Wheat---From Scratch---to Brewing and to Bread

I have always been curious about the difficulties of growing my carbohydrates ( in the form of grain) because the thought of going all the way from planting, harvesting, cleaning, grinding and consuming seems a major event, to say the least. I, just for the hell of it, thought I would do this. I would harvest the wheat by hand---I didn't plant it but found it growing along the road where it had been planted by the road crew to stabilize the soil. I don't have enough room here in town---a good excuse.

There it was all looking like a wheat field but on public property. About the time the locals started harvesting their wheat, I went out and harvested, by hand, about 250 square feet of wheat by using a hand-held grass trimmer. I wanted to use a scythe but the one I have seems to have been designed for a midget of yesteryear and had a funny angle to the blade. So I had to give up that experience rather reluctantly because I really wanted to cut down much more, maybe a couple of thousand square feet. I also really wanted to experience using the scythe Kingsnorth (Orion article) style.

Content with my takings, a couple of shocks, I took the aesthetic bundle home for hand thrashing. I chose to use a method common through out the world up until the industrial revolution. That was to beat in on the ground, stomp on it generally beat the piss out of the heads. It turned out the grain was easily separated and I suspect that is why wheat has the exulted position it has, plus no attached hulls like oats and barley.

 Once the beating has been completed, there on the ground was a pile of grain and a good collection of chaff, about a half dozen earwigs and some small despondent spiders. Fortunately, the insects split not wanted to be turned into bread. In the end, I had less that 2 pounds of grain that needed to be cleaned in the fan mill--rather than trowing it up in the breeze like the really primitive types. I suspect that is woman's work anyway.

The whole idea here was to get a feel what it would be like to live without the wheels of industry. In other words, before the industrial revolution.  How much work would it be to grow one's own food. Now I admit, no one would drive 2 miles to cut their wheat, and they would not just do 250 ft sq. There would be more scale to it. Still, the idea of providing enough of the stuff to feed yourself  and say, six babbling kids is daunting. In fact, it is no wounder if a person had 8 kids six would die.

Insects, rodents, fire, drought all could affect the harvest. I'm feeling they were not good old days. To top it off the grain has spiny parts that penetrates clothing and itches like hell. . Mind you, I have not tried planting wheat and I have yet to grind the grain and make bread from it. That will be another day but I will be doing it, so stay tuned.

When I hear folks talk about growing their own food, I doubt seriously they have a clue about what it really takes because they never talk about their source calories. Where to they come from. How about all the diary products? There always seems to be more to the story---more work, more time. Just  a thought.