Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Robert W Greif - 2/2/2017 16:16
Don’t remember about the twine.
And do not remember ever being real close to the cutter while it was running.
I bet Mom did not want me near. Too much chance of getting hurt.
But I doubt if it was removed.
Also something that was done in the old days when filling a silo.
In the cutter U-Tube below you can see a spout hanging down from the elbow at the top. These were called Barrels.
Had short chains on them and the barrels were tapered. Could make a long string of them.
There would be somebody up inside the silo. barrels hanging almost of the way down. And a rope tied onto the lower barrel.
The person inside would walk around the silo as it was being filled. Moving the point were the silage was landing.
And by walking on it, packing it down.
A dirty job.
Could be a Urban Legend, I guess Rural Legend.
But I have heard older farmers talking about having a horse, mule or whatever in the silo.
Walking the animal around to pack the silage down.
When done, Shoot the horse and over the side he went.
I don’t know.
They called it tromping the silage, having a guy or two in the silo to direct the stream from the blower and walk around to tromp it down. It must have been one gawdawful hot, humid, miserable job. I hope they didn't have spider mites back then.
WAY before my time in the old neighborhood in western Oregon, the cast of characters included the notoriously cheap neighbor across the road, and a hired man with only one arm. Putting up silage was a great lot of work so various people worked together and/or hired extra help. Anyway, they were filling the cheap neighbor's silo and the one armed man took the job of tromping. So the silo got filled and when it was time to pay all the help, the cheap neighbor only payed the one armed man half as much as everyone else. It didn't matter that tromping only required one arm to run the rope and that the man had two feet, the cheap neighbor would only pay him half wages. Imagine how something like that would go over now.
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How were the silo's filled days gone by?
