Brome Seed Harvesting

Another week gone already? Surely not! We cut a little brome seed this year. Brome seed really isn't very fun to cut. It's fairly labor intensive. For those that don't know, brome seed comes off the top part of brome grass. The seed is grown on the top of the plant instead of on the inside like an apple. Combines go through and cut just the top part off. The seed goes into the combine bin and leaves the majority of the grass. Farmers can either mow the rest off for brome hay or graze it with cattle. Brome seed has to be pushed out of the bin. It's so light and fluffy it doesn't run out of the bin like other crops do. Brome seed is cut in the summer so you're pushing brome out of the bin when it's really hot. Once on the truck or wagon, it has to be stomped or packed down. Otherwise, you don't get nearly a full load. Then the seed sticks to socks and other clothing and one must pull this seed out one by one. See it's really not a fun process. However, it pays pretty good, so it makes it worthwhile.

This is Matt putting the head on. The head has to be taken off in between the different fields. 

So the yellowish stuff is the seed on top of the grass. That's what we're cutting. 

This is the a cut field of brome seed. 

This is Matt on top of the combine bin. That is the brome seed. He's in the process of pushing the brome seed out of the bin. This is very dangerous because there are augers in the bottom of the bin that he could potentially fall in. There are covers on the augers, but it's still very dangerous and should be treated with great care. 

We're were racing a storm, so I apologize this picture is dark. You can almost see Matt stomping the brome seed down so we could put more seed on the truck. 

 That's about all I got this week. It's been a very busy week with haying and wrapping hay and everything else we're doing. My immune system is telling me no more with a cold today. Thankfully, my dear husband told me I can rest and I'm very much enjoying it even though there is a lot of hay to be put up.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!