Filling the Pantry: Silage Cutting 2020

 

Having a well-stocked pantry took on a whole new meaning this year. While we've always eaten the majority of our meals at home, suddenly all of America was scouring the freezer and the pantry for yet another meal to make during the stay-at-home orders due to Covid-19.

At the time, I joked that we could live off my food stash for a good long time. I grew up in a farm family, 15 minutes away from a grocery store. It wasn't a matter of running down to the corner store to get one lone missing ingredient to complete a meal. My mom had a well-stocked pantry and multiple freezers. I learned from the best. And it's a good thing: Just like my childhood home, our County Line home is 15 minutes away from a grocery store - or any restaurant offering either dine-in or carry-out options.

After last week, our cattle's "pantry" is again full, too. 

Harvesting silage is a different kind of harvest around here.

For one thing, it was all over and done with in about 4 hours. That's my kind of harvest. There's not the two weeks of wheat harvest angst with uncooperative weather and interminable breakdowns.

We hired Williamson Harvesting, St. John, to bring their silage cutter and trucks to cut 30 acres of silage.

For years, Randy's family and a neighbor family - the Hornbakers - did the job themselves. (I looked for photos, but I didn't find any.) When Randy was young, they had a one-row, pull-type silage cutter. Then they upgraded to a two-row, pull-type silage cutter. They each provided a tractor, one to pull the cutter and the other to use to pack the trench silo.

They each provided a truck to haul the cut silage from the field to the silo. And the wives provided a harvest meal for the four- to six-man crew. I seem to remember my mother-in-law talking about creamed peas being on the menu as a side dish. You'd think I'd retain knowledge of the favorite main dishes, but I didn't.

Randy says it took two days to get everything ready. It took a week to get both family's silage cut and in the silos. And then it took another two days to get everything cleaned up. 

Just like other farm tasks, the methods and the machinery have evolved during Randy's lifetime. We've hired the job done during our married life (and that's nearly 40 years now).

Hiring it done certainly simplifies things - though it does mean writing a check. There are tradeoffs to everything in life, I suppose.  

Silage cutting is another one of those choreographed farm "dances."

The silage feeds into the cutter and is chopped. An auger carries the chopped silage into the truck. 

 

All this happens "on the go," with the truck and the cutter continuing in sync through the field until they get to the end of the rows. They then move into position for the next swath down the field.

As they cut, another truck follows behind, ready to move into position when the first truck is full. By design, Randy plants the silage in fields fairly close to the silo so that it doesn't have to be trucked so far. This year, it was literally as close as possible, in the field just north of the silo.

 

Once the truck is full, the trucker takes it to the silo. 

The silage trucker backs into the trench silo, dumps his load and takes off for another load-on-the-go. 

 I give the truckers an A+ for their backing skills.

Between trucks, the tractor driver packs the silage into our own "Green Mountain." 

We grow the silage (also known as forage sorghum) for cattle feed. This particular variety is dual purpose: It has both grain and forage (or roughage), both of which are important to the cattle's diets as TDN - total digestible nutrients.

Once in the silo, the silage goes through an "ensiling" process. The silage goes through chemical changes and heat builds up. It raises the pH of the silage so that it doesn't spoil or ferment any more. About the top 6 inches of it will rot, but then it forms an airtight seal, protecting the silage underneath.

After we bring the cows and calves off the summer pastures, we'll start feeding the silage to the cattle. The mama cows will get the silage as is. For the feeder calves, we add about 3 to 4 pounds of vitamin- and mineral-enriched grain per head, since they need the additional energy to grow to get ready for market.

I'll be back in the feed truck this winter, helping Randy care for our feeder calves and mamas.

 

Last year, we didn't have enough silage to fill the trench silo. We sold feeder calves earlier than normal because of the lack of homegrown feed.

This year's crop should keep the "pantry" full all winter.

Timing Is Everything: Silage at Dusk

The sun was setting when the silage cutting crew arrived October 1. (This post was rudely interrupted by 13 inches of rain, but I'm posting it anyway.)

After I'd picked up Randy from the field where he was drilling wheat, we hurried to the silage field so I could attempt some photos. (The Chiefs were playing the Broncos on Monday night football, and I didn't even have to beg.)

Since I began Kim's County Line in January 2010, I've taken silage cutting photos every year ... and written about wheat drilling ... and harvest ... and cutting hay ... and working with cattle and dozens of other tasks. After nine years for some of those mile markers on a Kansas farm, it's tough to find a new "angle," as I might have said in my previous life as a newspaper reporter and editor.

As I snapped away in the field, I thought the photos were turning out OK. It was kind of cool to watch the sunset sky fading into darkness and watch the lights come on the cutter and the trucks. And, besides, it's not like I could tell the silage cutting crew that they'd have to wait until tomorrow to do the job so the farmer's wife could get photos.

But that pretty setting sun also shut down the camera lens. The photos looking into the sun were more silhouettes than illustrations to show how the process works.

Looking to the east was a little better, but still not the clearest photos I've ever taken.

By the time we got to the trench silo, it was almost dark. But the crew kept working.

I think they must have worked until a little mishap, which we saw the following morning. The driver didn't go in the right drive. I'm really glad it wasn't me!

I knew I wouldn't have much of a chance to take photos the next day, since I was going to run from one task to the next. That included recording my KFRM report before 7, taking Randy to the field at 7, getting 100 gallons of diesel fuel at Zenith, running to Hutch for medicine and swinging back by Miller Seed Farm for a pickup bed full of Larry seed wheat. I'd left lunch in the crock pot so I could take meatball subs to Randy for lunch and then make it to Stafford for a meeting at 2. A trip to the grocery store and more trips to and from fields to help with moves kept me busy all day, so I missed the chance to take photos of the silage crew during daylight hours this year.

(For a complete run-down of silage harvest, check out this first blog post I did back in 2010. It's a different cutting crew, but the process and machinery are fairly consistent.) There are also a couple of videos on my 2016 blog post.)

Even though the timing wasn't great for photos, it turned out to be perfect timing. The silage crew finished before we were inundated with some 13 inches of rain in a little more than a week's time. It started raining the day after they were done. Whew!

June 26, 2018

To recap, Randy planted 27 acres of silage this year. By June 26, it was off to a good start.

August 17, 2018

By August, it was heading out (and also above Randy's head)!

We'll use the silage to feed cows this winter. Since our hay crop wasn't particularly prolific this year, having the supplemental silage for feed for our cattle is even more important. Randy was happy with the 16 tons per acre total.

After the veterinarian preg-checked and vaccinated 25 heifers yesterday afternoon (more on that to come), Randy fixed fence at the Rattlesnake Creek since the water had gone down enough to do it. 

Then, 20 days after the rain started, he finally planted a little wheat again toward evening. He said he came close to getting stuck once. I predict it won't be the last time.

Top Secret Mission

"I'm sorry, Ma'am! But you can't take pictures."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry, but this is a prototype, and you can't take pictures."

"At all?"

"No, ma'am. I'm sorry."

OK. I'm up for a challenge. I can take pictures and not reveal your super secret MacDon draper header, Mr. MacDon Salesguy. (For the record, I asked our local harvester, and he said it was OK if I didn't show details of the header itself.)

It personally think it was more of a challenge to get the silage in the truck. The wind was blowing 90 mph from the north. (Well, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it sure seemed like it!) Naturally, that's the day the silage-cutting crew showed up to cut of 25 acres of silage.

The silage wasn't standing tall either. While we waited for our turn from the custom-cutting crew, the tall stalks succumbed to gravity. It was definitely a different scene than last year, when the stalks towered over Randy's 6-foot, 1-inch frame.

By the time the harvesters reached the second field, the sun was on its way down. Even though the lighting wasn't ideal on the photo below, I still liked the image of the four silage trucks waiting in their own mini version of a silage traffic jam.

Opening the field was challenging, since the silage was down and the wind was howling.

But, eventually, they were rolling, though the pace was slower than is sometimes the case.

Silage cutting is another one of those choreographed farm "dances." The silage feeds into the cutter and is chopped. An auger carries the chopped silage into the truck.

All this happens "on the go," with the truck and the cutter continuing in sync through the field until they get to the end of the rows. They then move into position for the next swath down the field.

As they cut, another truck follows behind, ready to move into position when the first truck is full.

By design, Randy plants the silage in fields fairly close to the silo so that it doesn't have to be trucked so far.

Once it's full, the trucker takes it to the silo.

I give the truckers an A+ for their backing skills.

The silage trucker backs into the trench silo, dumps his load and takes off for another load-on-the-go.

Between trucks, the tractor driver packs the silage into our own "Green Mountain."

Once in the silo, the silage goes through an "ensiling" process. The silage goes through chemical changes and heat builds up. It raises the pH of the silage so that it doesn't spoil or ferment any more. About the top 6 inches of it will rot, but then it forms an airtight seal, protecting the silage underneath.

After we brought the cows and calves off the summer pastures, the guys started feeding the silage to the feeder calves. For them Randy adds about 3 to 4 pounds of vitamin- and mineral-enriched grain per head, since they need the additional energy to grow to get ready for market. After the mama cows are done dining on milo stubble and volunteer wheat, they, too, will get the silage.

It's good to see the cattle's "pantry" full and ready for Old Man Winter.

Jaguar on the Farm

A Jaguar prowled through our silage field, consuming its prey with a steady growl. It chomped and spit as it devoured with a seemingly insatiable appetite.

This Jaguar had not escaped from a zoo or been transported from its native South America to a rural Kansas farm. This Jaguar was a silage cutter which came to cut our 2015 crop.

 

For years, Randy's family and a neighbor family did the job themselves. When Randy was young, they had a one-row, pull-type silage cutter. Then they upgraded to a two-row, pull-type silage cutter. Each farm family provided a tractor, one to pull the cutter and the other to use to pack the trench silo.

Waiting on a truck to get back to the field

They each provided a truck to haul the cut silage from the field to the silo. And the wives provided a harvest meal for the four- to six-man crew. It took two days to get everything ready. It took a week to get both family's silage cut and in the silos. And then it took another two days to get everything cleaned up.

We hired John Evans and his custom crew out of Macksville to cut our silage crop. It took one afternoon to cut the two fields and fill the trench silo. Evans had four trucks hauling the cut silage from the field to the silo.

We grow silage (also known as forage sorghum) for cattle feed. This particular variety is dual purpose: It has both grain and forage (or roughage), both of which are important to the cattle's diets.

After each truck is filled, the driver takes it to the trench silo to dump.

A tractor packs the silage down, filling the silo with 500 tons of the green stuff.

It's a full pantry for the County Line cows.

After we bring the cows and calves off the summer pastures in November, the guys will start feeding the silage to the cattle. The mama cows will get the silage as is. For the feeder calves, Randy & Jake will add about 3 to 4 pounds of vitamin- and mineral-enriched grain per head, since they need the additional energy to grow to get ready for market.

We planted the 2015 silage crop in June. A hunter harvested some for his blinds in August. And we filled the silo on October 3. Click on the link for a look back at this County Line crop.