Silo Filling

Across the Fence #567


Recently we were driving behind a tractor pulling a chopper wagon full of silage. The wind was blowing loose silage through the air, leaving a trail of it on our windshield and the road. The sweet smell of silage brought back memories of silo filling. I don't see many silos being filled these days. farming has changed. 

We were always in school when the silo fillers came to chop the corn and blow it up into the silos. We’d hurry home from school so we could get in on some of the adventure. Before we could start filling, the silo doors had to fitted into place and locked, to hold the silage in. You started at the bottom and worked your way up, securing each door as you climbed up the narrow chute. It was also fun watching the men put the blower in place and attach the pipes. They used a rope to haul the pipes up alongside the silo and hook them together. The final piece was the curved pipe that went into the silo.

When the full wagons started arriving from the cornfields, the action started. After the wagon was emptied, we used the John Deere 50 to take the empty wagon back to the field and exchange it for a full wagon.

When we got to haul the wagons from the field to the silo we thought we had been promoted to the major league. It was fun, but scary too. It was tricky pulling the big chopper wagon filled with silage alongside the blower and stopping in the right spot. 

After the wagon was in place, we pulled the silage from the back of the wagon into the auger, using curved forks. The blower then sent the silage rattling up the pipe and into the silo. That was a dangerous job. Many farmers have lost arms and legs when loose clothing got caught in the spinning augers and pulled the farmer in. It’s easy to see why farming is such a dangerous occupation. You’re always working around moving parts that can quickly entangle and harm you. Maybe it’s that sense of danger that added to the silo adventure when we were young.

As it got dark, lights from the tractors created a shadow-filled surreal world. It was dark in the silo as we climbed up the narrow chute to put in new doors and adjust the pipes. We had only a flashlight to light our way and help see what we were doing. One of our silos didn’t have a roof covering it. When you looked up, you saw a round circle of black filled with stars. It was like looking through a gigantic telescope at the evening sky. The reason we kept working after dark was that we had to get the corn in fast so the people who owned the harvesting equipment could move on to the next farm and get their corn harvested. There wasn’t any time to waste.

Now I watch huge combines going through a field taking many rows at a time, while a large truck drives alongside and the silage is blown into the truck. When the truck is full, an empty truck pulls alongside and away they go again, with hardly a pause in the action. They can clear a large field in a very short time.
The corn on the fields of the back forty behind our house, disappears faster than Rolaids at a hot chili eating contest. Times have sure changed since the days of a one-row picker pulled behind a tractor. We thought things were really changing when we saw the first two-row picker mounted on the front of a tractor. 

I don't think many farmers climb up into the silo anymore either. Now silage is stored in concrete bunkers or those long, white, plastic “worms” you see around farms.    

                           

Harvesting corn is much more efficient these days, but I still like the magical world I still see, hear, and smell that lives on in my memories as I relive those days of helping fill silo after we got home from school. Eventually the night sky was filled with stars as we continued working into the night with our only lights provided by the tractors.

Besides the silo filling, there were chores to be done and cows to be milked. David and I usually ended up with those jobs while Dad kept driving tractor and hauling wagons from the field to the silo. We would have preferred doing the driving and unloading of wagons, but we weren’t given a choice. By the time we finished milking it was time for bed. Morning came all too soon. Then it was up and help with chores before heading off to Smith School. We usually walked the mile to school along Hwy.14. We joined neighbor, Sharon Midtlien first, and then hooked up with Beverly and Donna Jasperson. The five of us walked together, to and from school, almost every day. When there was silo filling to do, we walked a lot faster, so we could help haul and unload the wagons.The smell of silage brings back a lot of memories.

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