Impending rain

We got news on Friday that an inch of rain will fall on Monday.  Accordingly, Doug's customers called him in a panic, asking him to harvest their grains before Monday.  Doug spent 11+ hours on a combine on Saturday.  He didn't come home because the job was in Sonoma County.  He stayed overnight to begin work at 6AM the next day.  Once that job was done, he went to harvest at another farm, but found that the heads weren't easily threshed, which means that the wheat berries didn't fall out of the heads as they do when they're ripe and ready.  The third farm also had unready grains, so Doug came back to Mendocino to save his hay bales.

Hay hooks

I went with Doug to a field in Boonville where Doug created 300+ hay bales.  We needed to gather them under a tarp so that the rains wouldn't activate mold spores.  To our pleasant surprise, several people volunteered to help carry hay bales.  I used hay hooks for the first time, which are incredibly helpful for dragging hay bales.  I wasn't any good at lifting and tossing the bales, but my forearms were gladly stretching to move bales.

The whole exercise in full sun left me sore and tired, but fulfilled.  It was nice to work my body and know my strength.  After I finished the milling requests, I mostly work on website development and don't physically exert myself much.  I feel useless in harvest time because I can't drive a combine, run the seed cleaner, or operate the gravity table.  My sense of uselessness borders on guilt as I watch Doug tire himself from non-stop work.  I understand that I can't hold it against myself that I haven't learned how to use these machines, and that this time acts as a reminder of what I'd like to learn.

Stepping away from personal concerns and back to the harvest, I want to explain why this oncoming rain causes stress and anxiety among grain growers.  If there is a heavy rain, the water will accumulate in the heads of grain and cause them to tip over.  When grains bend over, or 'lodge', they are difficult to harvest, particularly in the case of fields that weren't treated with herbicides.  In our case, radish weeds and morning glory dominate the understory of our grains.  We can avoid mixing those seeds and greens with our grains if we cut the grains above the height of the weeds.  If the grains lodge, then they will become nearly inseparable from the weeds and our crop will be ruined.

For the first time in my California residency, I'm hoping rain won't come.