Finished chopping corn

While I enjoyed one more week in Manitoba (with one to go), Garry finally finished making his silage pile for the cows. He was hoping to finish by Tuesday, but a breakdown on the chopper made them wait from Monday to Thursday evening for the part to be made by a machine shop in Dnepro. They finally got it Thursday evening and got back to work later on Friday morning after putting the machine back together.

 They were selling wheat Friday morning (from the storage building that had to be loaded into a truck) so they had some delays getting the chopper back together. They plan to buy a bigger better plow that will work on the new tractor with the proceeds of selling a couple loads of wheat.
Luckily the chopper held together for 14 loads Friday and the last 18 on Saturday and they covered the pile with plastic. Garry tells me they will need to fix a few things for next year, including the blower that shoots the silage into the wagon.

 He tells me there is definitely more corn silage to feed the cows than last year, but he says it's hard to tell how much more. Quality is much better however, you can see more grain in the silage than last year (corn silage is made by chopping up the whole plant while it is still somewhat green, cobs and all, the more grain the higher protein in the mix of cobs, leaves and stalks). 

The other cornfield and some short rows in this field that they left standing will be combined for grain in the fall. While some parts of this field were very good, some were not good, mostly because they were unable to get it all watered when they wanted. This new field is large and slightly uphill, so the water did not flow as well as they thought it would. They are limited by the amount of water pressure in the irrigation pipe, and they can only pump water at night when the water is being pumped through the lines. Next year they plan to purchase a water pump that will be movable (on a wagon) so they can make more pressure and get up to ten times more water on where they want. If they can get a small irrigation gun to shoot water onto a field, they may even irrigate some alfalfa, and get more hay off less acres.

So the irrigation project is a success, but it could be better. The guys have been busy rolling up the irrigation lines. The big lay flat is rolled up and put away for next year, and they have pulled up all the plastic tape from every row and a truck is supposed to come pick it up to recycle and they will pay for us for it. They will also take the bales of plastic tubing from last year that are sitting near the house. It is not reusable, we have to buy miles of it every year. The rest of the irrigation equipment is stored away for next year.

I was talking to Garry this morning before I left for church in Steinbach; afternoon there, of course and he was off to breed a cow in Molazaharina. He said he'd already bred a cow in that same village earlier today after church. He was also telling me about the lady last week who didn't want to pay after he bred her cow because she said that it should be free because he'd already bred her this year. Garry said fine, then don't call me to breed any more of your cows! She finally decided to pay 200 instead of 250 grivna. I guess he'll go back sometime. Hopefully, that cow is pregnant.

Meanwhile, here in the center of Canada, we are dealing with smoke from the west.