Transferring the Ag Bag....

Well...it's finished! 

Things went relatively well today with transferring the corn silage from the ag bag into the silo.

It took a little while to get set up this morning...there was some hard, crusty snow on the sides of the bag and around the bottom that needed to be cleared away before they could cut the bag and pull it back.

Once the end of the bag was opened, the first glimpse didn't look so great!  The slope end of the bag is never packed as tightly as the rest of the bag, and a tightly packed bag is crucial to preserving the feed! This is the end where the bagger was pulled away, the remaining silage shovelled in by hand, and the end buried to make an airtight seal.  Typically we don't have much trouble, but this year we lost a little silage at this end.  There were a few small holes which created problems!

The white that you see is ice on the silage around the edges, and that's normal.  But some of the silage itself was spoiled.  We were concerned...

 It's never a good sign to see the manure spreader out by the ag bag!  The spoiled silage went right back onto the field for fertilizer.  (and food for the crows, who are now welcome to help themselves!)  Thankfully, it was just one spreader load...

The rest of the plastic is pulled back...

and it looks great!  The cows and the farmers are happy...

The morning continued...Ken is a master with his loader tractor...

The silage is unloaded off the trucks and into the blower...

...and up into the silo.  Can you tell which silo it's going into?



Now Jim has two silos to level, and we have one silo unloader to lower and set up.  Sounds like that will keep us busy for another afternoon.  It wouldn't do to be bored!

 And...now that we're finished transferring the ag bag, the tractor operator is free to go to Florida!


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