Harvest and Halloween

There is a decided lack of pumpkin spice lattes or harvest craft beers at our house. Our sparse fall decorations include the sum of two jack o' lanterns, but neither have been cut and gutted or even given magic marker eyes, nose, and mouth. Are they even jack o' lanterns at this point? More like jacks on their way to execution, perhaps.

Harvesting is still taking place on the farm. Corn silage, that is. Two weeks of heavy and then on off rain got us behind for waiting on muddy fields to dry. A nice crop, albeit a little drier than we'd like, is filling the silos. 

My munchkins are literally dying for next week to arrive and are making last minute costume decisions. Except for the youngest, who decided months ago to be a skeleton. 

The cows are already in the Halloween spirit. I just hope they don't expect candy.

Silo Repairs

Harvesting our corn had been going well until I kept stopping up the pipe that the silage is blown through to the top of the silo. The kernals of corn are hard and wear down the metal, which is what happened to the top elbow and distributor on this silo. It was no longer smooth and so the silage would catch and start backing up.

We hired some silo guys to come and replace it. 

Elbow on the left and distributor on the right

You can see him working seventy feet in the air on a small ladder taking the old one off and putting the new one on. The distributor is worked by the handle shown in the photo. Flipping it up and down between loads makes sure the silage is blown in evenly in the silo. If you put it all on one side you stand a very good chance of causing your silo to lean and fall. 

70' Upright Silo -> Don't look down!

The new parts solved our problem and the corn silage I've blown up the pipe has kept on going. No stops and no problems.