Silage: The Untold Story

Things you should know:

1. The title was just to draw you in. 
2. Sometimes I don't want to know. 

Silaging began this week at The Spittal. The short version of events is that Ivie et al cut the grass, pick it up, put it in a big heap and leave it till winter. Oh, and I don't see Ivie from morning till night. It's like lambing all over again but without the cute lambs to show for it. 

#lambing2020

Of course, there's much more to it than that. I went up the hill to take a look and have a five minute tractor date and kind of wished I hadn't. One of the team was in a big tractor driving (quickly!) up and down the big pile to make it neat, tidy and compact. Obviously if you've grown up around farming things like this are an everyday sight and don't phase you in the slightest (I've yet to find something that does phase Ivie to be fair). But for a townie like me it all looked like a precarious bucking bronco and I didn't like it one bit.

#silage2018
(apparently)

One of the things that you are never far from on the farm is the changing of the seasons. There's a time for everything and it all has a knock-on effect on other jobs and other parts of the year. 

• If there's not enough silage, it will be more expensive to feed the cows in winter. And farmers don't like spending money they don't have to.
• If there's not enough water, farmers spend time filling up troughs when there are plenty of other jobs to do. Like moaning about the weather. 
• And if you don't take the tups away from the ewes by a certain date lambing will go on beyond my birthday. And we don't want that. 

Don't laugh but when I first started seeing Ivie I did a bit of research into going out with a farmer. I found this on the Farmers Weekly website, which was more helpful than it looks. 

I put together my own rules for dating a farmer (Ivie specifically 😉), which include:

• Redefine dates - if you're not going to see your farmer for a while, go to them. This once involved a 90-minute drive to another farm but we got to spend the afternoon together. 
• Have a five minute date if that's all there's time for. Jump in the tractor for a blether about the day and a discussion about what's for tea. 
• Ban phones from the kitchen table! There are times when we only see each other at meal times and I definitely want to see Ivie's smiling face, rather than the top of his head. 
• Laugh every single day. 

The last one is non negotiable. 

#actualdate2018

Of course, there are aspects of silaging that I'll never understand. Did you know that #silage2020 is trending in certain circles these days? Nope me either. Apparently farmers post countless photos and videos of tractors, rows of grass and big machines (forage wagons and choppers, I'm told). That's one circle I'm happy to stand outside. Perhaps that's what's known as a crop circle...