Although I’ve mentioned some of my favorite smells in previous stories, I didn’t list them in order. My very first favorite smell is fresh cut hay about a day after its cut. My 2^nd favorite smell is aged silage. When Tim and I were kids, we raised a lot of beef cattle on the farm. We had about 50 head on our farm and 50 head at Burnham’s farm just up the road about 1 mile and a half. We used to farm 3 other farms in addition to ours (Greeno’s, Gillespi’s, and Burnham’s.) Tim has upheld the cattle tradition by having around 60 head of them on our farm and a few at the other farm on Tennent Rd.

 

When we were young and our father was still living, they used to feed the cattle silage. Since we didn’t have a silo at our place, they put it in round snow fence “silos”. However, there was a silo at Burnham’s. One of my chores was to go with our father to Burnham’s each evening to feed and bed down the cattle. After spreading straw with a pitchfork, I would climb up the ladder to the top of the silo and throw down silage into a silage cart, using a silage fork. I have a silage fork to clean my horse stalls and every time I do, my thoughts go back to throwing down the silage with a silage fork. I looked forward to that chore at Burnham’s because I loved the smell of aged silage so much! Unfortunately, Tim doesn’t feed silage to the cattle. This is mainly do to the fact that the equipment needed is too expensive and he needs the acreage for feed corn. Just a curious statistic here, did you know that about 75% of corn grown in the U.S. is for animal feed.  Silos are a vanishing icon these days because very few people have cattle any more around this area. About the only places I’ve seen silage is on dairy farms and they are few and far between around here. Even when I do see silage on a dairy farm, it’s piled in an enclosure on the ground and covered with a huge plastic tarp and held down with old tires. There are a few old silos still around at old abandoned farms. The tops are usually silver colored and look like observatory domes. Hmmm, I’m sure all of you have seen old silos so I don’t have to go into a detailed description. Oh well, since I like writing about this subject, just indulge me for a while. The one thing you may not have noticed or are aware of is the short lead pipe protruding through the silo at on angle at the bottom of most old silos. These were for dispensing “silage juice” which is a very potent form of alcohol. This was a cheap way for farmers to get a “buzz”. Since most silage is made from green corn stalks and young ears of corn, I suppose the juice was like moonshine from the fermenting corn. Probably close to 200 proof! I wonder if the farmers back then had livers?

 

DISCLAIMER!

At this point, if you are squeamish or have a weak stomach, skip the following paragraph and read it way before or after you have eaten breakfast, lunch or supper!

 

One time when I was up in the silo throwing down silage, I found a dead barn owl. It was very maggot infested. I took it down, threw it in the back of the pickup truck and took it home and nailed it to the siding outside the house under the porch roof. I hung it by nailing through each spread out wing. It looked like the scene from “The Silence of the Lambs” where Hannibal ate the guts out of the police officer guard and hung him up spread eagled! Why our parents allowed me to do this is a complete mystery. They probably figured this was one of the very few “harmless” things Tim and/or I had done. Things like old decaying maggot infested dead things never bothered us then. In fact one time…. Never mind, THIS would really gross you out!!!

 

Every year, I looked forward to baling hay and making silage. The silage harvester pulled a silage wagon behind it and was pulled with a tractor. It was powered by the “power take off” on the tractor. It would cut the green corn stalks, chop them up, and blow them into the silage wagon. When it came time to fill the silo, the wagon was backed to the long trough in the silage silo filler. This worked off a special pulley on the tractor with a long wide belt. Only old tractors have these pulleys. We have some old tractors on the farm, so I took a pic of the pulley (see pic below). The silage filler blew the silage up a long pipe that was fastened to the side of the silo. I always wondered how it could blow that much silage way up at the top of the silo so high up. It had a big roar to it as it was running. The silage wagons had a chain on the bottom that had slats and slowly moved forward as the silage was loaded into the trough. This was done by using forks, bent at 90 degrees to move the silage into the trough. The trough had an auger to move the silage into the blower. We had to be careful not to get any hands or loose clothing into the auger or WE would be blown up into the silo through the narrow tube! Modern tractors have no such pulleys since very few farmers fill silos these days. Moreover, even if they did, I’m sure silage silo fillers work off a power take off these days. I haven’t seen anyone filling a silo with one of these fillers since I was a kid. Alas, another thing of the past! (Where’s that genie that can allow you to go back into time???) Of all my childhood memories growing up on our farm, baling hay and making silage are my two favorites! I consider myself very blessed to be able to come back and once again live at our family farm with dogs, cats, horses, chickens, turkeys, cattle, and various other animals from time to time! Tim, Sue, and I are the 5^th generation on this farm. We have one of the very few family farms in this area still in existence. Just like Tara for Scarlet O’Hara, this place is where I draw strength and comfort! I am indeed very fortunate and very blessed!