The Rain is Here…already??

Well it’s nothing like the drought that was in Midwest this past year, more of just an Indian Summer you could say.  We had 83 days of absolutely no measurable precipitation here in the Willamette Valley!!  So in 83 days, we worked ground like crazy, waited for rain, we picked up filberts, waiting for rain, we harvested squash, wait some more for rain, we cleaned up equipment, twiddled our thumbs…still no rain!!  So then the day the much needed rain is coming, here is what ensues at Kirsch Family Farms, World Headquarters…

Friday morning, rain in the forecast for the first time in 83 days.  I head to the shop for our usual morning meeting to see what is in store for the day.  Dad is there along with our other two full time guys.  Coffee is brewing, things seem fairly normal, fairly low stress and then it starts…ok lets get some grass planted today before it rains.  Let’s get some spraying done before it rains.  Shoot then there’s that last bit of ground work to do before it rains (all in all it’s a day and half’s worth of work, but it’s not supposed to rain until noon, let’s get it done!)

We’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off, going all different directions, giving orders, getting orders, grabbing chemical, who is going where? What are you doing?  Why are you doing that?  I was going to do that!  Ahhh!!!  Finally amidst all the chaos I looked at dad and said, “Holy cow what have we been doing the past 83 days if 4 hours before it rains all the sudden we’re this busy?!”  he looked at me and responded with, “You know Brenda, I just don’t know”  And we both laughed.

The rain didn’t come that Friday at noon to give us only 4 hours of work, it hit right around 9am instead, an never let up.  Turns out that we needed rain about 3 weeks earlier, not 3 hours earlier.  As farmers we can get a bit particular about when we would like rain, how much we would like, and how long we would like for it fall.  That day we got a lot more rain than they thought we would, it was great for some, terrible for others, but that’s just farming I suppose.  Always reminds me of a saying I heard when I was a little kid, “If you’re going to pray for rain, you better be able to put up with a little mud.”  I think it should also add, “And you better be specific about when you would like said mud!” We are still trying to get all those things done that we started that Friday in the rain; so Indian Summer aside…rain has hit Oregon’s Willamette Valley…time to throw on the muck boots and settle in for fall!

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Squash Harvest 2012

I realized after posting our Filbert Harvest story through pictures, I skipped a crop. We also had our squash harvested a few weeks ago. If you’ve been following along with my blog, many Wednesdays have been pictures of these crazy orange pumpkins growing all season.  Well finally, they are ready for harvest!

The squash is a new crop for us that is a result of a company no longer contracting green beans.  It’s another challenge in any business, keeping an infrastructure healthy enough to continually support farms and agriculture.  I talked about this change awhile back in my blog about Adversity & Diversity. It’s actually harvested just for the seed, the seeds are roasted and then eaten. It’s always an interesting thing to add another crop to the farm. We are pretty diversified already, but we are relatively new to the row crop world. I’m still always amazed at these short seasons from planting to harvest. With perennial ryegrass, we plant in the fall, usually around this time of year, and then don’t harvest until July. This is the story that we’re used to, about a 10 month crop cycle. So then when you begin by throwing a seed in the ground and 60 days later you’re harvesting, it’s always amazing to me and great how fast time flies. So here are some pictures of our first squash seed harvest EVER at Kirsch Family Farms….Enjoy!!

A sea of Orange out in the field.

The squash are “windrowed” (put into rows), at the same time they are pulled from the vines.

The harvesters use conveyers to pick up the rolly polly squash, smash them separate all the seed from all the other ooey gooey stuff that is inside of pumpkins!

After the seeds are separated, they are put into a tank at the top of the harvester, pretty much a close idea to how a regular combine would work. Then they are augured into a truck to be hauled off to the roaster.

Then you’re left with a LOT of pumpkin, a lot of orange, and a lot of slop!

All in all, I think that we had a good crop of squash and even though it seemed like a few months ago we were going to be up a river without a paddle for some of our acres, I’m glad that this opportunity came about and we were able to learn something new and try something different with our ground.