sheaves

we had perhaps a tenth of an inch of rain about four this morning...

this afternoon is dry and seasonably hot however...

and while there is still green to be seen in the rye...

the wheat is done...and since i was home and my bees did not arrive today and since my work schedule is chaos i decided to bring it in...

so i sharpened my japanese sickle and went to work...in about twenty minutes...

i had two good sized sheaves of hard red winter wheat...a 2018/2019 success ro offset a 2017/2018 failure...

when the crop failed in spring 2018 i planted spuds in the bed and as i harvested i four volunteers...looking for tubers later in the summer...

after i finished with the wheat...the sheaves are in the basement right now and the next job is removing the ears from the stems and then the joy of threshing ( i know why they used to let the oxen walk on it in the threshing room ) and then winnowing and then milling the grain...utilizing grain is a lot of work...factors that drove neolithic peoples to agriculture must have been seriously grim...i wandered over to have a look at the strawberry bed...the berry plants are very verdant and they have not been at rest since the end of berry season...they have been laying stolons ( and so daughter plants ) like cables all along the bed...there will be berries in 2020....i left some wheat behind for the birds and when the spuds are done i will be clearing the bed to replant wheat in september...the cycle goes on...for now at least.