Day 7: Starting for Next Year

The crop is home, safely dried, and in the bin. Now is the time of year when we start fertilizing the fields for next year's crop.  Just like vegetables and other crops, corn and soybeans need some form of fertilizer.  Will they grow without fertilizer?....Sure, but not very well.  I'm guessing they would end up looking like the jungle my one year attempt at sweet corn evolved into, which in my mind isn't a very productive use of the land. 
For livestock farmers, its time to empty the pits.  Manure is organic fertilizer.  When you buy organic, its fertilized with, more likely than not, manure. No, its not particularly glamorous, but incredibly sustainable.  Farmers are the original recyclers; we've just evolved beyond the pitchfork, wheelbarrow, and garden.
We now have bigger pitchforks and bigger wheelbarrows

a drag hose manure applicator

a tanker manure wagon

and bigger gardens (corn fields).

For better or worse, I am somewhat of an expert in this area. I've spent a LOT of time calculating and helping farmers put a plan in place for how to rotate this fertilizer around the farm.  I've been called the Manure Queen.  When worked into a rotation, livestock farmers can fertilize the ground that they need to feed the livestock with the livestock themselves. Its truly one of the most natural cycles out there.  Manure contains Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium (N, P, and K), and these are the 3 main nutrients we need to grow corn.  We analyze the manure, and use that analysis to figure how much goes where in order to properly furnish next year's corn crop with what it needs to grow. 
Brent is spending his time going back and forth with the big orange wagon between our manure storage and an alfalfa field that will be rotated back to corn next spring.  It will take him 3 good weeks to finish the job, so here's hoping the weather cooperates enough to get this job finished before the ground freezes.

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Day 6: We're not done yet!

The crop is out of the field, but we aren't done yet! There is still a step (or two) to go. 
If the corn seed still had some moisture in it when it was harvested, then it needs to be dried before it can be stored.  Imagine if you took wet corn and put it in a closed tupperware container in the back of the cabinet.  In a very short time, you'd grow a beautiful blue mold on top, which is exactly what would happen to our corn in the bin, if we didn't dry it down first. Sometimes, we can let the corn simply stand (literally) in the field until it dries out naturally (like drying clothes on a clothesline), and some years that isn't possible - we must harvest the corn before snow falls, or the stalk begins to deteriorate enough that it can't support the weight of the corn ear, and we must harvest it before it falls down.  When the corn isn't dry enough for storage (preferably somewhere around 16% moisture or below), it must go through a drying process first.  The concept is pretty similar to the clothes dryer - heat it up enough to evaporate the water out. This can be pretty low tech - just using fans to blow air across/through the corn after its in the bin, and sometimes, we have to run it through the actual grain dryer - today's "What's That" item.  Here in northern Illinois, we end up having to dry our corn more years than not.  We have a limited window after the corn has matured and before snow comes to get the harvest safely in, and so we usually don't have time to let the corn dry naturally. 

We auger the wet corn in, dry it, and then auger the dry corn out into another bin.  It can even be hooked up to iPhones and computers.  Ours isn't quite that savvy. 

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Day 5: Harvest Equipment - Not Just a Combine

A combine isn't the only thing that is required to get the crop from the field to the bin.
Typically, most farmers use what is called a grain cart to speed up the process.  While Person #1 runs the combine, Person #2 runs the grain cart, virtually chasing the combine across the field, & catching the corn (or beans) from the combine's auger as the combine keeps going down the row.  This requires communication between the two operators (which can be the subject of another whole post, as this is a language unique to each set of operators, and if incorrectly interpreted by husband and wife, can lead to one person sleeping on the couch that night, or grain being dropped on the ground instead of being stowed safely in the wagon & bin).  My grandpa's signal for "stop" & "go faster" was the same signal.....thank god for cell phones & radios!

Hers's a great video

A grain cart is virtually a big wagon with an auger on it, so that it can be unloaded into a semi or another wagon for transport back to the bin (Person #3).

Here the grain cart unloads into the waiting wagon

Then, its back to the bin:

 

where an auger takes the corn from the wagon up into the bin.

It's not just as simple as running the combine or unloading a wagon, it takes a lot of time, people, and equipment to run all this equipment and harvest a crop.

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Day 4: Harvest Equipment, pt. 1 - The Combine

The combine - it is the monster of all farm equipment.  It is the most expensive thing that a farmer owns, and can cost more than our house!  This is my parent's combine outside our house in Little York, harvesting a corn field.  Not only is the machine itself expensive, but it requires 2 different front end attachments to harvest corn or soybeans (and another if you raise cotton).
                                                         
         Combining corn                                                                                     Combining soybeans

The combine actually cuts the stem of either plant close to the ground, and shells the seed from either the pod (soybeans) or the stalk/cob (corn).
As a child, I spent many hours with my Grandpa being absolutely mesmerized by the augers and action of the   combine head.  There was a bar that ran across the front of the cab that I was just tall enough to get my chin over to stare at the motion of this monster machine.
(In full disclosure, I have to admit that I grew up with a yellow (New Holland) combine, and the Pollard's have a red (Case) combine, but our combine was on the back half of the Seward farm, and I decided that I didn't need to run the car across the stalks to get pictures, so I'll try to get some red pictures to even out the scales in another post; though I am partial to green....)

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Day 3: Straw - the stuff clean pens are made of

Straw is another baled product, but instead of a foodsource (though it can be added in small amounts chopped up really fine into a cow's diet to give them extra fiber) it is used primarily for bedding.

Cows, and other animals, make a mess - there is no way around it.  But, if they are not given clean, dry bedding, then they can get cold and wet; usually leading to them becoming sick.  So, it is in our best interest to keep our animals as clean and dry as possible.  Straw is one of the main bedding sources used to do this.  It is lightweight and absorbent.

Straw is typically made from the "leftover" plant after harvesting wheat.  We don't grow any wheat on our farm, but instead, buy straw bales from other area farmers.  Wheat is a plant that grows over the winter.  It is planted in the fall, and grows green right now, and then goes dormant over the winter, awaking again in the spring.  It grows about 3-4' tall, and is harvested in the summer.  The seed head is contains the grain, and the remainder of the plant stem, can be raked and baled-just like hay.

 

Once on our farm, it is primarily used to bed our cows about to calve and young heifers.  We utilize what are called big square bales.  

Bales in storage

In the youngest calf pens, they also serve as windbreaks for the calves to hide behind.

 Here's hoping for another calm winter to make our straw supply last until next summer!

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Day 2: Hay is not just for horses

I've given a lot of presentations to community groups in non-farming areas.  I once got interrupted & asked "What is hay?".  I have always said there is no such thing as a stupid question, and this one isn't so I thought I'd try to answer it.
Hay is a feedstock made from a plant of some type (typically alfalfa, but it can also be grass, oats, or other small forages).  It goes through a process that can take up to 4 days depending on how wet the crop is when cut, hence, the saying "make hay while the sun shines".
First, it is cut using a mower that cuts the alfalfa plant down to within a couple inches from the ground:

Then, if it is to be baled, it is allowed to dry for a day or two, and then raked into a pile:

Then, baled into any one of 3 different shapes - small squares (we stopped using these a couple years ago, so I don't have any pictures handy, but picture the small bales of straw - which is the subject of day 3's post - that people have outside their houses as decor right now), large squares, or round bales like this one:

Brent standing on a round bale as a kid

And, fed to animals for food.

 

We may take as many as 5 cuttings off a single field of alfalfa in any summer, about 3-4 weeks apart as the plant regrows.  Alfalfa is a perennial plant, and so we are able to repeat this for 3-4 years.  The plant will continue to grow for longer, but imagine like your yard - it eventually gets crabgrass and dandelions growing in it, and so we will cultivate the field and plant another crop (usually corn) for at least a year before returning it to alfalfa.

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Day 1: A Dirty Laundry Room

Ok, this is something that is found in nearly every house I'm sure, but ours is made much more so by the addition of nearly 200 washcloth-sized towels needing to be washed every day.

Every cow comes in the parlor, needing to have her udder cleaned before the milking machine is attached.  We do our best to keep the barn as clean as possible, but they are cows, and they do get dirty.  We use towels, one for each cow, each milking (hence the nearly 200 towels - 100 cows twice a day).  These towels must be washed before being used again, creating the buildup in the laundry room.  We used to use disposable paper towels (just like the brown paper towels in most school washrooms), but we found that not only do these create less trash, but they are cheaper because they last longer, and they are nicer (aka softer) for the cows.  A box of towels will last us about 5 years.  We demote old towels to rags or wrappings for injured cows' feet, so nothing goes to waste.

We work hard to make sure that the milk you drink is as clean as possible as it leaves the cow, regardless of the udder mess it makes of our laundry room.

(The brown wall color was a conscience choice for this room!)    

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