This week we closed the books on another silage harvest. David spent two weeks getting the chopper and trucks ready and finally made the first round with the chopper, and the engine caught fire. This could be the start of a really terrible story, but thankfully, it’s not. They put the fire out and started it back up and everything ran fine – he thinks there was a mouse nest (or something similar and very flammable) under the hood.
They ran the rest of that first day and got the field “opened up.” The next day it rained. But it didn’t rain too much, and they got started again the following afternoon. The custom crew we hired to chop at the farm down the road also started. Then they had a breakdown, and it rained again, two days in a row.
Corn Silage 
Open Field 
Parked in the rain
The delays made the process drag on, and the silage got a little dry while it rained, but on the bright side it allowed the custom crew to make repairs, and when it dried out, we were able to finish the rest of the chopping and cover the silo before this week’s “instant fall” showed up complete with four straight days of cold drizzle.
Dumping silage 
1st full silo! 
Disaster rows left in the field
All in all, we had some hiccups, but no catastrophes, and the crop was good. We’ve had close to ideal growing conditions. One more rain in early August might’ve given us heavier kernels, but the corn looked great, and the silos are full. We didn’t have to chop as many acres as we expected, so we’ve got more to harvest later this fall, too.
Covered silo 
Happy Farmers
In a year when a derecho has wrecked crops in Iowa and Illinois and farms in the western states are burning, we’re humbled and thankful for a harvest marred only by some minor breakdowns and a few days of rain (that hopefully helped our soybeans). Thank you to our good Lord, and to all those who helped us with filling and covering our silos so we’ll have feed throughout the coming year. We certainly didn’t and couldn’t do it alone.
HeimDairy 