And Just Like That...It's Fall...

What a difference a few days can make!

The past weeks have been...IMHO...horribly uncomfortable.  The humidity has been so thick you could just about cut it, and the temps just couldn't come down.

Yesterday we spent the day at Eric's final home cross country meet.  How did he become a college senior so quickly?!  It was a beautiful day for running...overcast and in the mid 70's.  First day we've had weather like that in a very. long. time.

He had a great race...

...and the team had a great finish, winning the invitational.  He's 3rd from the right...

Afterwards, as tradition has it, the team and families held a tailgate potluck.  My fingers were freezing by the time we were finished, but I'm not complaining!  As long as there's a blanket to throw over me or a sweatshirt to put on, I'm good.

This week we finished our silage harvest. With all the rain we've been having, the guys have been burning the candle at both ends.  They've been putting in really long days, trying to keep up with all the farms that they need to get to before the corn gets too dry.  The equipment arrived at 1:30 am, and sat waiting until they arrived around 8 am...

For some reason, the silage pipe kept getting plugged up.  Jim is up at the top, and Mark is sitting on top of the blower, working at getting it open...

The last load of silage...

The guys moved on to the next farm quickly, and took the blower with them.  Silo gas, which can be deadly, forms when fresh silage is put into a silo.  To deliver fresh air into the silo, farmers usually run the blower when working inside the silo for the first day or so.  The gas doesn't form right away, so Jim quickly leveled the silage and we set up the unloader after lunch. I was at the bottom of the silo inside the silage room, lowering the unloader at his instruction.  I found our kids' handprints in the concrete, where we had reinforced with shotcrete years ago.

Eric...

...and Jenna...

Things change so quickly!

For now, we hope to enjoy fall!  The West Lampeter Fair is this coming week, and I'm sure we'll be spending a lot of time there.  It might be a muddy mess (it's raining, again!) but it will happen regardless!  It's one of the highlights of the year for us. Goat, sheep, pig and dairy beef shows, baked goods, contests, fair food, and much more bring the community together for a great time.

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!

Preparing To Fill Silos...2016...

It's that time of year again.

Late August...school has started, the weather is s l o w l y turning cooler, and the silos are quickly getting empty.

Behind these closed doors is the silage room...

We store the feed carts in here and lock the doors so that the cows can't get in them and eat themselves sick!  Yes, they would do that!  (It happened one time, and the cow almost died.  After she recovered, she didn't have much of a desire for corn the rest of her lactation!)

Here also is access to the silos, which are almost completely empty, as you can see.  The unloader is resting on the last few inches of silage in the east silo...

This is looking up into the west silo...

This is the old tile silo at the other farm.  Several years ago, Jim put a plastic liner in the silo to make it airtight.  Each year we have to put another plastic liner over the doors.  That's the black strip that is hanging down from the top.  After the silo is full, Jim will cut the plastic off over each door from the top down, so he can open the door and toss the silage down the chute into the cart below...

This afternoon we walked through the corn field that he plans to chop, cutting samples of stalks throughout the field.  We ran them through the chopper and will have the silage moisture tested to see where we're at.  It's too green right now, we know for sure, but once we have the moisture sample back we'll have a better idea of when we might be able to fill the silos.  It can be a nerve wracking process, because we want a moisture level between 66% and 69%, and it also has to suit the custom chopper's schedule!

We bought one load of silage last week to hold us over until we can chop our own corn.  Every year is different, so we'll see how this one goes!

(Almost) Empty Silos...

It's the first week of school...and that almost always means that it's time to chop corn and fill the silos!  We remember countless times, when the bus was stopping out front at the same time that the silo fillers were pulling in.

This is the view from the silage room this morning...

Open silo doors indicate.that the silage level is level with (or lower than) the door.  The doors are opened from the top on down,  so that the unloader can throw the silage out the door and down the chute.  When the open doors reach the bottom, it means one thing...

No more silage!  This is inside the east silo...the unloader is resting just off the bottom of the silo, and Jim has been forking the last of the silage out by hand.  The unloader in the west silo is already at the top, ready for filling...

Jim knows which fields will be ready to be chopped first, and we've been taking sample corn stalks...running them through the chopper...and having them tested for moisture.  Today's samples came back at 70%, so they're still just a little too wet for our silos.  He would like to see them around 68%...which should be in just a few days.  Hopefully by the middle/end of this week, the silos will be full of fresh corn silage.

This afternoon's job?  Putting up the second unloader.  Then as soon as the corn is dry enough, we'll be ready to go!