Not Your Quaker Oats

Here goes my father-in-law driving the swather.

Picture far away sorry...there is a large reel on the front that cuts the oats at the stem and lays them in a pretty row. This allows them to be combined which is how we harvest oats.

See the big reel. It is a dirty, dirty job driving the swather. Oats are also very itchy. I can not explain it. But it is one of the reason why I did not go traipsing across the rows, for a closer shot. Me lazy girl. Smart girl too.

Corner where you can see the rows going around the field.

Oats up close and personal before they are combined. They are still in there thin layer of husk. How rustic. This is where your oatmeal use to come from and maybe some still does.

A neighbor of ours bought some of our oats right off the field. It is cheaper for someone to buy directly from the producer than a feed mill for example.

Good for us because the price the feedmill was willing to pay us had gone down by 60 cents. That might not sound like a lot but I was very thankful our neighbor bought two big loads from us.


Kurt had to make sure he could fit in another load before going out to the field for another.

He eventually had to get a shovel to even out the load. If I remember, we still had some oats run over the one side. That poor guy needs a vacation. He works hard for his money. We are happy to be done with our oats. I'll also add. After the combine goes over the oats, the stem is still left laying on the field. We take our chopper and chopper box and chop the straw. We use it for bedding our cows and young stock. Kurt was able to chop 17 loads off of 20 acres. AWESOME! Last year we had to buy two loads which was expensive. Our chopped straw goes in the upstairs of our barn. It is divided into four sections. There are two hay mows, a shavings (sawdust) mow, and a chopped straw mow. Kurt had the straw mow filled as high as it could be filled. It was not completely empty from last year so we did good.

Not your Quaker oats you ask? Quaker is buying more Canadian oats because they are a heavier oat due to Canada's cooler climate. Booo that is partly why the price has dropped. Too much oats out there already. Last year I (yes, it was me. I did do it) sold it for 2.40 more than what we will get paid for it currently. Last year was a different year, but Quaker still sucks.