A new project I'm working on

[Joanie]

I am in the process of making a sheave of wheat to show at state fair in late August.

First you need some amber waves of grain.

I cut the stalks with a scissors as close to the ground as I can and lay them on a sheet in the sun for several days to be sure they are dry.

(It's a good thing that sheet the wheat is on is green or there would be no green in the photo! My poor, poor lawn!)

The next thing to do is to strip the leaves from the stems. It took me a lot of trial and error over the years to figure out how to do that without bending the stems. This is one with and one without the leaves.

A pile of them with and without leaves.

Once they are all stripped, they are carefully arranged into a sheave. The requirements are the sheaves have to be banded in two places and the sheave has to be 4 inches in diameter at the bottom band. It takes about 400 of them. The sheaves are judged on quality and showmanship. It's labor intensive but you end up with a beautiful "bouquet". I will do a sheave of rye and probably oats too. Wheat is my favorite. I will post a picture of the final product when it's done.

Edited by: Joan

 

[grapeman]

What a wonderful new project you have Joan. It might take you a while to harvest that whole field though with a pair of scissors. So you guys are pretty dry there too. We got barely 2 inches rain for Juneand most of that was in one storm. I mowed my lawn yesterday for the first time in 3 weeks just to clip the weeds and little trees coming up. When I got done it had a burned glaze to it. I'm watering it to see if I can keep it from dying. I have been watering the vines where I can but some of them are beyond hose range.


Good luck with the sheaves of gold. I hope you win at the Fair! Do you raise the grains?

 

[peterCooper]

You can have some of our rain.

Every day for the last two weeks. My niece went shopping and had to wait for the flood to run off before she could leave the parking lot (that was yesterday). The thunderstorms are not as bad now as they were a week ago but the rain is a lot steadier.

My kids keep on splashing all the water out of the pool and God keeps on filling it back up for me.

 

[PolishWineP]

After a dry spring we have been blessed with a lot of rain. God must love us because the crops look really good, considering all the rain we've gotten. Winter wheat looks like it will be ready to cut in about 2 1/2 weeks. (This from a city girl. Think I've learned anything during the last 11 years of comuting past the the same fields?

)
And unlike last year at this time, our lawn is lush and green and need of mowing every 5 days.

 

[NorthernWinos]

I love grain art...I make some Chirstmas tree decorations with wheat and other small grains...they are pretty neat.

 

[PeterZ]

Our winter wheat was harvested 6 weeks ago. Since then it has been so dry the farmers haven't yet planted the soybeans in the same field. We had some rain over the weekend, but I'm afraid it might be too late to plant the soybeans. That's a real hurt on our local farmers, because soybeans are up about 50% in price, what with all the biodiesel plants going up. But if the ground it too dry to germinate the seeds, there's no point in planting.

 

[NorthernWinos]

Drought is such a heart breaker when your livelihood depends on what comes out of the soil.

 

[Joanie]

Here's the finished product! Finally!

I have a rye sheave to make but I haven't started it yet!

 

[Waldo]

I Believe you have yourself a wimnner there Joan..AWESOME !!!

 

[jobe05]

Very nice, that looks like a picture............ Hmmmm...........

I see a label coming.............

 

[geocorn]

Looks like First Place to me. You are very talented.

 

[Wade E]

Very nice Joan!

 

[Joanie]

Thanks!!!

It would have been a bit bigger as I had more wheat but I had all I could do to hold the sheave together with one hand as I was adding more to it.

 

[grapeman]

You've outdone yourself as usual Joan. When's the State Fair this year? Good luck!

 

[NorthernWinos]

Looks like a ribbon coming your way.....Very very well done!!!!!


Let us know the results...and...photos from the fair would be nice too.