Spent a lovely morning harvesting rye and wheat at North Star Farm. Using scissors. Afterwards, we went to the hardware store and bought two kinds of sickle to see which one works best.
Now, the bundles are drying in the morning sun, except the rye straws that have already been cleaned and are in the soaking tray.
What does "cleaned" mean? Well, think of bamboo. The stem parts (the culms) are divided by nodes, from which the leafy blades grow. In rye and wheat, the blades surround the stem for a few inches as a sheath. Then there's a ligule which divides the sheath part of the blade from the leafy part, and then there's the leaf.
To make a clean looking design, only the culm closest to the spicule or seedhead is used, so I have to remove the blade and sheath down to the first node, or knee. When the straw is fresh, this involves broken fingernails and fussy finicky finagling. After the straw is a bit dry, the whole process is easier.
Now, the bundles are drying in the morning sun, except the rye straws that have already been cleaned and are in the soaking tray.
What does "cleaned" mean? Well, think of bamboo. The stem parts (the culms) are divided by nodes, from which the leafy blades grow. In rye and wheat, the blades surround the stem for a few inches as a sheath. Then there's a ligule which divides the sheath part of the blade from the leafy part, and then there's the leaf.
To make a clean looking design, only the culm closest to the spicule or seedhead is used, so I have to remove the blade and sheath down to the first node, or knee. When the straw is fresh, this involves broken fingernails and fussy finicky finagling. After the straw is a bit dry, the whole process is easier.
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