Author: Nuttygrass

I'm a nut and grass farmer, EMT, Firefighter, and world traveler. I love a good laugh and a great adventure!

In Between the Last Crop & the Next

Fall is always busy, we are at the beginning of what looks a lot like triage everyday of what needs to be done. We have one more crop to harvest, filberts, and then we will be done with the 2023 crop and be able to fully focus on the 2024 crop. Planting, cultivating, spraying, fertilizing, working ground, etc.

Which means that while we aren’t harvesting at this very moment we have time (especially with 2023 seed harvest being so early) to go out and get some projects done. Mine earlier in the week (after dropping ALL THREE of my kids off at school! Woo hoo!!!) was spot spraying thistle patches that had come up in ground that we had already worked a few weeks ago.

These patches are easy to see this way without any other crop growing currently. They also allow us to spot treat instead of spraying the whole field to get control of these nasty weeds. Our plan for this field specifically is to plant tall fescue this spring. This will allow for a lot of weeds to sprout between now and then giving us a great opportunity to clean this soil up of weeds before planting.

Because we grow so many seed crops on our farm, keeping weeds controlled is of very large importance to what we do. This may seem like a small insignificant job, but in the long run, it’s important to stay on top of weeds at each opportunity.

I mentioned before that I dropped off our three of our kids at school for the first time ever, don’t worry about me being lonely though, I have another sidekick that was right with me the whole time.

The start, the middle, or the end of harvest?

Harvest has been happening for awhile around here. It snuck right up on us after a long winter and the idea of you were following plant stage and growing degree days that we would start harvest late. I stupidly started making early July plans that seems so attainable with a mid July start. However I quickly started canceling things when we looked out the window one day and Matt said, “maybe we should look at the clover, it looks really brown!” And after a quick look at the field later that day, “Hey it’s Brenda, so that camping trip I said maybe we could do…..how does your November look for timing?”

We have finished up clover harvest. And my gosh what a surprise, after so much drama with that darn stuff it actually produced a very nice sized seed crop.

Grass seed harvest started near the end of June with swathing or cutting the grass.

Combining or separating the seed from the straw started quickly after our good old St. Paul rodeo on the 6th of July. We have about 4 or 5 more days until we finish up that crop.

Hoot also found out that he’s heavy enough to weigh down the seat of the John Deere by himself and got some good driving time in.

Our green beans are just about ready to be harvested, probably next week sometime.

And finally the filbert crop is looking great. The price not so much, but that’s probably a whole other blog post that we don’t have time for today.

So all in all we are at the just the start with some crops, right in the middle of others and at the very end of a long harvest season. Meanwhile we are of course taking soil samples, mowing old crop stubble and starting to work ground for fall planting.

Hoot is also our field chauffeur after learning to drive the four wheeler.

Life in the fields has become the norm around here for the past month and a half. Some of us are ready for a little less dust in our dinner, but I also know we will look forward to it all again next year.

Booker the Farm Dog; Plus one Year, Minus one Leg

Happy 1st birthday to our most favorite farm dog Booker!!!! This guy became a part of our family in the fall of last year. He’s learned a lot, riding in the Ute with dad is his favorite activity second only to playing in the water and playing ball with the kids.

As we celebrate his birthday today we are very grateful that he actually made it to his first birthday. Unfortunately last week Booker had a run in with a vehicle. He’s doing pretty good now, but we had to make the tough decision to amputate his front left leg.

While we thought we gave him a lot of love before, the care he’s getting from these kiddos is definitely next level. If you ask me how the kids are taking it, it’s all very different. Hoot is pretty sad still, there’s a lot of adjustment and fear but he is getting through and adjusting to Booker’s new dog life more each day. Auggie woke up the first day and told me he was….”thinking about it, and I’m so excited to have a three legged dog. I’ve only ever seen them on TV!” And Millie is doing well, but only after a very long explanation about how unfortunately “no sweetie, his leg will not grow back”. After accepting that she has quickly taken to over-mothering and while the car didn’t kill him Millie’s constant taking care of him just might!

We have heard from many folks about their own three legged dog stories and what a great wonderful life they can still have. My favorite words so far were from our vet, “that’s why God gave them four legs!”

Booker is doing a lot of resting most days right now but slowly getting back into walking, and trying to run to keep up with the kids. It’s an adjustment but we know it will be a short lived one as each day he get stronger and shows us he’s still our best farm dog!