So, How is Harvest Going?

Yes, how is harvest 2018 coming along? Well...

We were inundated with rain this Fall, and man, it's taking a long time to dry up the fields. The lakes/puddles you are looking at are actually the road we should be taking to get to the corn fields. 

Driving through muddy fields really messes with harvest progress! We have been working on chopping corn silage and filling our bunk and bags with breakfast, lunch and dinner for our cattle. You can learn about the process if you click on this link to A BIG Bag Lunch. 

How do we fill these 150 foot long bags of  food for our bovine beauties? Check it out here at Food Preservation. 

Yipee! Corn silage is now finished and it is being devoured!

So what's next?

This will be my view within the next few days. I'll be driving the combine down thousands of rows of corn, just like these. But first... there is a grain/corn storage bin that needs to get some TLC, but that's a story for another day. Coming soon-

Food Preservation

If you ask any farmer, I think they will all agree that when it comes to harvest time, there just aren't enough hours in the day. Even though many farmers work well into the darkness, we still wish for more time each day to check a few more tasks off our to-do list.  

Our list is a bit longer this year, as we've had a change in our work force. You see, Grandpa Roy took a tumble this Summer and broke his leg and also had some heart trouble. Now, I am the first to admit he deserves a vacation from farm chores, but I am confident this is not the vacation he planned! He is getting stronger everyday, but he will be supervising harvest from his recliner this Fall.

While daughter Sara milked cows, and Grandma Karen fed calves; son Michael, Farmer John, and I recently completed chopping corn silage. I like to call it "food preservation."

As Farmer John drove the forage chopper, which chops the entire corn plant into little pieces, and then blows it into a wagon pulled behind the chopper...

...son Michael brought the wagons in from the field.

And now it was my turn. My job was to unload the silage from the wagon into the bags that store the silage. The wagon is lined up to a "shoot" that leads from the wagon to a machine that pushes the silage into the world's largest plastic bag.

The silage left the wagon via an auger system.

It then traveled up the "shoot" and into the packing machine. My job was to slowly drive the tractor forward a few inches at a time because as the bag filled, the bagger moved ahead.

And wah-lah! a lunch bag (8 feet tall and 200 feet long) filled with nutritious corn silage. 

 I admit that I have never been a part of the "silage adventure" but I was willing to learn.  Perhaps I was in charge of this part of the procedure because I have done a lot of food preservation over the years, but this surely was not your typical canning or freezing I was used to!

Silage complete! Check it off our to-do list! 

This And That Thursday- 2

Photo from Google image search.

This week we are making corn silage. Corn silage is made by chopping the entire corn plant into small pieces using a machine called a forage harvester, which is pulled by a tractor. A wagon with tall sides is pulled behind the forage harvester to catch the chopped corn. The wagons are then taken to the bunker (see The Life Cycle Of a Silo) where they are unloaded and the silage is packed tightly using a tractor. Silage must be firmly packed to minimize the oxygen content, or it will spoil. After packing, the pile is covered with plastic sheeting to help it ferment and also for protection from the weather. We will chop about 40 acres of corn to make the silage needed to feed our dairy cows.

We had visitors this week. Cooper brought his daddy Paul to see the farm. It was Cooper's first visit to a farm. I don't know if he was more excited about seeing a farm, or wearing his big-boy boots for the first time.

Tonight I attended the Minneapolis Public Schools Farm to School Community BBQ. I was invited by Midwest Dairy to share my story about life on a dairy farm. I'll share more about the BBQ next week. Here's a little teaser...