Our farm is diverse, there are lots of jobs to do. I try to be as efficient as possible saving on time and fuel. Last Thursday I went over to Santa Rosa where we co own a seed cleaner with Tierra Vegetables. I cleaned (removed the chaff) from 1500lbs of wheat. When it is harvested by the combine it comes out clean but not clean enough for me to mill it into flour. Our seed cleaner, a clipper M2B, is still under renovation. When finished it will have new electrical, safety guards for the belts and be mounted onto a street legal trailer. We can then haul it between our two farms and offer it to other farmers to use also. the big cost with a unit like this is the screens that are very specific to each grain, bean or corn variety that we are cleaning. there are many sizes and shapes of holes used to screen the crops. Each screen costs us $75. We can both save a great deal of money by sharing the machine and the cost of the screens. It is not a machine that we use every day so moving it becomes less of a problem.
After cleaning the wheat I just made it back down to Hunt and Berhens feed mill in Petaluma to pick up feed for our newly arrived chicks. They are stating to grow rapidly so I bought 40 of these bags in the picture below.
