“Fickle weather! Most of the rain passed us by this week, falling just to our north and south. We did get about half an inch – more of a sip than the deep cool drink the plants are craving.

We expect slow growth, late or limited second cut hay, and limited pasture this summer, but all of that is better than the fast death by drowning, or slow death by moldering that so many of the plants suffered last year. Forecast says there is a chance for more rain early next week, so we’ll keep our fingers crossed that we see some of it.

Adam Perry and Mark Risley came over yesterday to harvest the rye. It is a mighty thing for farmers used to a horse’s pace to watch the combine move through the field, taking huge swaths of brown stalks and their bowed heads of ripe grain in each pass.

The grain – 7 tons of it – came in a touch too wet at 15% moisture, so we will spend the next couple weeks stirring it and blowing it to get it down to 13%.

We will also bale the straw that the combine left behind – a commodity nearly as valuable, in our straw-poor area, as the grain itself…” (Continue reading about Kristin Kimball’s Essex Farm)

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