Cutting oats while the sun shone

Today is Friday, yes. And this post is at the farm, yes! Finally I've managed an actual Friday at the Farm post! Goodness, school must have gone back ;-) Anyways, come and see. The oats are calling...

Remember this post? Or even this one? They're about the oats too. In a round-about way. A while ago.

Those oats have become all grown-up now. Browned off and dried out. Sound familiar?! I reckon I've aged in a similar fashion :-) Must remember to at least apply more moisturiser, smile more, and be less sarcastic.

So what does the farmer do when the oats are like this? He harvests them for grain. Then the grain can be used for feed. Feed for sheep, cattle, ducks, whatever! These oats were mostly harvested before that great lot of rain we got here in the land down-under late last week. Mostly harvested, meaning not quite all. The farmer was very happy with the grain. He even counted how many heads or grains of oats were on some of the stalks. Oh yes, he was a happy farmer. Plenty of grains and rain as well! The only thing that would have been better was all the grain in and then the rain...

You see when the rain came it washed the grains away made the remaining grain (and the ground) quite wet! Hmmm. So the farmer has been waiting for the oats to dry out and the paddock to dry out. He would probably be finished in this paddock yesterday. Which is a very good thing 'cos it looks like it will rain again today. Not that we are worried about more rain. No, it will be very welcome indeed! We didn't get so waterlogged like some other poor people and summer rain is definitely welcome.

These hands belong to the gorgeous girl who was showing me some grain. She informed me that "you can eat it just like this mum". Why thanks my girl! I know a few cows who'd probably enjoy it a lot more than me... It's a bit cool in this shot how the stalks in the background have gone all 'abstract-ish' with this aperture setting hey? I like it :-)

It was quite the hike for the littlest one as she stepped high through the cut oats. The scale is a bit different for her, I had to think about it myself, if the stalks were up to my knees then I'd probably be stepping high too!

The boy was giving me a lesson about which edges were super-sharp. Obviously he'd been listening when the farmer explained it all! Anything to do with machinery is this boy's joy!

My joy was taking pics, I wasn't too worried about trying out the sharp edges... though I do listen attentively, with a smile and a nod. When he/she tells me stuff like this I wonder what he/she will grow-up into; I admit my mind wanders from the information being delivered! But it is still thinking all about him. Or her. I'm so interested in how our small people are developing into real, live people with infinite possibilities in their future. So exciting but so scary, for me as their mother. I hope they can only see the excitement, at least for now :-)

But back to the oats...

And the clouds. Ah the clouds. Now if Mr Meteorology was here I could ask him what these clouds were telling us... they were probably telling us that the rain was on it's way... all I can tell is that the blue was brilliant and they completed the skyscape... not very technical.

Well, there you have it. The oats at the farm on a Friday. Well the oats that were at the farm. Now they're harvested. I suppose you would say they are still residing at the farm, just in the silos now. Hey, that could be an interesting set of photos. Silos. And grain. Hmmm. Maybe this weekend. Though not in the rain!

Hope you have a lovely weekend. We're having a quiet one. With space/time for the small people to catch up on some sleep and some downtime after an exciting first few days at school. Bring on the sleep-ins! Ah, I can dream hey?!