Amber Waves of Grain

There's something heroic about a combine marching across a grain field. We've all seen the image of a pack of these behemoths, staggered across an expansive mid-western wheat field, harvesting the bounty of America and doing their part of feed this great nation! That is only faintly related to the quaint little fields in our rolling valley, that require this barn sized piece of equipment to make three point turns and skirt around the occasional rock outcropping. None the less, it makes me feel a little patriotic.


For your July 4th viewing pleasure: The Barley Harvest.

This is barley. In the grain family, and harvested in a similar manner to wheat.

This is a combine. Shown with my four year old, who is looking as nonchalant as a little boy faced with the prospect of a ride on such an enormous machine, possibly can.

This is the combine harvesting the barley. The roller pulls the whole plant into the front of the machine, the grain is separated from the shaft and stored somewhere in the middle.

The shaft comes out the back, and will be baled into straw later (See Video).

This is the straw. Cows do not eat straw, I imagine it has next to no nutritional value. Straw is used for animal bedding. Not to be confused with hay, which cows do eat.

When the combine storage compartment is full it swings its boom out over a truck and empties out the grain (See Video). The truck whisks the grain off to a mill where it is stored until our animals are ready to eat it or it is sold.

We may not have amber waves stretching to the horizon, but you can't beat this view.