Filling the bunk

 

Excitement and some dust in the air as as many as ten tractor/wagon and trucks raced up and down the street hauling corn silage from the field to the bunk yesterday. A couple of students are opening the gates on wagons, so the drivers don't have to get out. One wagon tipped over in the bunk (they dump from the side, and someone didn't have the front and back wheels square) which slowed things down for a bit in the morning but they got a chain and pulled it back upright so the others could get back to dumping loads in the bunk.

Of course other things broke, Garry had a flat tire on the skid steer first thing, so it took a while to make the cows' breakfast in the TMR. After they got things going smoothly with the silage, I rode along to Zaporosia with him around eleven am to get the tire fixed (new valve stem). The first shinomontage didn't have the right one, the second could do it but was busy changing tires on a big truck! We went to McDonald's to kill some time, they had told Garry maybe an hour, it was just finished when we returned. Garry insisted he was too dirty to pay at the counter, so we ordered on the screen and he sat down while I got in line to pay cash. 

It was nearly one when we got home and Garry saw a new tractor/ wagon combo going past, that was when they got up to ten. They had a couple KAMAZ trucks, a couple wagons from the last farm they had done silage at in Molozaharina, we are paying them by tons hauled. Garry says they drive slower. One wagon was actually a giant manure spreader! Our own guys speed along with tractors and wagons, plus I  think they have hired anybody who has a tractor and usable wagon in the village and borrowed some big yellow wagons from the big Petropol farm, too.

By the time they finished last night around dark they were down to six, three broken wagons and one guy went home. One of our wagons had hit the tractor pulling it, but Max said he would have it running again by morning. Which was good, because the custom chopper guys said last night that they would stay until lunchtime today after all, so we should be able to finish up and not go for a couple days with ours to finish filling the bunk.

I took a photo of the bunker while Bear and I were walking this morning, and the loads started going by around 8:30. Hopefully, all will go well, they started with six vehicles, including two KAMAZ trucks, but by ten Max said they were up to eight. Yesterday Max ordered lunch and dinner for the crew from a restaurant for 100 grivna per person (about four dollars US)  including soup and meat, I'm told.

The milk truck came this morning, and Garry was fixing a broken water pipe when we walked by the barn. We did 2 1/4 miles this morning, saw the ducks on the pond.