Flat Aggie Visits the Toews Farm

Hello from MacGregor, Manitoba, Canada!  We were happy to host Flat Aggie these past few weeks, during our sunflower harvest.  He is visiting from Kansas!

Long before Flat Aggie arrived, our sunflowers were busy growing and blooming.  They get planted in May and grow to be about 5' tall by the end of the summer.  Typically summer temperatures around here are around the mid-twenties celsius (mid 70's fahrenheit).

Manitoba is part of what is called the prairies, an extremely flat area of grasslands, made up of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  There's nothing like a prairie sunset!!  

When we plant sunflowers in our fields that are along the main highway across Canada, many people will stop and take pictures, because the beauty of a blooming sunflower field isn't something you see every day.  

 But even those of us that see this view every year, still enjoy taking pictures in the sunnies. :)

Once Flat Aggie arrived, we showed him our sunflower field.  Notice that this sunflower already looks a lot drier than the previous pictures.

Once the sunflowers start to dry, they are desiccated (sprayed) by a special plane, called a crop duster.  This helps the sunflowers to dry more quickly and evenly.  They are usually ready to harvest about 3-4 weeks after they are desiccated.  Can you see the crop duster in the picture below?

Blackbirds are the biggest threat/pest, when it comes to our sunflower crops getting eaten.  Even more so than deer.  If you look in the photo below, you can see large groups of blackbirds flying out of the sunflowers as the combine comes in to harvest.

Unfortunately there isn't much you can do to deter blackbirds, except scaring them away with a shotgun, which only last a short time.

Flat Aggie joined us in the combine one afternoon.  It was cold and windy and temperatures were just below freezing.  We decked him out in his own pair of coveralls, so he wouldn't be too cold and would fit in with the rest of the guys!  Here he is on the combine window, watching the sunflowers feed into the combine.

Flat Aggie also check out the window behind the combine operator, that shows what is in the hopper. The hopper is the part of the combine that the crop is collected into.  As you can see the hopper was quite full with sunflowers.  Dillon enjoys riding with his Dad in the combine.

When the hopper is full, a tractor and grain buggy pull up beside the moving combine and dump the sunflowers into the buggy with a long auger.  It makes harvesting the field that much quicker.

We climbed up the back of a loaded semi and saw so many sunflowers seeds that had been harvested that day.  Many, many semi loads come off a single field.

Once the sunflowers are harvested, they are tested to see what their moisture level is at.  Here is Flat Aggie with the moisture testing machine:

Sunflowers are considered dry when they test at 9.5%.  This day they were testing at 12%, which means they are too wet to store the way they are.  If stored at too wet a temperature, there is a higher chance of them spoiling.  So they need to be dried.  Below is a picture of our dryer.  Can you find Flat Aggie?

There are two types of sunflowers: oil and confectionery.  The oil variety are used to make oil for cooking and bird food.  The confectionery variety are used for human consumption, in things such as spitz, bird food and are also shipped to the middle east for use in such things as salad toppings.  Our farm grows the confectionery variety as the tend to yield in our area.

Flat Aggie enjoyed a tasty donut after a long day's work.

One of our favorite ways to use sunflower seeds, other than just roasting them and eating them the way that they are, is to put them into homemade granola bars.  You can find the recipe if you click here.  

Thanks Flat Aggie for joining us for a few days.  It was great to have you!!