The Family Business

I find this time of year hard when it comes to farming. It's kind of like make or break time, no rain and we're looking at a small or non-existent harvest, too much rain and it gets them a little water logged, a cold snap with a frost and the crops might get frosted. It's this time of year that Muddy Hubby's favourite saying is 'Just an inch of rain would be right'. We haven't had that inch, and for some of our paddocks that's not a good thing. The wheat is struggling to stick it's head up above the weeds which are prolific because the wheat was dry-sown. Other paddocks are doing better, sticking their heads up waiting for rain to help them fill.

 

On the other hand our Chickpeas are loving it, they hate water, especially if it rains too much they don't cope and disease starts to set in. At the moment though the conditions are just right for them, they are podding and they have flowers on them. A little bit of rain wouldn't hurt them to help them fill their pods, and give us some nice chickpeas to sell, but they're still looking good.

 

The Muddy Kids love crop checking, learning the family business from the start, looking for flowers and pods on the chickpeas and seeing whether or not the wheat has started sticking up it's head getting ready to fill it with grain. Our Muddy Organiser practices her counting skills by starting to count the number of grain sheaths on the wheat head. It was a lovely Sunday morning, warm weather, sunshine and family time.