Our Silage Saga

Wow, it has been a busy few weeks! I’ll start off by filling you in on our silage saga and a saga it was. I don’t think I could have written about it before now as I would just have ranted and ranted so I had to get all that out of my system!

For anyone that doesn’t know, silage is long grass that we cut and put into a large pit, covering it to preserve it and it is fed to the cattle in the winter. It’s important to get it cut dry but also cut it before it gets too strong or shoots out. With the drastic changes in temperature and the severe rain we’ve had, it hasn’t exactly been great silage-making weather!

Suffice to say that our contractors didn’t turn up when they were supposed to and with a bad forecast and rain dropping steadily, we weren’t terribly happy. Let’s just say we had words!!

We eventually got it in over a week ago over the weekend but it really isn’t great – we’ve got 5 silage pits of grass that went too strong and is wet and should have been cut over a week earlier. 5 pits of s**t to be honest. ?It’s not proving to be a great year for farming this month – milk price is down which meant a difference of ?3,000 to our milk cheque this month compared to what the price was in April and we’re baling grass at the moment which are poor in quality but has gone too strong for cows to eat in the field. Last year, we made great silage when the weather was good and baled good grass in paddocks which made a huge difference to keeping up the protein in the milk in ?the late autumn/early winter.

I did get a little bit of revenge on the contractors though! ?We feed them when they are working here and I’d usually do something like beef or chicken casseroles as they are easy to serve up and if they are an hour late for dinner, I can just turn the oven down and they don’t dry up. I went to the freezer on the Saturday night and spotted all our goat gigot chops which we’re not so keen on (prefer the little chops). We had been teasing one of the guys the previous year that the next time he came we’d have goat and he’d made it clear he wouldn’t be too keen on it. ?Well, let’s just say I cooked a lot of goat for their Sunday dinner. It does look and taste quite like lamb so if they didn’t know, they wouldn’t be any the wiser but there wouldn’t be any fun in that would there??

So I was serving up the dinner for the last guy in and some of the first guys in had finished theirs and others were half way through when I casually asked one of them how he had liked the goat. ?’That’s not goat’, he said slightly aghast. ‘Oh, it is’, I assured him ‘His name was Rolo, he was one of last year’s kids, like the ones out in the field. Now, would anyone like any more goat?’. No one took any more but they all finished what they were eating, looking slightly scared of what I might do to them and wondering what dessert was going to be.

Then, when they all went out, they could see the goats in the field and knew what they might get for dinner next year if they were lucky enough to come back and if they didn’t do as they promised!

It is true what they say – Revenge is sweet 🙂

Photos are from previous years silage cutting.

6 thoughts on “Our Silage Saga

  • Yvonne

    Lorna, I just love the picture. It reminds me of when my granny used to carry tea out to granda in the fields. A million years ago …
    P.S. Guess what arrived in the mail today?? Thank you!!

    Reply
    • Lorna

      Glad to hear you liked it Yvonne, I’ve been so busy I haven’t checked this blog for a few days so apologies for the delay in approving your comment 🙂

      Reply
    • Lorna

      I’m fine thanks Mona, that’s one thing about farming, there’s always ups and downs – life is never boring! – a huge cold sore erupted the other day which I think was a message!! I’d been busy with the parish book, blog awards and some teaching too so it has been a busy 3 weeks. Looking forward to the kids getting their hols and once Kate’s dance show thing is over and I’ve one presentation next week, I’m going to wind down a bit for the summer then 🙂

      Reply
    • Lorna

      🙂
      Feeling sorry for neighbours tonight, heavy rain came at 9pm and they had to stop cutting silage. Forecast for tomorrow is awful. Bad enough bringing in s**** but having to pay out ?10K for it makes it worse!

      Reply

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