Rambling on and on and on about farming, food and astronomy. Astronomy? Yep. Farming and astronomy go together like garlic and basil, tomatoes and peppers, ice cream and bacon.

21st October 2011

Photo with 23 notes

I ran out of time to finish this post, but better late than never. This is the second oldest silo out on the farm, It was put up in the 40s, if I remember correctly. It’s been unused for at least 20 years now. I hated those silos, mainly because I’m terrified of heights and having to crawl up those things to hang the forage blower pipes every fall was a nerve-wracking experience. Of course there was no such thing as safety equipment. Safety harness was an arm hooked through one of the rungs. This past summer the old silo was re-purposed, but not for anything I had intended. It became the home for a colony of bats! Before you go “Eeek!” with horror I should remind you that bats are an essential part of the world’s ecology, and are very important in keeping down flying insect population and some species are even polinators. So I was actually pleased that the little stinkers had moved in, and it was probably due largely to them that the farm was not infested with mosquitos this past summer. So what else is going on? Well, not much at the farm itself. We’re moving foward with the legal stuff that’s going to be necessary, like forming a LLC, getting the well tested, looking for contractors to inspect the old barn and see if it can be salvaged. We’re looking into what might be commercially viable produce to plant next spring. clean up and repair continue, meanwhile. We’ve been working on the electrical systems. Had to replace several electrical boxes in the barn to get electrical service working properly. The wiring was fine, but the boxes had almos literally rotted away. Replaced those and got power restored. Got water down in the barn now as well! now we’re trying to figure out what to do with literally tons and tons and tons of chopped hay and straw up in the barn!

I ran out of time to finish this post, but better late than never. This is the second oldest silo out on the farm, It was put up in the 40s, if I remember correctly. It’s been unused for at least 20 years now.

I hated those silos, mainly because I’m terrified of heights and having to crawl up those things to hang the forage blower pipes every fall was a nerve-wracking experience. Of course there was no such thing as safety equipment. Safety harness was an arm hooked through one of the rungs.

This past summer the old silo was re-purposed, but not for anything I had intended. It became the home for a colony of bats! Before you go “Eeek!” with horror I should remind you that bats are an essential part of the world’s ecology, and are very important in keeping down flying insect population and some species are even polinators. So I was actually pleased that the little stinkers had moved in, and it was probably due largely to them that the farm was not infested with mosquitos this past summer.

So what else is going on? Well, not much at the farm itself. We’re moving foward with the legal stuff that’s going to be necessary, like forming a LLC, getting the well tested, looking for contractors to inspect the old barn and see if it can be salvaged. We’re looking into what might be commercially viable produce to plant next spring.

clean up and repair continue, meanwhile. We’ve been working on the electrical systems. Had to replace several electrical boxes in the barn to get electrical service working properly. The wiring was fine, but the boxes had almos literally rotted away. Replaced those and got power restored. Got water down in the barn now as well!

now we’re trying to figure out what to do with literally tons and tons and tons of chopped hay and straw up in the barn!

Tagged: farmagriculturesiloold

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  1. krippner posted this