Shades of Gold
Tonight on my way home from working at school I saw a colorful “painting”to my right, on the east side of Partridge road, just beyond the place where it crosses Morgan Avenue. With my vision only slightly blurred intentionally, I saw a swath of purple in the first field where the alfalfa was in full bloom. A few streams and puddles of bright yellow Plains Coreopsis punctuated the purple. Beyond it, another field of alfalfa, in a different stage of growth, shone a brilliant green. Then gleamed a pale gold field of ripe wheat, which registered in my field of vision as bright yellow. Beyond that was a red-gold burnished field of wheat.
This was the first time that I noticed such a marked distinction in the colors of two side-by-side fields of wheat. I suspect one was a descendant of the Turkey Red wheat brought to this area in the 1800s by Russian Mennonite immigrants. The other must have been white wheat, popular now among some bakers for its high quality flour and the absence of a certain sharp flavor present in red wheat.
A third color of wheat I’ve noticed recently can only be described as gray-gold. It’s found in low spots, where there has been water standing this spring and early summer. I don’t quite understand this mechanism. The heads and stalks have never been even close to being completely submerged, so the gray color is not from muddy water. It must have affected plant growth adversely, and simply registered as plants with a sick color.
A brief shower this morning literally put a damper on continuing with the harvest barely begun last Saturday and halted in our fields over Sunday. But by midday the sun was out and the wind was blowing–perfect harvest weather. Both of Lowell’s combines were hard at work when I passed the wheat field on this farm. Dad was driving the grain truck.
The mud holes need more drying time, so the cutting paths do considerable meandering. The fields are severely rectangular, but there's no use trying to be all neat about the harvesting process as long as there's ripe wheat to cut on drier ground. Dragging stuck combines out of mud holes is a singularly unglamorous job, and to be avoided if at all possible.
Tonight there is a 40% chance of rain. If heavy rain materializes, any shade of gold wheat will be fine, as long as it's already in the bin and not in the field.
This was the first time that I noticed such a marked distinction in the colors of two side-by-side fields of wheat. I suspect one was a descendant of the Turkey Red wheat brought to this area in the 1800s by Russian Mennonite immigrants. The other must have been white wheat, popular now among some bakers for its high quality flour and the absence of a certain sharp flavor present in red wheat.
A third color of wheat I’ve noticed recently can only be described as gray-gold. It’s found in low spots, where there has been water standing this spring and early summer. I don’t quite understand this mechanism. The heads and stalks have never been even close to being completely submerged, so the gray color is not from muddy water. It must have affected plant growth adversely, and simply registered as plants with a sick color.
A brief shower this morning literally put a damper on continuing with the harvest barely begun last Saturday and halted in our fields over Sunday. But by midday the sun was out and the wind was blowing–perfect harvest weather. Both of Lowell’s combines were hard at work when I passed the wheat field on this farm. Dad was driving the grain truck.
The mud holes need more drying time, so the cutting paths do considerable meandering. The fields are severely rectangular, but there's no use trying to be all neat about the harvesting process as long as there's ripe wheat to cut on drier ground. Dragging stuck combines out of mud holes is a singularly unglamorous job, and to be avoided if at all possible.
Tonight there is a 40% chance of rain. If heavy rain materializes, any shade of gold wheat will be fine, as long as it's already in the bin and not in the field.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:39 PM
1 Comments:
Amen and amen! Golden and in the bin is how we like it!!
By
Anonymous, at 6/24/2008
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