Cutting Silage

Yesterday was silage day at Edgar Farms. We hire a silage cutter, and a couple of extra trucks for the day to put up our silage. In one day we we put up close to 1000 tons of silage. After the crop is swathed into windrows, left to dry down for a day we then go through the field with a silage chopper that cuts the plants into approx. 1-2 inch long pieces. The machine then blows these pieces (silage) into the the truck travelling along side the chopper. The truck then travels back to the farm yard where the silage is then dumped into a pile in front of a large concrete storage facility called a silage bunker. We then push the silage with a large tractor up into the bunker spreading it out evenly. We then drive the tractor back and forth over the silage to squeeze the air out of it so the silage will ferment and not spoil. Similar to fine wine. Once the bunker is full and completely packed we then completely cover it with heavy plastic to keep out the air. We eat our noon lunch on the go in our vehicles and our daughter Keri made us a great meal for a sit down supper before returning to the field. Doug's job is to drive the push/packer tractor and Elna drives the tandem truck picking up silage and bringing it home. This is an older truck that we bought new years ago but is still in very good shape. The problem with this truck is it has the old style transmissions in it which makes it difficult to drive. It has a 5 and 4 transmission meaning it has 2 transmissions giving you 20 forward gears. There is a complicated series of combinations of gears between the two transmissions to shift to operate this truck. Elna does very well shifting these manual transmissions even sometimes not having to use the clutch on certain shifts. I tell her it was my good teaching ability that allows her to do so well.