Sorry, I really couldn’t resist. That little song popped into my head at about 11 P.M. when I was laying in bed waiting for my farmer to come home and then I decided I was starving and got out of bed to make him and I a midnight snack of eggs and sausage.
Yes, sometimes we eat our meals together at midnight. It’s the farmer way of life.
So, in case you didn’t get it from my little rhyme we are in the fields! And it feels beautiful to be there. The weather has been just about perfect for me (remember all my hormones are raging!) so I am loving the coolness of the temps. Although, we could have done without the light frost some received in our area a few nights ago. And I am guessing out in western South Dakota where it snowed last week, they very easily could have done without that.
We are a few weeks into chopping corn silage. That’s where the entire corn stalk gets ground up into tiny pieces. We use every part of the plant, except the roots, for feeding our cattle through the winter.
We start chopping when the corn plant is just starting to turn. You can cut corn silage later in the life cycle- when the plant itself is more brown, but it will yield about 30% less than a younger crop.
Since the corn plant is still alive when it’s chopped it’s still producing carbon dioxide and heat. Once we chop the silage and pack it into our feed bunk we tarp our pile down and get out all the air. It seals up nice and tight so that the plant essentially stops breathing. The corn silage begins to ferment. It takes about three weeks to fully ferment.
And this makes the perfect feed for our cattle!
Back in 2011 I made this video. But the process of chopping corn silage is still the same on our farm.
It feels good to be in the fields, but it isn’t any fun in our house right now…we are all fighting colds, allergies, and ear infections. But, harvest is moving smoothly so far!
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