PUDDLE WATER IS BETTER
It is raining again.
Whereas parts of this country are having to adapt to drier drought like kinds of weather, and yet others have seas taking their roads and front porches, we seem to be getting wetter. The climate changes are moving fast – we need to be wide awake to keep up.
If they were able to change parts of the Midwest out of commercial inedible corn and beans dependent on inclement political overseas markets, and into actual food crops suited to short wet summers, we could feed a lot of America. Help take the load off California and it’s water problems.
They have bred a wheat that is suited to the Midwest and its damp short growing period. Specifically for the organic market. The University of Illinois has multiple trials going with wheat. We are growing one of the new wheats this year – Erisman.
Being on both sides of the wheat industry with the farm and The Mill and also on the sidelines of the development of new wheats to suit the changing climate makes me feel very fulfilled.
Until our wheat is ready we bought in some and milled it last week. Erisman is lower in protein and makes a really nice pastry flour. I will have it in small bags, this week.
We also have a couple of ancient wheats coming online soon – red fife, emmer, and another one with a name I have forgotten- oh – einkorn. But these are being grown in areas best suited to their growing characteristics on sister farms.
I look forward to bringing some of this knowledge home to New Zealand. My internet search tells me we have a dirth of whole kernel flour mills being such a small mountainous country. I will be in the South Island in January so I am going to get into the McKenzie Country and see what I can find.
Harlequin Pig.
His reflection in the water is so poignant.
Ok! So today I am going to pick the melons in the number two pig garden then shift the fence and let Poppy’s Six into their new food field. I hope the melons are ready as they have run out of time.
The meat chickens are living under a big tarpaulin, the big pigs are taking advantage of all the rain and digging over their field. We are collecting around ten duck eggs a day – at least three or four a day are small, from the new flock. So I am hoping that number continues to grow. Lots of new chicken eggs- we get three and a half dozen a day plus plenty of little pullets eggs from them too. I popped the rainbow chickens in with the big group last night so they can learn where to lay their eggs. And be safe. They are such dears.
The chickens and ducks really are good little money earners being a weekly hundred dollars in the summer and the ducks eat so little grain in this weather, they are particularly efficient.
Time for me to get farming. I work five and a half days a week. I just remembered that my Dad always worked five and a half days. Hmm.
I like the Mill Room when it is Mill Room when it is nice and quiet.
Oh – almost forgot. The Big Boss has acquired a Steel Cut Oats Machine! Just as soon as we build a food safe room for it we will begin our foray into Oats. Oats grow really well around here.
Stand by for steel cut oats in small bags.
I really must get a Mill Newsletter out soon. Everything moves so fast! Are you on that list?
OK. Pig time. I need to shift those electric fences.
Talk soon
Celi
45 Comments on “PUDDLE WATER IS BETTER”
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thekitchensgarden 
Are they watermelons, or the other kind? If watermelons and they aren’t quite ready, you could make watermelon rind pickles, which are delish with good bread and a nice strong cheese.
They are not watermelons but some other kind. Who knows what other kind – maybe a cantaloupe
Lovely Musk Melon(Canteloupe: )
That’s the one
Well, with luck, they’ll be ripe.
i hope those volunteer melons are wonderful! There is something about volunteer anything in a plant that makes it more beautiful to me. I guess I like to see that these carefully cultivated varieties we have made still have the ability to go feral.
Yes! You are right! That is it exactly – thank you for finding the right words!
Those two pigs look like thy could become best friends.
Rain here too and annoyingly unpredictable.
Same here!
It seems like we get a deluge of rain – pelting down and yet the sky had been blue moments before.
Today is the Southern hemisphere spring equinox, and already our temps are over 30C and no rain. I am so envious of those rain puddles. Climate change here is turning is into a dessert. I am seriously considering covering my lawn area with gravel substitute. Laura
Well you would not want to waste water on it. Maybe there are local
Wild grasses that like it dry?
I imagine Baker Pete will be excited to see you’re going to be growing Red Fife (which was developed a very short distance away from here: )
“Lang Pioneer Village (near Keene, Ontario) celebrates Red Fife Wheat and David & Jane Fife’s story”
Apparently Red Fife is also a landrace particularly adaptable to different sites: )
Though it does get diseases in the damp humid climates. We are happy to buy it in where it grows healthily.
Yes. He does bake with it!
This post has made me so happy. Love the brisk, efficient, non-nonsense-ness of it.
I find all the different grains that the Mill produces interesting. I’m learning lots! Thank you and happy wet farming.
Yes! I love that we get to learn what each wheat does. Much better than – bread flour or all purpose.
I’m not enjoying the bread we get in plastic wrap in grocery stores. It’s just a bread facsimile. Now I’m just getting bread with a good structure and taste. Much more appealing.
I cannot eat that sweet store bought bread. It is quite awful – in fact it makes me feel sick too.
D > Of course. All animals seem to prefer puddles !
Let’s hear it for home grown bread! Hip hip hooray!
The teeth on that pig are a sight to behold! 🤣🤣🤣 On another subject, we got two chickens to keep the pig company, however- and although they have a coop- she’s managed to get them to sleep with her, so she gets the eggs. Help!
That is really funny!! Sheila used to do that too!!
you haven’t mentioned about the duck eggs yet. have they hatched or is she still waiting?
Oh I am sorry. As they went rotten she pushed them out of the nest and in the end there were no eggs left in the nest so she heaved herself off and rejoined her flock. It was rather odd really but there you are.
You are having so much rain and we are having none. After a while we begin to think it will never rain again. There is a little rain in the forecast for tomorrow and it is the talk of the town! We shall see…
Australia will have a hard time of it. It has areas that are so dry anyway.
We’re all having to adapt in different ways at different times to climate change, and going back to heirloom and targetted growing of crop varieties suited to microclimates makes much better sense than monoculture.
Hear. Hear.
We have gotten a couple of inches of rain today and it just started in again. Hopefully it’s bringing in more fall like weather, the last week had been positively tropical! I have a recipe for dutch oven emmer bread with a poolish. It’s really tasty if a bit putzy to make.
The poolish is something I have not worked with yet. I might get that recipe off you if we get some emmer.
Glad the Mill Room is providing knowledge for you and information for us whilst giving you a leg ‘up financially ! We also are learning Am glad your summer foray to come may have auxiliary purposes . . . .interesting . . Rain = a painful situation here with two days of showers in seven months where I live . . . so many farmers walking off properties, so many committing suicides which could have been prevented . . ..
Sad – it must be so awful to be driven to suicide.
Celi – quite seriously SO many have been and are . . . so, ad hoc, tho’ I am such a proud Australian, the fact that your daily news at the moment sees our current PM standing alongside his new ‘best friend’ in Ohio and elsewhere rather than take part of UN Climate Congress is absolutely pitiful – try to see what Sir David Attenborough, still SO able at 93, has to say about us this our morning . . . . so devastatingly true . . . . . .
Oh dear. Yes, I don’t read news – so I had no idea Australia was not attending to the climate crisis. This is sad news indeed.
I am naif on the matter; don’t animals get sick/parasites etc. for drinking nasty mud water?
With all the rain we are having it is refreshed regularly. As to parasites they get those from the soil. Some bad ones too. I don’t think the puddles are any worse.
I’m in for steal cut oats!
Looks like we need to brush some teeth in addition to the hoof-dicures! Pink polish next time?
He would sit for polish I think
Dogs always choose puddle over bowl – wonder if it’s quiet knowledge of better with natural minerals and rain ingredients or a snub of “processed” containers/man made bowls with who knows what is leaking/flaking into the water? Dogs know a lot.
Anyway, love the wheats; ancient and the total other end of new wheats. It is encouraging. (Really don’t like /approve of food sources being used for fuel when so many are hungry, A bit of shift in thinking is needed as you say)
A while ago I heard that one in six rows of GM corn is used to create fuel. The wheats are exciting!
Waving hand for steel cut oats!!!! YUMMY!
This (“actual food crops suited to short wet summers. . could feed a lot of America”) is an eye-opener.for me– city guy, born and bred but often wishing not.. Maybe I could start with baking bread. I need to get on that list, but wondering: does the newsletter provide encouragement for beginners inspired by your farm-and-home life.