21 Bpm....

What is 21 bpm?

Well...it's like this...

When you've been unloading corn fodder for four hours straight with your friends...and you get a little bored (and tired)...you have a contest.  How many bales can you get from the wagon to the hay mow (stacked) in one minute?

Eric and his friends tried it.  They started out at 8...then 13...and then finally, their record...21 bales per minute.

There you have it!  Bpm...

To keep things interesting, you can also decorate the ladder with loose bale ropes...

...and crush your soda cans...

...and best of all, you go out for pizza afterwards!

A lot of fodder got unloaded and stacked the past few days.  Thanks guys!

Fall Grazing 2013

The corn and bean harvest is finished...

Rye grass has been seeded where the corn was chopped for silage, and is growing nicely...

So now it's time to let the cows out on the fields of rye grass and alfalfa for some fall grazing...

I think this will keep them happy for a while, what do you think?

Combining At Sunset...

On Monday afternoon, I posted about how we were anticipating the combine arriving to harvest the soybeans and corn.  The guys rolled in over milking time, and our neighbor captured these pictures, which he was kind enough to share with us!

Here they are, combining the beans... (photo credits...Steve Emerson)

I love those pictures of the combine in the sunset!  Thanks Steve!

By the time they got to the fields at our farm, it was dark.  I snapped this one of Jim and our Amish neighbor man watching them combining behind the barn...

When they were finished with the beans, they switched headers on the combine and started on the corn. They ran until 11:00 on Monday night, and then came back and finished on Tuesday.  The beans yielded great...no official numbers yet on bushels per acre, but we were pleased!

One more thing is checked off the list!

A Day In October...

It's just another beautiful October day...

Murphy has nothing better to do than lay in the yard.  The cats must be hiding...

The cows have been staying inside at night because it's been too cold, but they were out for a while this morning.  Although there wasn't much to eat out there, they enjoyed the freedom of the outdoors...

This will probably be the last day that the fields look like this...

as the combine should be rolling in any time.  The beans will be done first, then the corn...

In fact...I think I hear him coming right now!

I love October!

Random Five Friday...

Once again, it's time for Random Five Friday.  Here are some things that have been going on around here...

1. It's been a drenching day, to say the least. In the last 24 hours, we've had over 7 1/2" of rain!  The roads are treacherous in places, and the creeks are overflowing their banks.  The pond at the other farm, which was almost completely dry yesterday, is full again...

2.  With this weather, the cows have been staying inside the barn all day and all night.  They will be thrilled when they can go out again, and I don't blame them!

3.  I finally took the air conditioner out of our bedroom window yesterday.  It's nice to have the windows open and throw on a couple of blankets at night.  I hope now, once this front that has stalled over top of us moves through, that we'll be having typical fall weather, instead of the hot temps that we were having.

4.  Our neighbors left a huge glass pumpkin, full of M & M's on our kitchen table on Sunday...and I'm embarrassed to say that it's already about half empty!

5.  The kids are looking forward to a couple of days off from school next week.  These will be the first days since before school started, that they will be able to sleep in.  They've either had to be up early for school on the weekdays, up for early morning cross country practice on Saturday mornings, or up to help us on Sundays.

Here's hoping for some sunshine this weekend!

Happy Anniversary!

On a beautiful sunny October day...exactly twenty years ago today...

Jim and I got married!

Here's how some of our anniversary was spent...

Jim and Daniel (our neighbor helper) buried the end of the ag bag permanently. They dug a trench about twelve inches deep and buried the end of the bag, covering it with dirt to give it a tight seal...

I only got back out with my camera after milking tonight, so it's a little hard to see here, but Jim packed the dirt by driving back and forth with the truck. If it's not packed tightly, the end can pop out...

As the silage ferments, it creates gas.  Stinky, potent gas.  I made the mistake one year of putting my nose to the slit and sniffing.  Bad. Idea. !!

The slit in the bag allows the gas to escape...

It was pretty much a normal day.  That's how it is this time of year...there's always something to do, no matter if it's a birthday, anniversary, or holiday...but it was a good day!

And this is how the day is ending...with a beautiful sunset!

I love October!

Done...

Finally...corn silage is done for the year!

This morning around 8:00, the guys rolled in with the harvester, tractors, wagons and the bagger, to chop our last field of corn silage.  Rather than refilling the silos now, we chose to put out a 150' ag bag.  Later this winter when the ground is frozen, we'll transfer it to the much emptier silos.

It was a rush to beat the rain.

Setting up the bagger, with the field to be chopped in the back ground...

The bag, which comes all folded up in a box, has to be positioned on the bagger and clamped into place...

Taking a look inside the bagger...

Once it's in place, the end is securely tied shut.  This end will be tucked underneath the bag as it fills...

The bagger is powered by a tractor, which is put into neutral.  As the bag fills, it gradually pushes the tractor forwards.  I sat in the tractor for a while to make sure it was going in a straight line.  It's a unique perspective, looking out the back window...  (pardon the dirt!)

The guys driving the forage wagons have to watch carefully as they are unloading, pulling forward bit by bit as the bagger inches forward.  It gets a bit monotonous sometimes for them as you can see here...

Well under way.  The far end of the bag is braced against some plywood boards and a pick up truck, to hold it in place as they get started...

Almost done!  Here they're counting the folds left in the bag, to see if all of the silage will fit inside.  You need to have some extra plastic left at the end, to seal the bag properly...

The bagger has just been pulled away, and you can see some silage spilling out the end of the bag...(there are rain drops on my camera lens!)

Here, Jim's forking the silage that spilled out back into the bag as far as he can, getting ready to seal up the bag...

All finished for today!  They temporarily closed the bag...rolling the end of it shut around a piece of wood, and securing it with cement blocks.  You can see the bag already beginning to puff up with gas...

It's raining now, but in the next day or so, Jim will use the skid loader to bury the end of the bag more securely.  It's critical that it remains air tight, so the silage cures properly and doesn't spoil.

It's so good to have this job finished for the year!

Random Five Friday...

It's been almost a week since I've posted, and I feel like I'm finally catching up with laundry...redding up...cleaning...and with life in general.  There's always something to do, and here is a sampling of what's happening here. I'm joining up with Nancy, at Random Five Friday today.

1. Even though most things in the garden are dying...or almost dead...the zinnias are still blooming their heads off.  I brought this bouquet in yesterday, and played around on Picasa with the picture this morning...

Zinnias are such cheery flowers, and so easy to grow!

2.  Our nephew has been doing some painting here this week.  With an old house, there's always somewhere that paint is peeling, and he did a great job.  He painted the pillars out front...painted the white wooden siding on the front porch...and here he's finishing up on the balcony ceiling!  It's amazing what some scraping and painting will do to make things look fresh and clean!

3.  Some of the harvesting is finished, but there's still more left to do.  In this picture looking to the west from the barn, you can see three fields.  The corn field on the left is late corn...planted after the last cutting of rye grass...and will be chopped for silage and put into an ag bag.  That will hopefully happen on Monday.  The corn field on the right, and the soybean field in the middle are drying down and will be combined sometime in the coming weeks...

4.  This was one of Jim's projects this morning...forking out a box pen...by hand...

5.  I think the hydrangeas are especially pretty this time of year.  I have several bushes, and they all bloom different colors in the summer, but this time of year as they are drying, I think they are at their most beautiful!

I could probably do a "random ten" or so, but I'll save the rest for another day!

Enjoy your day!