Wednesday, June 13, 2007

WINNOWING the first Wheat Crop

Cleaning the combine-- I just missed an excellent shot of just his legs sticking out of the hopper. One must keep a clean machine and blow out all of the material between grain harvests--natch!
In go the grains/out goes the chaff...

We have tarps down to catch the blown-off material for the chickens; those lucky chickens.

View from inside as the grains come down the tube to the bin.

Does keep those pesky coyotes down...
More live wheat action. Mmmmm--lotsa good food for the year. We ground and ate some in crepes immediately after processing, and boy were they delicious.
This year's wheat harvest is mixed with a lot of volunteer barley from last season....pretty much contaminating the load--but it still tastes fine.
A panel from "Diggy The Derrick", whose story will soon be up in full online at http://mindwrecker.blogspot.com/


The fish lady, an old painting of mine; here for no particular reason.
Same for Heino-buddy here.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Chicken Delight

As promised- a short post to show some very new chick photos from last night.
But first- a neighbor of ours-

A delightful pic stolen from NICK CAIN (below)....it's here because of the chart that some of us were looking at this morning showing various world powers and their relative "bank accounts", which had USA at the bottom of the chart, with the biggest deficit of all.
And 3,500 solidiers dead in Iraq so far and counting...

Ephemera: handbill from a 1919 Missouri livestock company.
Anyone else notice how this country's press isn't paying much attention to "super-cyclonic storm" GONU ? Hmmmm. And it's heading right for the world's most busy oil supply port. And it's taking that area to the cleaners, since they're not built for it.
Bad chicky- No! Don't peck our house!


"The first dream that one has in a new house, or when sleeping under a new quilt, will nearly always come true--many mountain girls are anxious to "dream out" a new quilt or coverlet. The same may be said of a dream related before breakfast, or of one dreamed on Friday and told on Saturday:
Friday night's dream, on Saturday told,
Will always come true, no matter how old.
......
Some people are accustomed to place a knife under the dreamer's pillow, to prevent nightmares. I once noticed a small girl, not more than ten years old, sleeping with the handle of an enormous homemade bowie knife sticking out from under her pillow. "Maizie used to wake up a-hollerin'," the mother told me, "but since I put that knife under the piller, we ain't had no more trouble."
Vance Randolph, Ozark Magic and Folklore

Freshwater fish
More ground-level portraits of the birdies.


I think this is the rarest one we have--it looks like that fella with the extra toes and the turkey-shaped head.
Mom pouring out some chicken salad.
"... There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this, substance is first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists actually. (The one and the simple are not the same; for "one" means a measure, but "simple" means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) But the beautiful, also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the same column; and the first in any class is always best, or analogous to the best."
Aristotle, The First Cause

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

BIRD PARTY (flood irrigation brings on a)

Yes all of the local birds came out the last couple of days for the feasting when the fields fill up. Even our local female turkey got into the act, but was annoyed by an amorous pheasant. ....Hard to get close and get nice pics without a longer lens--which I have on my 35mm--but that's a bit slow for here...Nice to see some birds about that haven't visited in a few weeks....We've all been setting lots of siphons lately.
The sunchokes are doing nicely.


Well, now - there's another use for those old pitchforks we have in that barrel in the yard....
New patio/porch under way...

Some nice recipes to clip out for your index card recipe file book. Or scrapbook. You all have one of those, right? Anyhoo - I often pull a few extra images at almost random from my library and the Hillbilly Recipes book called out to me today:
A bit of the old hunt and peck.
Those bad chickens! I want to shoot some more pics this week to show how enormous they are getting...some are nearly 5 foot now and show no signs of slowing down. It's totally like Food Of The Gods.
Steam generators are as hip as ever. they make new ones in Missouri. These could've helped out during Katrina a heck of a lot. This is quite the setup that this lady has! Banging out some big loads of laundry.

Again on the topic of random things popping up in books, the above image grabbed me yesterday and the caption also was interesting. Here it is from the 1934 issue, cover by John Howitt:------------
"Over the whole continent, little children clung whimpering to the skirts of distraught mothers, crying piteously for food. One of the most brilliant men in America, a national figure--backed by a powerful, efficient organization--drunk on ambition and the promise of supreme power, controlled all the reserve supplies of the land. Hosts of voracious insects, bred at his command, were laying the plains waste, devouring all green things. Incendiarism and lootings daily depleted the shrinking store of government-owned foodstuffs. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse laughed in their saddles as they thundered their mocking call of doom--forewarning the slavery of a proud race of men. One man alone--Jimmy Christopher--can check their wild onslaught. Only he, Operator 5, can outwit the madman monarch!"


Just like our place...
The combine all lubed-up, hooked-up, and ready to go get those grains.