Lettuce, threshing and chickens

Observation: Yesterday I looked across a parking lot at a row of dogwood trees. They reminded me of bunches of giant red leaf lettuce, with frilly leaves that are green at the base and red at the tips.

We visited Howell Farm over this past weekend. It was Fall Festival weekend and it certainly felt like fall, with temps in the 60s. They harvest their wheat and spelt in July and store it until the first
weekend in October, when it is threshed. Threshing separates the grain from the straw and most of the husk that is around the individual wheat or spelt seeds. Spelt is an old-time grain, sort of a cousin to wheat. The farm grows spelt for animal feed and wheat for grinding into flour. There was also some plowing being finished up in the Hunter Rd. field, which will presumably be planted in either wheat or spelt in the coming weeks, after the field is harrowed to smooth it out. Farmer Ian did the plowing with Belgian team Chester and Jack. Sorry, I don't have a picture of them, but I DO have a picture of another team the farm used to have, Buster and Duke.
Actually, a farmer with this size farm (130 A.) in 1900 New Jersey probably wouldn't have owned a thresher. There would have been a crew that traveled the countryside, going from farm to farm. The neighbors would have brought their wagonloads of wheat, spelt, rye, barley, etc., to have them threshed, and they would all share the cost. Since crews like that haven't been around in quite some time, the farm owns a full-sized thresher that has to be run outdoors, and a barn thresher, a scaled-down version that could be used in an empty bay in the barn. Either type is powered by a long, flat belt from a tractor or engine. The farm recently bought a steam tractor to power the big thresher, which is more authentic than using a McCormick H. Some pictures of tractor and thresher next time.

We got some new pullets this evening. They're Partridge Rocks, the mottled brown color-variation of the Plymouth Rock. A friend is raising them, so we bought 6 from her. She was able to catch 5 tonight, with one more coming tomorrow. (Chickens are easiest to catch in the evening when they go in to roost. They don't see in the dark very well.) We already have Barred Rocks and a couple of White Rocks, plus some Buff Orpingtons and Ameraucanas, but have lost a few over the past two years. The young girls are about 4 1/2 to 5 months old, so they should be starting to lay very soon, if they haven't already.