It’s the Most ‘Hectical’ Time of the Year

Salut! (That’s hello in French. ;)) Okay, okay. Hectical isn’t a word. But it sounds better than plain ‘hectic’.

Well, it is the most ‘hectical’ time of the year I think. Dad and Granddady are busy cutting alfalfa and small grain, seeding, and planting soybeans and corn. And guess what? It rained. and it’s supposed to rain all next week. Which means the ground will be quite muddy and the corn planter doesn’t exactly work the best in mud.

I’ve decided to take photos of everything dad does to the field behind our house this year, even the manure spreading. 😛 Here are the first three things he’s done so far, explanations included. 🙂

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First, he cut the small grain. (Triticale [we pronounce it trit-eh-kale-y] was the main thing in the field)

He cut it with the new butterfly mower we got recently. As you can probably see, it is not a little lawn mower at all. The butterfly mower (discbine) cuts the alfalfa or small grain and makes it into rows.

Next, he merged the rows of cut triticale.

Using a big merger (ours is smaller than this one, this one is our dad’s uncle) he put together a few of the small rows of mowed triticale into a much bigger row. This way he doesn’t have to go running over every bit of the field to get all the triticale (or alfalfa, as the case may be).

And finally, he chops it.

Using our Claus chopper, dad goes over the rows of triticale, getting it in his chopper and chopping it up. The silage (chopped up crops) is then spit out of a chute on the chopper as he goes along. The chute is close to a silage wagon that is pulled by a tractor. When the wagon is full the tractor takes it up to a hill where we make it into an ag-bag* while another tractor and wagon go to the chopper.

*An ag-bag is a big bag used to store silage that ferments. Skid loaders scoop up bucketfuls of it to feed to the cows later on. We use silos too: big towers that hold silage.

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So there you have it. Probably not terribly interesting to all of you, but that’s  a little bit of what we do this time of year. In August we chop corn and in October and November we combine it, but that’s for another post. This one is already quite long. 🙂

Thanks for reading guys! 😀 I hope you learned a few interesting facts about farm life. 🙂

I made a poll on my poll page (its at the top) asking what kind of posts you enjoy the most. 😀 I’d love it if you voted on it!