below is what a combine looks like without it's header.

Farmer Jay climbing up into the combine to re-attach the header

With two big combines in the field, we can go through about 100 acres of garbanzo's per day per combine.

A loaded semi truck full of garbanzo beans

Well that's all for today, Farmer Joe says our hired man, Cody has some good shots of today's harvest (Thursday) so come on back to see what I'm posting tomorrow! All my best, Gayle Don't forget you can contact me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a comment. =)

Dinner on the Farm Series for 2011

2011-09-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

There is a hunger out there, not just to fill your stomach with food, but also for knowledge about agriculture, the farmer and our values. It seems that people want to have a connection to THE AMERICAN FARM and to those who raise the food they eat. And that is the reason why Farmer Joe and I host our (free) Dinner on the Farm series each year. Is a lot of work? Yup, and we love every minute of it. Connecting with people and sharing what we do has lasting effects, at least for us and ( hopefully) for our guests. We set the stage for the event and the guests write the script for the evening. It is like that Lowe's TV commerical, you have questions, we have answers.

A vintage farm book says it all

Name tags are printed and ready..... not only for us, but our guests as well.

As no one knows each other, name tage are helpful

Our daughter, Jen helped take photos of the first dinner and my sister-in-law, Denise helped take photos of the second dinner. The first dinner was also video taped by friend and former news reporter, Camille.(I'll post that once she finishes it) We were really excited to have Camille's expertise to document this.

The menu

The menu is the first thing the guests see, I like to have a variety of entrees and try to focus the food on what is grown locally around this area. I love to make desserts so I have 4 different kinds as well.

Table decorations that include wheat kernels

The table is set and ready for the guests. Special special attention is paid to details as a nice ambiance helps set the stage for a perfect evening filled with good food and great conversation.

The outdoor setting of our farmhouse is decorated as well.

Me and Sheila, our farm host wife for the dinner on September 10

Facing the camera is farm hosts, Eric and Sheila visiting with guests

Eric, our Farm Host shares a laugh guest, Pat

A good glass of wine poured before dinner.

We like to feature local wineries for our dinners and our guests loved getting to sample some great wines.

Each dinner is different and sometimes there is a group conversation that includes the entire table or several conversations at once. The latter was the case for this dinner.

Guests getting to know one another

Below is a picture of Ray & Cathy, our farm hosts for the second dinner, along with myself and Farmer Joe. This year both of our farm hosts were both farmers and ranchers, a bonus for our guests as many had questons about animal agriculture.

Ray, Cathy, me (holding a bowl of freshly harvested garbs) and Joe

Farmer Joe explaining about the combine

The guests were good sports as the weather for this dinner had turned cool and windy, but we all still went out into the field to see the equipment.

A question and answer session

Below is a Flickr photostream on more pictures. If you are unable to view it via the email subscription, please go directly to the blog site at http://www.idahofarmwife.net/. Thanks.

Well, there you have it, a view of our Dinner on the Farm series. As in the past our local Pacific Northwest Farmers Co-op furnished cookbooks and 2 pound bags of lentils for the guests. The Pea & Lentil Commission furnished a baggie of garbanzo beans, magnetic recipe cards and a magnetic clippie and I also added homemade lentil brownies to the guest packs as well.

All my best, Gayle. I can be contacted at Idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment. I will be posting the recipes (soon) on my recipe pages.

Quick Preview of Dinner on the Farm, Before the Guests Arrive

2011-09-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

Greetings Everyone! Each September during our garbanzo harvest, Farmer Joe and I host a Dinner on the Farm for two weekends. We started doing this to give people a chance to come out to our farm, see what we do, ask questions and enjoy a hearty meal. We wanted to put a face on the family farm so the public can see that we are everyday people. My motto is: Farmers are ordinary people with an extraordinary job to do, we feed the world. So my friends, this is our 3rd annual Dinner on the Farm event and it is the second and last dinner for the year. I have a few minutes before I need to ice the drinks and get changed, but here is a quick preview of what the guests will see......

A welcome sign at our house

Guests names on the back of their chairs

The quad tractor & drill in the field next to our house

Farmer Joe is still harvesting garbanzo beans, but will bring the combine over shortly for the guests to see it. Well I have tons of last minute things to do.... so stay tuned for more pictures. The Internet is slower than molasses today so I can't load more videos or pictures! All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Last views of Wheat Harvest 2011

2011-09-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

With the exception of wheat chaff and dust, I hope the photos and videos of our wheat harvest made you feel like you were really there. Here are some of the last pictures of our wheat harvest which were taken by our hired man, Cody with his camera phone- and they are amazing! (Thanks Cody!) My bugging of the guys has really paid off.

Combine filling the grain cart at dusk

(P.S. If you are unable to view this video in your "Windows Internet Explorer", please use "Mozilla Firefox" - I'm not sure why the Mozilla Firefox works better - but it does. G )

No street lights are in the fields, so combines are equipped with headlights
to see where they are going in the dark

The tractor and grain cart heading off to the semi trucks

Cody is our all around guy who can do everything from driving
the combines to driving the semi trucks

Storing some of our wheat in our grain bins at the Tammany Farm

The auger sucks up the grain into the elevator

A view from the top of the elevator.

Farmer Joe is finishing the last patches of the spring wheat, then he will start next on our garbanzo bean harvest.

I hope you enjoyed the day to day blog of our wheat harvest. Stay tuned for more on the garbanzo bean harvest and I'm working on the blog for the 3rd Dinner on the Farm event from last Saturday. All my best, Gayle. You can contact me at idahofarmwife@gmail or leave a comment. Thanks!

Feeding America, Days 22-25 of Harvest 2011

2011-09-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

Farmer Joe servicing his combine

So you think your fuel bill is high? This will make you feel better… =) Our day starts out with servicing the combines and tractors. Have you ever wondered how we diesel up the machines? We don’t drive them into town to gas up at the pump, but rather a big “slip tank” is put into the back of the service farm pick-up and it then becomes a mobile diesel station that will go to where the combines and tractors are parked. Then either Cody, our hired man, or the farmer will fill up the tank, which costs about $500 a day to run just the combine. Ouch, but it is a cost of doing business.

I wanted to share that little fuel tidbit with you along with another good link that talks about the high cost of farming. Here is a quote from the article, “Further, the amount of capital needed to get a farm or ranch operation off the ground is staggering. We borrow more money each year to cash flow our operations than most Americans borrow in a lifetime. Here in Texas, some cotton farmers spend $600,000 for a single piece of equipment. That’s just one machine—it doesn’t’ even take into account land costs, fuel costs, seed costs and labor costs needed to grow a crop.” To read more on this, here is the link to The Hand that Feeds Us, http://news.thehandthatfeedsus.org/index000537092.cfm?x=bjRkbvN,bgBrLqFy . So my friends when you hear in the news about “farm subsidies” to help the farmer, it is because of these high costs that many of us in the Ag industry face. Call us crazy, but we love what we do.

A quick update on our harvest, Farmer Joe has been whittling down the Spring wheat fields with the help of Cody and Hale. Farmer Jay is still down at the Tammany farm harvesting garbanzo beans.

We still have some patches of spring wheat by our house that we will harvest on Saturday and we will be able to give our Dinner on the Farm guests an actual ride in the combine.

Take care and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment. I’m getting ready for our 3rd Dinner on the Farm event, of which the first dinner is tomorrow. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 20 & 21 of Harvest 2011

2011-09-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

Family written in drift wood

The life of a farmer is centered around our crops and their cycles. When it is time to plant, tend the crops and harvest, that time frame takes precedent over everything as the crops and Mother Nature wait for no one. It is just the way of life for farmers, and yes, sometimes it’s hard especially when there is a fun family event or a family emergency arises. There have been a couple of times in my farming life that I’ve sat in the hospital waiting room by myself when our daughter or another family member were hospitalized because my sweet farmer had to leave (Joe was at my side and did not leave until the crisis had passed, they were in the recovery room & were okay) as he had to get the crop in the ground. So this past Labor Day week-end found us waiting on the ripening of the spring wheat and Farmer Joe was able to head out of town with the rest of my family for a lake get away at a house we rented. While he was only able to stay just a little over a day before having to head back to take his seat on the combine, he did get to help celebrate middle grand-angel, Natalie’s 3^rd birthday. Am I complaining? No, for us and the rest of America’s farmers, it is a fact of life, but one we cherish. If you have never seen the YouTube video titled, “So God made a farmer” and narrated by Paul Harvey, it is worth a view to see what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/embed/QuzhwkaNC40?rel=0

Natalie all smiles

As for how harvest is going? Well a quick update, Farmer Joe had a minor breakdown yesterday (Monday) and had to head to another combine dealer about an hour away to get a part so he would be ready to go on Tuesday. This harvest has plagued us with breakdowns and flat tires on the semi trucks as well as Farmer Jay had two flat tires on his combine from running over antlers. The deer and elk like to graze (grrrrr) in farm fields. Farmer Jay finished the spring wheat at the Tammany farm and is now harvesting garbanzo beans. Farmer Joe is still working on finishing the spring wheat before he starts on garbanzo beans at the Genesee farm.

Semi trucks in line at the warehouse waiting to be unloaded

Tracks of past activity. A newly harvested wheat field

As for this farm wife, I’m gearing up and getting ready for our 3^rd Dinner on the Farm that will start this Saturday. I will be blogging about that too and hope you will stay tuned to read about it as well.

The menu for the farm dinner

As always, thanks for stopping by and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions. All my best, Gayle.

Feeding America, Day 19 of Harvest 2011

2011-09-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

A view of the Lewiston Grain terminal

It’s sort of eerie and quiet around the Genesee area where we farm as all the harvest activity has come to a sudden standstill. With the exception of one or two farmers, most of us have finished harvesting our winter wheat and are waiting for the spring wheat to finish ripening. Farmer Joe finished the last 15 or 20 acres around our house yesterday after the repairs on his combine were completed. He is optimistic that he can harvest the hard red spring wheat beginning on Sunday.

Last night the farmer and I went on a date and headed down to Lewiston, and we passed the huge mountain of wheat piled outside the terminal. This is a fairly common sight to have the excess piled outside when the terminals get full. The grain will start getting shipped by barge to Portland, Oregon and from there it gets shipped to the Pacific Rim countries, like Japan and the Philippines.

Thanks for stopping by and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a post. I'll be posting more once harvest starts up again, come on back! All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Days 15-18 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well my friends, the nut behind the computer key board (me) was having difficulty getting some videos loaded to tell you that we have been rained out, greened out and been having mechanical issues with Farmer Joe’s combine. So I have lots to share with you, so come along and I’ll tell you all about it…. (many of these videos were taken over several days)

Some of the wheat around our house was too green to harvest, so we moved to another field about 5 miles down the road. Farmer Joe was not getting to harvest until late afternoon on a couple of those days due to mechanical breakdowns on his header (yes again), but we did manage to get that field harvested and moved back to our home place. Here is a video of the semi trucks moving back into the field by our farm house.

While harvesting, one of the chains was slipping so Farmer Joe moved the combine to level ground to do some minor adjustments as pictured below

Farmer Joe working on his combine

Wheat that was bunched up in the header due to the chain slipping

A view of what the inner workings of a combine look like.
The side panel was up, so I snapped this picture.

Here is a video of my grand angels after their ride in the combine with Papa. So far they have been logging in many rides as they can.

A storm came through and brought lots of lightening, thunder and some rain. Here you can see the dark clouds starting to roll in the picture below.

Son in law, Soren holding Natalie watching the combine.

Kaitlyn, our daughter, along with Andrew (her boyfriend)were visiting for the week-end and helped shuffle equipment from one field to another. Even though Andrew grew up on a cattle feeding operation, she wanted to show him that she thought she could drive a tractor better than he could.... =)

Andrew and Kaitlyn pausing in between moving equipment

Daughter Jen and son in law Soren, along with Maggie and Natalie
while waiting for rides in the combine

A view of the combine harvesting down a hill

Another view of the combine harvesting on our rolling
hills here in North Idaho

Earlier in the week, Ty, the brother of Cody (our hired man) came out to show his city born girlfriend what a farm looked like and to ride in a combine. While she liked seeing what we do, she was not ready to give up life in Seattle.

Welina and Farmer Joe

With harvest in full swing, here is what is happening all around us.

A view of the service truck working on Farmer Joe's combine. The service trucks come out to the field to service the combines.

Farmer Joe was down helping Farmer Jay with the Spring wheat at the Tammany Farm and after he got home, we headed into Moscow and came upon more combines moving from field to field on highway 95.

Not unusal to see combines traveling down the highway
to get to their fields

Baby Maggie our newest "farmerette" was baptized last Sunday. Normally this kind of thing goes under the At Home on the Farm page.... but I've been neglecting my other blog pages.

Daddy Soren, Mommy Jen and baby Maggie with our Pastor

Lastly even in the middle of harvest, I've been getting ready for our 3rd annual Dinner on the Farm series..... which is only a week away now.

Whew! There you have it, it has been very hectic. Farmer Jay only has a couple more days to go before he finishes the Spring wheat down at the Tammany farm, then he will start harvesting garbanzos. Farmer Joe will finish the winter wheat on our home place, then hopefully start on Spring wheat. So thanks for stopping by. Email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have comments/questions or post a one on the blog. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 14 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-26T18:54:00.000-07:00

Farmers are good at improvising to make things work. Whether it is doing a quick fix with duct tape on some gadget or training someone to do a task, they make it work. Today Farmer Joe was short handed on help as Cody our hired man was working with Farmer Jay harvesting Spring wheat down at the Tammany farm. So the farmer taught Ryan, our seasonal help, to drive the semi trucks to the grain warehouse to unload the grain. As this field is just a mile at best from the warehouse and the ground is level, it was a good training as well as a safe route for our young lad to learn this skill.

The semi truck waiting in the field until it is full and ready to be driven to the grain elevator

The other semi in the field and behind it is the grain terminal

Well that's all for today's report, thanks for stopping by and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or post a comment. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 13 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

If you read yesterdays blog about farmers having “one of those days”, well sometimes they come in pairs. Yesterday as Farmer Joe was trying to start harvesting, a major breakdown on the other end of the header sent him into the combine dealership in Moscow in the hope they had the parts in stock ….. of which they did not. A breakdown on a combine in the middle of harvest is really bad news especially if the needed parts are not available and have to be ordered. So Farmer Joe headed to another combine dealership about 1 ½ hour away from our Genesee farm as that dealer had a brand new header and they “cannibalized” that header for the replacement parts for ours. Whew! Factor in a 3+ hour round trip to get parts, then get the header fixed meant the farmer didn’t get to start harvest till around 4pm. The weather forecast also had us concerned as it had warnings about a chance of thunderstorms too. Last night was the first night the lights on the combine were used and we harvested in the dark in order to get the 2 semi trucks loaded (the warehouse closes at 8pm, so a common practice is to get the trucks filled the night before so they can be unloaded first thing the next day).

I’m hoping for pictures or videos from Thursday’s harvest that I can share. Farmer Joe is hoping to finish the field around our home, then move the combine to another field 4 or 5 miles away.

As for Farmer Jay down harvesting Spring wheat down at the Tammany farm, all is going well despite a plugged up grain cart.

Stay tuned for more harvest tales. Feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com . All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 12 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

Farmers are not immune from having "one of those days" as Farmer Joe discovered an oil leak on his combine and missing fan belts on the semi truck during the routine maintenance checks and cleaning. The combine dealership didn't have the parts needed to repair the oil leak, so they had to be ordered (not something a farmer wants to hear during harvest), but luckily it was not a major issue at this point and Farmer Joe decided he could run the combine as it was. Farmer Jay stayed behind and got the semi equipped with new fan belts.... so we were able to get in the field late morning.

Above is the video of Farmer Joe with the air hose

blowing out all the dust and wheat chaff that collects

during the day. A daily cleaning is needed to ensure the

chaff doesn't catch on fire.

The panel sides of the combine lift up and/or out for
access to the insides of the combine. Lots of nooks & crannies
to blow the wheat chaff out

Fan belts needed to be replaced on the semi

As Farmer Joe was harvesting right around our house, I rode in the cab with him a good part of the morning. My voice doesn't carry as well as his so many of my comments may be hard to hear. To show you what is is like being in a combine on a steep hillside, I did a short film clip and was holding the camera level. The combine is a self leveling one for the rolling hills in our area.

A view of the combine reel/header in the wheat field

In this video (above) I was explaining the the "fingers" on the reel of the header scoop the wheat in, then feed it into the rolling "auger" and as the wheat goes through the combine, the chaff gets spit out the back and the wheat kernels go into the bulk tank and a window is in the back of the cab (so you can see it falling in).

A view from inside the cab watching as the tractor & grain cart
are heading our way so we can unload the combine on the go

Unloading on the go, means that the combine doesn't have to stop and unload it's grain and the tractor driver (Ryan) matches speed with the combine so the farmer can fill the grain cart while continuing to harvest.

The picture below (altho blurry) is of a big hawk. We will see hawks, owls and coyote follow our machines out in the field because they know once the machine passes through the wheat, that it exposes mice and it makes for "easy pickins".

The black spot is a hawk in the field

As always, thanks for stopping by. Email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions or comments. (Or post a comment as well) All my best, Gayle

Feedng America Day 11 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Good Morning! Another beautiful harvest day on the "Palouse" here in North Idaho. Harvest is in full swing all around us with a flurry of activity not only on our farm but our neighbors as well. This has been one of the latest harvests that many can remember. The weather forecast looks great, the crops are ripe and those of us who feed America are intent on getting those crops in.

Sunrise on the 1st day of the Genesee harvest

The combine that was moved from Tammany sits quietly at the field entrance until called into action. This winter wheat field is next to our home.

Shortly after 1:30pm, Farmer Joe cut a sample of wheat, headed into town to get the moisture test, came back with a big smile as he said it was testing at 11% (a good number to be at) and that harvest was on!

A little later on in the day Kevin and his wife Susan arrived to film our wheat harvest for a music video he was working on. They had traveled from Meridian, Idaho to film this for their company, Good News Records as Kevin had written a song and thought this would be a fitting scene for his lyrics. I forewarned them as they were filming to not stand "downwind" of the combine unless they wanted to get coated in wheat chaff and be itchy the rest of the day. Kevin got to ride in combine and was amazed at all the technology in the cab and that it was not anything like he imagined. The cab is air conditioned, has monitors that tell the operator what the wheat is yielding, where he as been in the field, moisture count, and it monitors when the bulk tank is getting full. The combine has a little beacon outside that flashes to alert the grain cart driver to start heading over to the combine so it can be unloaded. Plus there are two-way radios in the tractor and combine, so everyone is in communication with each other.

The grand-angels were out and also got to get their first ride of the year with "papa" too.

A few hours later, a photographer for Idaho Grain came to photograph our harvest as well, and gosh, we were feeling somewhat famous! =)

Kevin from Good News Records posing with his
guitar on the combine

The combine at sunset after a good day of harvesting. The tractor and grain
cart are in the far background.

I will be on had to record harvest in action today so keep stopping by and as always, email at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions or comments. Posts are always fun too. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 10 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

The agenda for this Sunday morning was to be a day of just moving equipment and getting ready to harvest winter wheat at the Genesee farm. And so the early Sunday morning found Farmer Joe and I having breakfast with Farmer Jay, Lisa, their son, Zack, and Lisa's brother, Jeff and his girlfriend, Mindy. After breakfast our guys headed down to Tammany to bring Joe's combine up and I rode home with Lisa. This has become sort of an informal ritual during harvest when we finish winter wheat down at one farm and move up to the main farm.

The combine and header are transported separately and the interesting thing about this header is that it can be towed without a special trailer. The wheels move into transport mode, a detactable long hitch hooks up the header to the pick-up. Once the destination is reached, then the hitch is removed and the tires are put back into position under the header and it is ready to go.

Arriving at our Genesee field next to our house to
hook the header back up to the combine

Farmers Jay (in the forefront) and Joe in back adjusting
the wheels under the header

All set up and ready to go! Just hope the wheat is ready to be harvested

Thanks for stopping by ! Have to get some cookies baked for the crew as well as be on hand to run a moisture sample of the wheat into the grain elevators to see if we can harvest today (Monday), plus the song writer will be out later on this afternoon to film wheat harvest (hopefully) for his music video. Stay tuned I'll have more. All my best, Gayle.

Feeding America, Day 9 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-20T14:42:00.000-07:00

From my kitchen window, I've been seeing a flurry of activity as the farmers around us in Genesee are either getting ready to get in the field or they are already harvesting their crops. It is a busy time and many farmers including us have seasonal help from our high school kids to help get our crops in. School starts next week and due to the late harvest, I've heard talk that the school officials may delay the start of school until after the Labor Day holiday to aid the farmers. This would be a good thing for us as well our other farm friends.

The video below is narrated by Farmer Joe who, along with Farmer Jay have their CDL license to drive the semi trucks. This was Joe's turn and you get to see what he sees as the grain is loaded into the semi, a view of driving down the road, and when the semi unloads at the grain terminal.

Our high school seasonal help, Ryan who drive the tractor
that pulls the grain cart

An employee that unloads the grain posing for Joe

A blow out on the truck, this was the 2nd one within 2 days

Farmer Joe snapping a picture of the damaged tire

Stay tuned for Monday's harvest blog as a songwriter/producer is going to film our wheat harvest for his music video. Once I get permission from Kevin, the artist, I will post it! As always, thanks for stopping by and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions or comments. Plus leave posts too. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 8 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

Coming home tonight I got behind a combine on highway 95, so now I know harvest has officially started on the Palouse, here in North Idaho.

On Thursday we harvested about 200 acres of winter wheat and have a little over 100+ acres left. Again we will not know what this field is yielding until all the weight tickets are totaled. Once this field is done, Farmer Jay will stay in Tammany with his “level-land combine” as the ground is flat and Farmer Joe will move his “self-leveling combine” up to the Genesee farm as our ground has the “rolling hills of the Palouse". Farmer Jay, Cody (our hired man), Ryan (our summer high school help) will be Jay’s crew down at Tammany. Farmer Joe will start on the winter wheat fields at the Genesee farm and we will have to hire 2 temporary people to help drive the other semi trucks and the other grain cart. Luckily we have a recently retired friend, Hale, who is willing to drive the grain cart and hopefully our hired man’s dad, Roger, can take some vacation time from his job and drive the semi trucks.
The colors of the crops this time of year are so varied, as you can see below. This year we planted a new variety of hard red spring wheat that has a very distinct color.

Our green garbanzo field is along side our reddish color wheat and the neighbors
golden wheat field

Here are two wheat fields along side each other, the reddish color
is our hard red spring wheat along side the normal golden color

Once again, thanks for stopping by and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 7 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was a better day for our harvest crew and below are short videos of our day. We finished the field and moved over to the next 300 acre field to harvest. The weather forecast is for sunny and hot temps, so all is good in our little harvest world.

A view of what a loaded semi truck looks like just before heading off
to unload at the grain terminal

As always, thanks for stopping by and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions or comments (or post a comment too). All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 6 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

Well my friends, after moving back down to the Tammany farm, we again got "greened out", which is farmer lingo for wheat that has too high a moisture count for the grain terminals to accept it. That definitely puts a crimp in our harvest plans for the day. So Tuesday, August 16 we will not be harvesting and the crew will spray Round-up on weeds, cut thistles and other odd projects while we wait and hope for the grain to ripen a bit more and the moisture count to reach the acceptable level. Farmer Joe was saying he didn't know who was more frustrated, the farmers or the grain elevator staff, as the farmers want to harvest their crops and the grain terminal staff have the difficult task of holding their ground and not accepting wheat that is above the moisture ceiling level, which is 13%. At the grain elevators, each truck load is carefully tested for its moisture content and no one wants to return back to the field with a loaded truck because the warehouse will not accept the grain, but that is sometimes the case (but it is rare). (To clarify - depending on the grain terminal, they usually will accept the grain that is above moisture count, but the farmer will get docked {sort of like a really stiff "discount"}, our combines have the technology to determine the moisture count so we are aware of the moisture content of the grain). The reasons why terminals don't want to accept moist grain is to protect their wheat inventory from rotting, bugs or fire as moist grain can mold, or create a bug infestation, as well produce heat and become combustible. So it was a frustrating and disappointing day for all, but as Scarlett O'Hara says, tomorrow is another day.

From my Twitter account, I just came across a YouTube video of the Urban Wheat Harvest project that we participated in last year in Washington DC. This was to help educate urban America how a wheat plant develops and shows the stages of wheat and how it ends up in products you find in a grocery store, this project was sponsored by WheatWorld, so take a look and enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb9vda1bfo8&feature=player_profilepage

As always, thanks for stopping by and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or post a comment. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 5 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-14T06:35:00.000-07:00

On Friday we finished the Genesee rim wheat field and we were pleased with the yield of 109 bushels of wheat to the acre.

A view of the combine unloading the wheat from its auger
into the waiting grain cart

The prior and first field harvested (from the Tammany farm) yielded 96 bushels, and that was a record as it is one of our drier fields with less rain fall. These numbers are very welcome as we have had to incur extra expense in either additional fertilizer and/or spraying the crop to stop the Rust disease so it is really nice to see the bigger yields.

So the crew moved back down with our mini parade of farm equipment. Although I was hoping for some shots on the narrow steep gravel road, it probably would have been too difficult to do that, so Cody our hired-man took a short video clip (below) closer to our Tammany farm.

Farmer Joe's pick-up with the oversize load sign and
pulling the combine header behind

As the combine header is too large (40') it must be removed from the combine each time we move equipment from field to field. The header is loaded onto a special trailer and pulled behind the pick-up which is the flagging vehicle.

A couple of our semi trucks that will be driven down to the next field

The field that we moved too needed to ripen a bit more, so we were shut down for the week-end. Typically we don't get week-ends off during harvest, but that is how it worked out. The crew is hoping to be able to get back on the combines and tractors and harvest more winter wheat first thing Monday morning.

As always, thanks for stopping by and if you have questions or comments, please email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or post a comment. Stay tuned for more on the Anderson harvest. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 4 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Today we are harvesting Hard Red Winter wheat up on the Genesee rim. Farmer Joe was making this video from his phone, so the quality is not as clear (sorry). It was a hectic day for him as he was fixing an oil leak on his combine... and in his haste to get things fixed & back into the field, his camera was left in the pick-up. As Farmer Joe narrates, the wheat is yielding well, but the protein content for this particular kind of wheat is not quite at the optimum level, which will affect the price the farmer will get for the crop. This wheat is graded on it's protein count.

Different kinds of wheat are grown and used for different kinds of baking, so here is a quick run down:

• Hard Red Spring – Hard, brownish, high-protein wheat used for bread and hard baked goods. Bread Flour and high-gluten flours are commonly made from hard red spring wheat..

• Hard Red Winter – Hard, brownish, mellow high-protein wheat used for bread, hard baked goods and as an adjunct in other flours to increase protein in pastry flour for pie crusts. Some brands of unbleached all-purpose flours are commonly made from hard red winter wheat alone.

• Soft Red Winter – Soft, low-protein wheat used for cakes, pie crusts, biscuits, and muffins. Cake flour, pastry flour, and some self-rising flours with baking powder and salt added, for example, are made from soft red winter wheat.

• Hard White – Hard, light-colored, opaque, chalky, medium-protein wheat planted in dry, temperate areas. Used for bread and brewing.

• Soft White – Soft, light-colored, very low protein wheat grown in temperate moist areas. Used for pie crusts and pastry. Pastry flour, for example, is sometimes made from soft white winter wheat.

As always, thanks for stopping by and email me if you have questions or comments at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or post a comment too. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 3 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

What can we say? We like "red machines" on the Anderson Farm

Day 3 of winter wheat harvest ended with us finishing our first field down at the Tammany farm. The weight tickets have not been added up yet for us to know what this field yielded, but it was enough to keep 3 semi trucks busy all day. Having enough semi-trucks is important as time is money and it is not efficient or wise to keep a combine lingering in the field waiting to be able to unload the grain. Typically we will have either Farmer Joe or Jay in his combine, then the other farmer will drive one of the other semi trucks, while Cody, our hired man, will drive the other combine. We also will have Kirk, the hired truck driver with his semi truck out in the field as well. The two combines keep Ryan, who drives the grain-cart busy as the combines will unload grain (as shown in yesterday’s video) into the cart, and then Ryan will dump his loaded grain cart into one of the semi trucks.

This is one of several fields that we farm and it is 37 miles from our main farm. The climate is warmer and milder by about 10 degrees and thus this area is usually the first to be harvested. As the other Tammany wheat fields are not ready, we had to move the equipment up to another field closer to Genesee. Moving from field to field is like a mini parade of farm equipment (minus the crowds, confetti & candy), 2 combines, 1 tractor pulling a grain cart, 2 or 3 semi trucks plus our pick-ups. The normal driving time from one farm to another is about 1 hour, but when moving equipment at speeds of 15-20 mph, you can easily add another 1 ½ hours to that time. To get to the next field, we will go up a steep gravel canyon road and one of the pick-ups will flag for us to alert other vehicles on the road that we are en route as often times there is no place to pull over and the equipment takes up the entire gravel road. (Next time the farmer promises to have a video clip of this mini parade).

The video clip above shows Ryan blowing off the combine before we move out of the field, and as Farmer Joe narrates - 2 things are important: 1) keeping the wheat chaff cleaned off prevents it catching on fire and 2) sanitation purposes so we don't infect other fields with any foreign or unwelcome weed seed. Some of the weeds that are common to the Tammany area are not up in our area and therefore, we do not want to be a "carrier" and contaminate our other fields.

Ryan blowing off the equipment. Proper eye, ear & breathing protection
are mandatory safety requirements on our farm

As this area is in a lower elevation than where we live, reptiles can sometimes be seen. Ewwwww, as you can tell, I am not a fan of snakes and glad it wasn't me that discovered this little surprise.

A rattle snake.... that had been run over and was found next to the
combine just before we were heading out to move.

As always, thanks for stopping by and please email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have any questions. I love posted comments too. Stay tuned for more on our harvest. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America Day 2 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-10T09:43:00.000-07:00

Day 2 of the winter wheat harvest went better for our crew and we were able to get into the field after lunch. Above is actual video that Farmer Joe took on his camera. The yields look good, some parts of the fields are yielding better than others, so until we harvest the entire field, we will not know what the average bushel to acre is, but we anticipate it being good.

Here is another video that showing Farmer Joe unloading the combine into the grain cart. As the farmer said in the video, he is unloading the grain from the combine into the grain cart which is pulled by a tractor (and driven by Ryan) of which it will then be unloaded into a waiting semi-truck. Once the semi is full it will head to the grain terminals which are located on the Port of Lewiston.

Ryan (sitting) and Cody on hand to help the mechanic if needed
while repairs are being made to one of the combines

The semi-trucks in the field waiting to be loaded

As I've said before in my blogs, it takes a lot of equipment to feed America.

Farmer Joe and his big red combine

Thanks for stopping by and please email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions, or post a comment. Thanks and keep watching for more updates on the wheat harvest. All my best, Gayle

Feeding America, Day 1 of Harvest 2011

2011-08-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

It’s harvest time and there is a certain smell in the air that I can’t explain, but it is fresh and earthy. Farmer Joe was excited to get into the field and begin cutting, (it’s a lot like the first day of school as for excitement level), and so as I packed his lunch, the dog and I sent him off with well wishes.....

Josie, the spoiled dog, is the "tester" of the lunch meat, her favorite job!
She likes to make sure it is the best & tastiest for her beloved master

Lunch box in hand, sipping the last cup of coffee
Farmer Joe is ready to head out for the day

The harvest crew that I will be talking about are, Farmers Joe & Jay along with Cody
(our hired-man), Ryan (our seasonal help who drives the tractor & load-out wagon) and Kirk, who drives his own semi-truck, along with our fleet to take the grain into the terminals. Around noon I called to check to see how things were going and found out, the job of feeding America got off to a slow start. After cutting our first semi-truck load of winter wheat, the moisture testing came in at 13% which is the highest amount that the grain elevator will take. This is not a good thing to be at the highest level right at the beginning. Moisture samples indicated the rest of the field was measuring at 14% so we had to shut the operations down for the day. =( We were experiencing a few mechanical issues, so the combine repairman was called out to our field to fix an issue with Farmer’s Jay combine. Farmer Joe was fixing some other minor mechanical issues on his machine as well so we will hope to get into the field later on today (Tuesday, August 9^th). The forecast is for sunny and hot temps, which can mean that the moisture percentage will decrease and be in the acceptable range for the warehouse to take the wheat. Farmer Joe took his camera and plans on getting pictures and videos that I can upload for you, so stay tuned. As always, thanks for stopping by and if you have question or comments, please feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or post a comment as well. All my best, Gayle

Waiting for Harvest

2011-08-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Good Morning everyone! All is quiet on the home front for now....

A view of my lavender and the wheat field that starts just
inches from where our yard stops and the fields start

Farmers understand the art of patience…. as everything we do depends on the weather, and we all know - you can't hurry it up or make it do what you want. The late cold spring delayed the planting of the crops and the cool summer weather has meant that harvesting the crops is also late by about 2 weeks. So here it is the 1^st of August and not a combine in the field. We are hoping to move our combines down to the Tammany farm which is 37 miles away from our main farm here in Genesee. In normal years we would be about ½ way through harvest down there and gearing up to move up to Genesee to begin harvesting the home place around August 10. But this year we are hoping to begin on Monday, August 8^th. But as Farmer Joe says, a late harvest usually means better crops, so he is patiently waiting for the crops to ripen. So the combines are out of the machine sheds, have had a good checking over and are ready to go once the crops ripen. Before the combines roll out, I wanted to take a few pictures, so last night I took out my trusty 1950’s bike with its fat tires that makes navigating the wash-boardy gravel roads easier and rode the ¾ of a mile over to the farm shop.

The crops are starting to ripen, here you can see the parts of the
field are starting to turn golden, but lots of green can be seen

Here is Farmer Jay's combine parked by the shop

A view from underneath the "header", the tines shown help gather
up the wheat as it is cut by the row of shears on the bottom of the header

Farmer Joe's combine in the forefront and Farmer Jay's combine in the back

One of the Anderson farm semi trucks parked by the farm shop and
waiting to be called into action once harvest can begin

Another view of Farmer Joe's combine by the barn and
shown in front of the garbanzo field. This field will be ready
for harvest mid to late September

So as I peddled home, I stopped to take a picture of our house from the road (below). This is our neighbor's field and again you can see the gold and green colors of the wheat. I love harvest, but I know once it begins the days fly by in a flurry of activity and before I know it, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. On our farm, once harvest begins, we will harvest wheat in August, then the garbanzo bean harvest is on its heals and harvested in September. In October is when the Fall seeding takes place and usually takes the entire month. Then once all the equipment is put away, it seems like it is almost time for Thanksgiving.... whew!

Our house in the middle of the wheat fields

When I looked the opposite way, here is the entrance to the church that we attend and were married in, where our daughters were baptized, where oldest daughter Jen was married and where the youngest daughter Kaitlyn hopes to be married as well. As you can see this beautiful church has very special ties to our family.

My bike parked at the entrance of our beloved church

Genesee Valley Lutheran Church, a very photographed
church with it's picturesque setting

As always, glad you stopped by and if you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment. Stay tuned as I'll be posting more pictures of harvest once it arrives. All my best, Gayle

The Farmer, An American Icon

2011-07-27T15:53:00.000-07:00

“He has never planted seeds or brought in a harvest. He doesn’t even own overalls” was the first line in last week’s Ag section of the newspaper. Excuse me? Overalls?? My first thought was, I think the Associated Press reporter has been watching too many “Green Acres” reruns on TV & he thinks we are bumpkins. The article was talking about wealthy investors buying farm land at huge prices for investment purposes. While that is problematic in and of itself because it drives up land prices and makes it hard for the farmer compete with the ultra rich in order to buy more land to farm, the article seemed to insinuate that we are uneducated people who wear overalls and who don’t seem to know what our land is worth. Yes, it was insulting to those of us who raise the food that reporter eats, but then I thought, America loves the icon of the American Farmer and that we represent, the wholesomeness & goodness of our trade.

This tractor used in our parent's generation is now a beloved
"yard ornament" in my flower bed

So however America views us, let me share some facts about the farmers in our area.
• Most of the farmers have college degrees.

• Farming in today’s world is not what our parent’s generation did as the average farmer grows twice as much food as his parents did – using less land, energy, water and fewer emissions.

• Today, the average U.S. farmer feeds 155 people. In 1960, a farmer fed just 26 people.

• We love our technology and are very “techie”, we have GPS units in our tractors to help us apply fertilizer and other applications only where it’s needed, as much as needed, and no more. See the 2nd video as Farmer Joe explains more on that.

• We care about our land and are good stewards, after all this is how we make our living

o We go to “combine school” to learn how to run our combines better

o We have continuing education on best practices to apply the products that help our crops &have to pass the certification standards in order to have a license to use these products

• We care about raising the safest, best and most economical food, not only for us but for you, the consumer

o We live on our land, we raise our families here, we eat the foods we grow and those are the same one that you eat too

o We are not the bad “corporate farms” that media tries to imply, if we are incorporated, it is simply for tax purposes. 97% of farms are run by farm families

o Weather and markets as well as anti Ag groups can be unkind to us, but we take it in stride and continue to get up every day to do our best, after all you depend on us

• We love what we do and want to continue living this life style, as well as pass it onto future generations to grow the food the world eats

A future farmerette, she loves combines and tractors

We understand that not everyone is a farmer, but everyone eats –and if some view us as a bumpkin, well so be it, but we feel we are living the life that dreams are made of. So I’ll get off my soapbox and hope this blog leaves you will a smile and a better understanding from our perspective.
As always, if you have comments or questions, please feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment. Starting next week, we will be harvesting our winter wheat, so I’ll be blogging on what the Anderson Farm is up to, with pictures and videos. As always, thanks for stopping by and come back soon. All my best, Gayle

If you could see what I see on the farm

2011-07-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes writing a blog is like marinating a tough cut of meat.... the proper elements and time are needed to create a good end product.... so while my thoughts are sitting and stewing over an article I read in this week's Ag section of the paper & trying to formulate what I'm wanting to blog - I thought I'd at least share with you what I saw on my bike ride from a few days ago. These scenes are just a short distance from my farmhouse.....
We are fortunate enough to be close to two land grant universities whose research is instrumental in the development of better crops for our area. Better crops are good for us (and you,the consumer).

Here is the U of I research farm, their research helps farmers and ranchers

Here are "test plots" of various kinds of wheat

From an earlier blog about my tour at WSU's wheat research facility, often times the wheat breeders like to grow the wheat in real time conditions as shown above in the many "test plots".

The UI facility also has cattle too

Here is a test plot of blooming peas - which I think looks like a field of "popcorn"

After leaving the UI Research Center, I continued down the highway and saw the yellow field & thought you might like to see it too. This crop is probably mustard (yes, the seed is used for the mustard you buy in the store) or it is a canola plant and that crop is used for the canola oil. It is so pretty when blooming, as pictured below.

Whether this is a mustard plant or a canola plant, the yellow is eye catching

Loading up hay bales from a field

Next I passed a hay field that had recently been cut & baled. Note the round bales in the field just above this one. Depending on the kind of hay baler the farmer owns determines what kind of size and shape of the hay bale.

Here is a garbanzo plant with a pod. This is from our field along the highway

A view of the garbanzo field, very green and lush at this stage

Our garb field in the forefront, and a different color of green crop is our
spring wheat.

So now you got to see what I see on almost on a daily basis and hope you enjoyed it. As always, please feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions or comments or leave me a comment ( I love those too). All my best, Gayle

A View of Farming from the Backseat of a Cycle & Tales from the Road

2011-07-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

Joe posing besides a "wheat" sculpture

No matter where our travels lead us, our interest in Agriculture is always present. Whether traveling within the USA or abroad, our attention is always drawn to how other people farm. The Farmer and I just crossed off one item on our shared “bucket list” by celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary (a year late) on a motorcycle tour through Germany and Austria.

Angela, our guide, in the orange helmet along
with Joe when we encountered a dairy cow along our travels

In viewing the crops from the rural roads of Germany, we saw fields of wheat and barley in about in the same growing stage as on our farm as both Idaho and Germany are pretty close to the 45th parallel with similar climates. Plus we also saw fields of potato plants and corn and the fields as well as tractors are much smaller in size than in the States. It was interesting to see wheat fields and corn fields next to each other as this does not occur in Northern Idaho, where our rain fall usually cannot support the moisture level needed for corn (that is a Southern Idaho crop that utilizes irrigation). We also saw many small dairy operations in these beautiful and picturesque countries. Quite often we could smell and see the manure spread on the fields, and many times dairies were next to towns or sometimes within the town itself. It seemed very commonplace to have the aroma of manure in the air and while we didn’t mind the smell, I wondered how urban Americans would embrace this ordinary fact of farming if it was in their backyard. (Just this topic alone could & will probably be another blog later on)

The other interesting practice that we saw was how every available section of ground was harvested for hay. Seeing men cutting grass on steep hillsides down to ditches next to the road, it seemed no blade of grass was left uncut. The grass was either cut by hand or someone would be walking behind a piece of equipment that looked like an overgrown lawn mower. Then the family would hand rake the grass into rows, followed by it either being loaded into carts loosely or if the ground was somewhat level, then baled up. It was almost like stepping back into time and you could imagine their ancestors doing it the same way. (sorry no pictures tho)

Riding through the charming villages

From the neatly mowed countryside to the red tiled roofs of the houses that all seemed to sport window planter-boxes with cascading flowers, it was like driving through a movie set of a Bavarian village - only real. Truly a once in a lifetime adventure for this farm-wife! Click here (or visit the "At Home" page) to read more about “Tales From The Road” and to see more pictures as well as hear about the crazy characters that we rode with.

Our house amidst the sea of green rolling hills
that are planted with winter wheat

As for what is happening on the Anderson farm, it is still a sea of green rolling hills here in North Idaho and the crops are growing nicely. The wheat was sprayed again for rust disease and aphids, the garbanzo plants are starting to flower, so all is well.

Here you can see the rust stripe

Checking the winter wheat heads, which are filling out

As always, please feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions. I love comments on the blog too. =) Thanks for stopping by and come back soon. All my best, Gayle

Your Food- Made in America

2011-06-20T22:09:00.000-07:00

What does the food you eat, the wise words your mom bestowed on you in your youth, and bathing suits made in China have to do with farming? Sounds crazy but keep reading……

Here is a short video of a crop duster flying on a treatment

to help the wheat crop against the disease called Rust

If you were like me when growing up, your mom probably said this, “if _____ (fill in your own friend’s name) told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? No, well I thought so! So no you can’t go _____ (again, fill in your own answer) & don't believe everything you hear.” Tonight I was watching ABC news and it had segment from a lady in her bathing suit, saying she couldn’t find any clothes made in the USA, they all came from China, India or other foreign countries and she wanted America made clothes! So here is my rationale and it’s because I want you to know that hyped up media sells stories. Think about it. It’s because of the media hype on “corporate factory farms being evil, farmers hurting their animals, and farmers poisoning their land & you with bad chemicals” gets your attention and sells newspapers. It also lures people into going to the Food, Inc kind of movies (which made $71Million) and donating their hard earned money to organizations thinking they are helping poor animals (see Humanewatch.org). Basically it gets down to this, farmers are highly regulated by the FDA in what we use on our crops, no other country has these kinds of regulations, which is why I try not to buy food produced in other countries – who knows what is used in their food production and I want safe food just like you do. I am a mom and farmwife whose livelihood depends on growing the best and safest products for human consumption. I am the farmer who would not poison her kids, grand-kids, family, or you with bad chemicals or unsafe farming practices. I am the person who cares about what my family eats and what you eat. Really, it is that simple.

A picture of the plane and our wheat fields

This is a marker the plane puts down as he makes a pass when flying on a treatment
so he knows where he has been

Here is the deal, when you hear about new books or movies telling you that we can “repair our relationship with animals” or “buy organic if you don’t want to be poisoned” blah, blah, blah…. It’s because if they scare you, it sells and they make money. Then the downside is the scare tactics are used to have new laws & regulations passed that hinder the farmer and make production costs go up. What does that mean for you? More of your hard earned money buying food and then if production costs are too high, then the farmer goes out of business. Currently, the USA enjoys the lowest cost of food than anywhere else in the world.

*According to the FDA, no signicant differences
has been shown between milk deried from rbST
treated and non-rbST treated cows

The ending to this blog is…. just like your mom says, use your God given brain to sort fact from fiction and think about what you read, hear and see in the news - then ask the true source from those of us who produce your food (ask Farmer, Inc), as we are the experts who have science, logic and facts on our side. If the American public doesn’t want to buy their clothes from China, then do you really want your food coming from a foreign land because regulations and anti-Ag groups make it hard for farmers to put food on your table? No, well that’s what I thought.

As always, thanks for reading this, stop by again and email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have questions. Also be sure to check in to the combined farm blog site, http://www.farmerinc.net/ for more good blogs. As a side note, I will be working on a book that will showcase the farm blogs from all over the USA... so I'll keep you posted on that new project. All my best, Gayle

Call to Action! Farm Bloggers Unite!

2011-06-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

Our children are our future.
Even the littlest sleeping angel
loves her tractor and who knows,
may want to join the farm when she grows up.
We need to protect our heritage
to pass on this legacy to our kids and grand-kids

I opened my book club packet today and saw, to my dismay, a new book out from the CEO of H$U$ on animal welfare. OMG, the blurb about it says “it is an important investigation into how we can repair our relationship with the animal kingdom.” I sat down for a moment and thought, the Ag community needs to do something!! But what??? Then I got an idea, if a blogger writing about her cooking from a Julia Child’s cookbook (i.e. Julie & Julia) could have it made into a movie, then what about the “Best Farm Blogs” all showcased into one book? A book that would capture a glimpse into the life of farm families all over the USA complete with stories and pictures. So now I’m off on yet another mission, and it is to contact all the farm bloggers on my Farmer Inc, The Real Story website and request they send me their best blog along with a picture or two. Call me crazy, but we in the Ag community need to do something and now! So to all you farm bloggers out there, please email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com with your best farm blog in Word format, along with a great picture or two, plus info on yourself. Let’s see where this journey takes us.

All my best, Gayle.

Seeing a Farm Makes it to Being on a "Bucket List"

2011-06-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

"Farming looks idyllic and seems easy, but there is real precision, logic
and science behind everything we do"

If you receive the Parade Magazine in the Sunday paper, you may have seen last week’s edition, wherein it contained a “bucket list of things to do before you die”…. And one of them was to visit a farm and meet the people who grow your food. While that did amaze me, it did not surprise me as the public has sent a very clear message that they are interested in where their food comes from and want to know what farmers do. Thus, the intense interest from the public in our farm blogs, Twitter and Facebook postings. In case you haven’t seen my newest project, Farmer Inc, The Real Story (my labor of love) I have begun the task of compiling great farm blogs from all over the USA, so the consumer can get an up close and personal view on the lives of producers, from animal production to grains. They will get to read about our farms, our stories, and our families, and I invite you to check it out and tell everyone, please.

To help educate the public, we post signs in our fields that border the divided highway and identifies what crop is being grown.

Farmer Joe putting the sign into the field

Now for what is going on the Anderson Farm... well from now until harvest, Farmers Joe and Jay along with our hired man, Cody will be busy keeping the crops weed and bug free. With all the moisture that this area has received, we have had to give the wheat plants an extra dose of medicine to protect them from a disease called rust. We also routinely check the crops for bugs as they can do a heck of a lot of damage to the plant and decrease the yields. That is why I say we treat our crops like our kids; we oversee their well being and do what is necessary to keep them healthy and strong. Lots of ongoing care and maintenance and about the only thing we don't do for the crops that we do for our kids is read them a bedtime story..... but this farm-wife will sit on her deck in the evening with a glass of wine and contently watch the crops & tell them to grow strong and big. =)

As always, thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoy this blog and please check out my other site too as there are so many more amazing farm blogs. If you have ideas, questions, comments, please email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com. All my best, Gayle

Care & Maintenance of our Paycheck

2011-06-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

Wheat maintenance? In past blogs, I’ve told you that Farmers Joe & Jay care for their crops like their own kids. It is a continual maintenance as once the crops go into the ground, no matter what is planted - weeds will sprout up. And let's face it, America doesn't like weeds in their cereal, they expect quality products.... We don't like weeds in our "Wheaties" either, plus we want the best end product because that is our paycheck out there – so you can be darn sure we are going to take good care of it. While we can do everything we can to ensure a good crop, there are two wild cards that can create havoc with our crops and they are the weather and the market.

Pictured here is Farmer Joe checking the Spring wheat crop for signs of weeds.

Weeds don't go on vacation, so this is an ongoing task

This is a picture of wheat at our Tammany Farm

Notice the straw residue? It helps keep weeds down & keeps
moisture in the soil to help the plant

Here is a weed, so now we will spray for them. It's a lot like
gardening only on a much larger scale

AS always, hope you enjoy the blog, email if you have questions at idahofarmwife@gmail.com and come back soon as there is always lots going on during our growing season. Remember to take a peek at the other pages too. Thanks for stopping by. All my best, Gayle

Spraying Winter Wheat

2011-05-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

This spring has been an exercise in both patience and hope. Our farm is one of the fortunate ones wherein, we have gotten in about 95% of our spring crops planted. As of a few days ago, many farms to the North of us had not been able to get their crops in the ground due to the fields being too wet. At the bottom of this blog is a picture of standing water in one of our fields to show what I mean. This has not been a typical year for us with so much rain and it came every few days with very little drying time in between.

A video of spraying the wheat

Also another view of spraying from the back of the tractor cab. As of today (Monday 5/23/11) Farmer Joe will be back in the seat of the tractor cab spraying pre-emerigent on the newly seeded garbanzo beans as once they are out of the ground, we can't spray anything more on them, so we know the weeds are coming and will try to get them under control.

A view from the window of tractor cab

Standing water in the field

The field above with the standing water was slated for the last 160 acres of garbanzo beans to be seeded, but the field was too wet to do so. So we will not plant anything on it this spring and when that happens, the farming term is called "fallowing", which is simply no crop in the ground for this growing season, the only thing we will do to it is spray it for weeds to keep it weed free and then and most likely seed it back into winter wheat this fall. The crop rotation on our farm is 1/3 winter wheat, 1/3 spring wheat and 1/3 garbanzo beans.

Wet spots in the field leave tracks

With all the rain we have had, the fields will have wet spots in them and above is a rut from the tractor as shown above.

We are thankful for what we did get in the ground and this is all part of the farming game, we play the best hand we can with the cards we are given at the time.

As always, email me if you have any questions at idahofarmwife@gmail.com. As a side note, it was interesting to get an email and request for pictures from a farmer/agronomist in Australia, as he wanted to use some of my pictures for a presentation he was giving. Amazing to think of the world wide reach we now have access to via the Internet. =)

Speaking of weeds, the home place has sprouted lots, so I am off to spend quality time with my backpack sprayer too! As always, hope you enjoy the blog and come back often. Remember to check out the rest of the pages on the blog for family life on the farm and the recipe section. Best Regards, Gayle

My Little Red Tractor

2011-05-16T22:01:00.000-07:00

What does a farmer do when it rains? Well, the good guy that I married over 26 years ago finally gave in and brought over my belated Mother's Day gift, as pictured below. I have loved this tractor ever since I saw it in one of the sheds a few years ago and have begged him to please bring it home. It will grace our yard as my newest yard art.

My Mother's Day present

Joe prides himself in finding me unusual gifts and this was one of the best ones, except for my work bench that he got me one Christmas. So I'm thinking it is really good to be me!

Spring Seeding - A View From The Seat of a Tractor

2011-05-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

Garbanzo & wheat planting down at the Tammany Farm last week- Come take a peek at what the farmers are up to. Below is a video clip narrated by Farmer Joe from the inside of his tractor cab. Long hours are spent inside the tractor during spring and fall work.

Seeding garbanzo beans into a "no till" field

Being "no till" farmers we will seed directly into last year's wheat stubble, as shown in the picture above.

A view of the garb seed being planted into the ground

++++++++++++++++++++++++
Wheat Seeding Views

The ammonia truck is filling the tanks on the tractor while the nurse truck
as seen in the back of the picture is filling the air cart with wheat seed & fertilizer

The nurse truck has two compartments in the truck which holds both wheat seed and dry fertilizer.

Farmer Jay overseeing the filling of the air cart with seed

A view as wheat seed is being filled into the air cart

The view is of the dry fertilizer that was also filled into the air cart

Even though we were not completely done seeding down at the Tammany Farm, (the ground was still too wet in some areas of the field) the decision was made to move the 37 miles up to the Genesee Farm to begin seeding wheat and garbs

Getting ready to move to Genesee

This is what moving equipment from one area to another looks like when we have to move it via the highway and it isn't too bad if it is a 4 lane road. But often times it is a 2 lane road so if you are reading this, remember farm equipment is not built for speed, and to please be patient when you encounter a farm vehicle on the road. :)

As always, hope you enjoyed the blog. Also remember to take a peek at the rest of the pages on the blog. Please email me if you have questions at idahofarmwife@gmail.com. Also remember to check out http://www.farmnerinc.net/ for other farm blogs and good Ag info. =)

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, whether we live on the farm or urban areas, we all have so much to give and contribute in our own unique ways.