All around me. In all four cardinal directions – but nothing to do with the sins – the wheat is sprouting. Struck. Rising up! Wheat is a hardy grass. Some varieties are sown just before the cold really hits yet are strong enough to weather the horrible winter and return in the spring. No wonder it is good to eat!
I know now that there are many different varieties. But in our fields we have Warthog wheat sown on one side and Frederick wheat on the other. Frederick is a soft white winter wheat and Warthog is a hard red winter wheat. 
Warthog is milled into our All Purpose flour and Frederick is for cakes and muffins and pancakes and things like that.
Both are sown in the Autumn. Then around February the red clover is sown in with the dormant wheat and in the spring they sprout again together. The wheat already established; it leaps forward leaving the red clover to grow low as a cover crop, to retard the weeds. Once the wheat is out the cows are allowed to graze the clover cover crop for a while, before it is turned in, as a green compost and the next crop is sown.
That is in a perfect organic world anyway!
Stage One is underway! 
Though neither of these wheats will produce a high protein bread flour, ( above is half mackinaw and half calumet – 100% whole kernel – my new favourite)! The Little Red Hen ( who is me!), is happy!
I can’t believe that I have eaten bread all my life (and I come from New Zealand, bread really is a staple in our diets in New Zealand) – but I never ever asked myself what the wheat was that is in our bread. I just thought wheat was wheat!
Now, as you know, you and I are off again to New Zealand in January. I have been looking hard for a small stone ground mill in New Zealand, small like ours here in Illinois, to talk to and tour and maybe spend a few days volunteering in, while I am home and look what my family found for me. In New Zealand. 
Stone ground in this new windmill. (2 kg is about 4 pound). 
Just 90 minutes from Wellington. I am going to rent a little rinky-dink rent-a- dent ( that’s what my family calls a rental car) and drive over to Foxton to visit with these millers. I am going to email them today and see what they are about.
This is the first little stone ground mill I have found in New Zealand. I wonder if their stones are as new as the windmill- this is all very exciting. Kind of new – about fifteen years old I think. I hope it is not too touristy. More to come!
I hope your day goes well.
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
27 responses to “RISING UP”
The Foxton mill is fascinating. We ended up going there unplanned one time, otherwise I don’t know if we would have stopped. We had planned to go to Wellington for the day but there was an accident on the main highway and traffic was banked up for miles… so we pulled off in Foxton instead, to see what we could see. And we found the mill. Unfortunately they weren’t grinding when we were there, but still very interesting to see how it’s done! And nice to know that some things are still done the old way, which I think is better for us. I just had a look at their website and it seems they do online sales, I will have to check it out. I hadn’t thought of them again since we went!
Should also mention Farmers Mill in Timaru? If you are going to the South Island you might like to check them out. They grow and mill their own grains, including specialty grains. There is no mention of organic, but you might be interested in checking them out?
Yes! Great idea. If I get anywhere close i will check them out. Too!
When I was a teenager, we moved to the midwest, away from the amazing east coast Bagels. (we lived in CT) I couldn’t understand why the bagels tasted different. Then the local bagel shop explained it to me. Different wheat. Wheat, at least 25 years ago when this was explained to me, was still relatively local for commercial use. East coast growers were using a different variety than Ohio growers. Huh. Who knew it TASTED so different?
That’s when I started to realize food is so much more complex and interesting than most of us think.
Wow!! That’s so very interesting! I always just thought wheat was wheat too (I was thinking it as reading, and then you said the exact words haha!) Thanks for sharing.
That windmill is gorgeous! Wonder if we have any small stone ground mills here in Oz … 🤔🤔 Have a wonderful day 💖
Poor bread. When did this staff of life become so vilified? I can think of nothing better than a lovely loaf made with excellent wheat. Just add some proper butter no rubbish.
More butter – More better.
That’s a very faithful replica of a traditional Dutch windmill. I should know, I’ve been trailed around enough of them as a child visiting rellies in Holland. They’ve obviously done a bit of re-engineering, as windmills in Holland were *mostly* to pump water and keep the reclaimed fields below sea-level dry. There are still a good few working windmills in the UK; we used to buy our stoneground flour from Wilton Windmill, only about 15 miles away. What the photos don’t give you is the incredible aroma inside a mill, and the amazing sifted light inside from the inevitable fine haze of flour in the air. (I hope you were wearing ear protection when you took that little IG video, the noise was sensational!)
I don’t wear ear protection – in fact the sounds of the mill tell us a lot about what is going on. It is not too too loud. Plus it has a vacuum system so we don’t have flour in the air. Which is good