tilling the soil

Alright, so I said I would try to post some farming pictures. So I will. I know that this is way out of season, but I wanted to share a little more about our farm!
We grew 2 acres of Spelt last year. Nope in fall of '09. September 15th is the cut off date to plant wheat here in Maine. You can plant it later, but September is better. Then we harvested it in August 2010! Due to lots of reasons we did not plant any last fall.  Matthew was really bummed about that too, he loves to grow wheat and I feel bad we just were not able to get it done. Now why Spelt and what is it? If you don't know it's gluten free wheat. For people with Celiac Disease, and we had a customer that would buy it all, provided it was up to his standards, and fit for human consumption. That is why we went with the Spelt. I guess there is a short window for great wheat and bad wheat. Bare with me I'm still trying to wrap my head around growing wheat.  Weather has a lot to do with it too. It had to be certified organic as well. So we went ahead and got the land owners to let us get the land certified. Then we tilled the soil! That was a learning experiecne!  (Just a little bunny trail here, so hang on). When we bought the tractor we bought a plow and a harrow. Well the man that sold us the tractor didn't know what he was talking about when he sold us the plow and harrow, and we didn't realize that they would be too small! The ones we bought were made for a compact tractor, not a full sized tractor! Nothing fit our tractor right and we broke the plow. Well Matthew called another dealer, the sister dealer to the one we bought it from, and we ended up trading the disc harrow that we had never used, in for a larger one and we put the plow up for sale, which we finally sold and have yet to buy another plow. A neighboring farmer came over and plowed our field for us, because if he didn't we would have missed the cut off, and we were leaving for Ohio! Lots of stress right before our vacation!! But by the grace of God we got it planted and got off to Ohio for a wonderful vacation! Just the two of us! The kiddos were with the grandparents! A great time all around! We are hoping we can plant wheat this year, not sure if we'll do a spring or winter wheat thought, but we have a little while longer before we decide...

Matthew plowing up the land 

Matthew planting the Spelt! He had a good time doing that too!!