It's all coming down to the harvest. You plan, you plant, you pray. And now the moment of truth.

Things are looking very good.

This afternoon we harvested a new bean, Hutterite Soup. It's a pale yellow and supposedly has a very thin skin making it ideal for soups and chowder. The plant responded well to California.

The harvester is somewhat of a Rube Goldberg-type machine. The machine rolls over aisles of podded beans and after some rough massaging, beans come out almost clean. The pods are ejected out the back but before they make their way down, they're cut up by a circular blade that helps them to decompose, making them a sort of green manure.

There are some dirt clods and debris but most of the cleaning is actually done here in the field.

The whole operation is very loud and the machinery shakes like the '06 quake, but the result is glorious beans!

After we finished this field, we wondered over to another and I want to show you your future:

This photo is me in the fields holding a huge mound of, sit down, Good Mother Stallard, everyone's favorite bean.

I'm sorry to say the harvest won't be anywhere near enough to last the year. but it's a start!