Farm – Page 139 – Dan Routh Photography

Combining Wheat

The bearded wheat I showed on this blog a few days ago ripened and I found Earl York, Jr. and his son Rodney hard at work combining it. The Yorks run a fertilizer and seed business as well as producing corn, soybeans and small grains. This year they have several hundred acres in wheat, and so far the harvest looks pretty good. Thank goodness for air conditioned combines, because when I stopped by where they were working, the mercury was near 100 degrees. Although, with all farm equipment, you have to get out of the cab and work on things once in a while.

Baling Hay

Agriculture, Farm

They say you have to make hay when the sun shines. Here in Grays Chapel, North Carolina, it hasn’t shone much in the past couple of weeks. It did today, and my neighbor Mark Sexton was in the field hard at work.

Plow Day in Black and White

Farm, Horses

Black and white from Caldwell County, North Carolina.

Saturday Afternoon

Farm, Garden

My son Tristan’s potatoes bloom in our garden in Grays Chapel, North Carolina.

B&W Plow

Farm

B&W still life of an old International plow.

Plowing with Teams

Farm, Horses

Scenes from the annual Plow Day in Caldwell County, North Carolina. Folks bring their teams of horses, mules, and draft ponies to plow bottom ground along the Yadkin River.

Goat Lady CSA

Agriculture, Farm, Garden

Goat Lady Dairy in Grays Chapel, North Carolina started a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) garden in 2010 and it was a great success. They are beginning to get ready for the 2011 season, but in the meantime Daniel Woodham (farm manager) has been harvesting winter carry over vegetables which the dairy sells at the local farmer’s market. He is assisted regularly by Chram Rode and his wife Broih Fnu, a Montagnard couple originally from Viet Nam who are training to help run the day to day gardening operations.

You’re Kidding

Animals, Farm, Goat

For my friends at Goat Lady Dairy here in Grays Chapel, North Carolina, March is a very busy month. The goat moms are starting to have their kids, and because they were all bred at about the same time, they are all delivering at about the same time. Lee Tate of Goat Lady handles most of the kidding supervision, so that means she is going to have to watch about 27 does deliver around 50 or more kids in the next month at any time day or night, and then take over the young goats’ feeding. Fortunately she does have some volunteer help such as Alice Jenkins, who was at the dairy today helping with the feeding chores.

Alice feeds the new kids born today.

Sheep Barn

Animals, Farm, Sheep

Barn images from Rising Meadow Farm in Grays Chapel, North Carolina.

Livestock

Animals, Farm

Most of the farms on Grays Chapel, North Carolina raise what you would consider traditional livestock, but some of my neighbors keep some more exotic animals. For those of you who followed my buffalo post last fall, below is the fellow we wrangled, content in his home pasture.