Star and Stripe, Howell Farm's oxen in training, continue, not surprisingly, to grow.

In February, Stripe weighed 345 pounds and Star weighed 290 pounds.

This week they were weighed again. Stripe now weighs 640 pounds and Star weighs 570 pounds.

So according to my calculations, Stripe gained in body weight by 86% from February to present, while Star gained in body weight by 97%. So Star, who is smaller, is starting to catch up in size, but only slightly.

Replacing the sickle and pre-dating mowing machines pulled by draft horses, the scythe is a hand tool used to mow down grass and grain crops. The Grim Reaper also carries one.

Farmer Rob is Howell Farm’s scything guru. This morning, in a hay field, he shared some of his technique with a few of the farm’s interns and volunteers. Based on what I’ve seen, success in scything isn’t about power. Instead, it’s about good mechanics, like a well-tuned baseball swing. Rob says that, according to rural legend, a good scyther of yesteryear would have been able to cut about one acre in a day. Rob’s never been able to achieve this feat himself, but he believes it to be humanly possible.

The scything lesson began with a discussion of the tools and theory of proper blade sharpening.  For example: “A whetstone also wants to be wet.”

Once the scythe blades were glimmering in the sun, the interns practiced on the short lawn before moving on to the hay field. “The grass is going to tell you what you’re doing wrong,” Farmer Rob advised. A common mistake of the beginner scyther is to lift the blade off the ground and then chop down. Farmer Rob said to think of the scythe as a snake that slithers.

One of the interns is left-handed, which created some extra challenges for her.

“Are you left-handed?” Farmer Rob asked. “That’s not allowed in 1900.”

Fortunately, in this modern era, they do now make left-handed scythes. Farmer Rob recommends scythesupply.com.

Little know fact: The shaft of a scythe is called a “snath.”

Farmer Rob believes that the scythe likely achieved its most advanced technological form in the Alps, were its design continued to be improved into the 20th century. The steep slopes of the Alps often made more modern equipment impractical.

Farmer Rob professes to have a strong aversion to gasoline-powered rotary trimmers.

“I hate those things,” he says. “You can’t hear when your stir up a hornet’s nest. I think the only reason they took over is because scythes have such a steep learning curve."

According to the Grapevine Courier, Howell Farm’s own Pete Watson won the blue ribbon at this year’s Association for Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums plowing contest held in Northern Texas last week:

Read all about it:

http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/06/18/4040661/plowing-competition-the-old-fashioned.html

After inspection, Farmer Gary reports that the wheat crop is ripe for harvest. One of the evergreen challenges of farming at Howell Farm is balancing farming decisions with program decisions. The wheat is ready to bind now, but the public wheat harvest program is scheduled for June 30.

A plan of action will be discussed at a farmer’s meeting scheduled for tomorrow. One option might be to harvest some of the field, and leave other sections unharvested for the program.

If the farmer’s wait too long, the crop’s yield is likely to decrease. Wheat that’s harvested overripe is more likely to shatter. A late harvest also gives deer more time to snack. On the plus side, the variety of modern wheat planted this year has a longer “beard” than a similar variety planted last year. The beard is a deer deterrent.

Today the cornfield was a busy place -- four draft horses and two teamsters atop cultivating machines. Photos below.

In addition to weeds, another major threat to the well-being of the Howell Farm corn is hungry deer. Flip to the end of the slideshow to see what corn plants looks like after they've been munched. 

The Howell Farm kitchen garden looks especially brilliant this year.

Farmer Rob reports that tomorrow will be a day of cabbage harvesting and sauerkraut making.

Likely, it will also be a day of thorough watering. The forecast for tomorrow and Thursday calls for high temperatures of 96 and 97.

Farmer Gary reports that hay season at Howell Farm has thus far been a dramatic but ultimately successful operation.

“All those fields, we got them in just in time,” he says. “The weather forecasts do not hold. They predict longer periods of sun.”

After each cutting of a hay field, the hay needs to dry in the sun for a day or two – depending on conditions -- before it is bailed and put away in the barn. Often, deciding when to cut hay becomes a calculation of risk and reward, and the end game is often a race against a looming rainstorm to get the hay stored safely before it is soaked and ruined.

So far, by just inching out a few rainstorms, Howell Farm’s haying operation has been lucky. Or, depending on how you look at it, they’ve been good.

On Friday, Farmer Rob used a tractor to replant one of Howell Farm’s hay fields with fescue. Traditionally, the farm plants Timothy hay, but over the past several years there has been a problem. Farmer Rob explains:

“Cereal Rust Mite has reduced longevity in our Timothy fields.  Fields that should last five years are declining more rapidly. The major symptom is curled leaves like corn in a drought, but even when the field is moist. Tall Fescue is apparently less susceptible.  We planted a field a couple years ago and just planted another.”

Howell Farm interprets a period of New Jersey farming history that ended in about 1910. Soon after, tractors began to replace draft horses all across the country.

The rate of change in human lifestyle and technology from 1910 to 2010 may represent the greatest 100-year change in the history of the human species. During this period, American farming was transformed fundamentally. According to the USDA, 41 percent of Americans worked on a farm in the year 1900. Today, fewer than 2 percent of Americans work on a farm.

It’s always interesting to imagine that scenario where a farmer of the early 1700s is magically whisked to a present day farm – perhaps a farm in Iowa with endless rows of corn – and asked for his reaction. We all predict he’d be quite amazed. Perhaps distressed. During research for a recent project, I came across a passage in which the author asserted that a wheat farmer from the time of the pharaohs, transported to an American wheat field in the early 1700s, wouldn’t have seen a single thing that shocked him.

I was musing with Farmer Jeremy recently that it would be unfortunate if archaeologists of the distant future stumbled upon Howell Farm while attempting to study 21st century agriculture. They’d find horseshoes from draft horses and maybe some oxen bones. Their research would be all screwed up.

Climate Central – based in nearby Princeton – put out a report today that documents another interesting change.  The reports examines temperature changes over the decades and provides state-by-state data back to 1912, almost precisely the point at which Howell Farm’s period of historical interpretation ends. Over the past 100 years, the average annual temperature in New Jersey has risen by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit. Of all states, New Jersey ranks third for the greatest temperature increase, behind only Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Learn more:
www.climatecentral.org/news/the-heat-is-on/

When visitors come to Howell Farm to experience what farming would have looked liked, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like in the year 1910, part of their education is to learn about some of the historical aspects Howell Farm is unable to reproduce. One of those is certainly the climate. As I've been trying to tell the story of Howell Farm's agricultural work over the course of the year, it's really hit home that any story of farming is ultimately a story about weather and climate. And it's become clear that farmers today grow food in a climate that is dramatically and increasingly different than that of 100 years ago.

It's now officially the best time of the year -- the blueberries in the Howell Farm kitchen garden are starting to ripen by the handful.

As the rain began to fall this morning, I took a walk around the farm and snapped some quick photos of the crops in the fields -- potatoes, oats, wheat, and corn. The oats are green and the wheat is golden.

The sheep have been escaping their fenced pastured this spring and running amok -- usually straight to the corn crib.

So today Farmer Ian and Farmer Jeremy shored up the gates and fence line.