Monday, September 11, 2017

Silo Filling Prep...

It looks like today is the day.  The chopper is scheduled to roll in around 2:00 - 3:00 this afternoon, so we spent the morning doing some final prep work in the silos.

We have two silos here at home.  The west one had been empty for some time already, so Jim put that unloader up a few weeks ago.  This morning after feeding the cows, he got the second unloader ready to winch up to the top of the silo.  There's some prep involved...first, the unloader has to be lowered so that there's enough slack in the cable for him to hook it up properly for the journey upwards.  That's my job...cranking it down.  And it's a pretty easy one...


That big electric cord is unhooked...


And here's the cable fastened to the bottom of the silo.  We don't crank it the whole way up by hand, but rather remove the handle...


...and use the electric drill that you see in this second picture.  This picture was taken when the unloader was the whole way up at the top, and you can see how much more of the cable is wrapped up...


Doesn't it look kind of like a lunar lander?  I enjoy seeing the unloader from this perspective, with the shadow against the inside of the silo...


By this time tomorrow, Jim will hopefully be leveling off the full silos, and we'll be setting up the unloaders from the top!  There's a lot of climbing the silos involved on the agenda these next few days!


7 comments:

  1. Cool! Our silos are on the ground here in a pit! This was very interesting! Good Chopping Weather for you!

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  2. Thanks for the tour that shoes us how the silos are prepared to receive the corn bounty.
    Good luck with this.
    Hugs, Julia

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  3. Sorry for the typo Alicia, it should have been " shows and not "shoes" haha, , now it's your turn to laugh.
    Have a great day.
    Hugs, Julia

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  4. This is something I've never seen before - it sounds -sort- of like silage.

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  5. Good luck chopping corn and filling the silo, Alicia! I hope all goes well.

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  6. We're had a silage pile. I miss the smell of fresh silage. I also miss cold winter days riding in the hot silage wagon as we went to feed the cows. Your post brought back such good memories.

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