Tuesday, June 17th

**Disclaimer: I am not a real farmer. I don't know much about why things are done here at the commodity barn. I weigh the trucks full of silage, record it in the computer, and take dry matter samples. I know how to do these things.  I've been trained. However,  mostly everything else is a beautiful mystery. I take every opportunity to learn new things and have new life experiences. And hopefully at the end of the summer I'll be star employee! So just remember as you read my glorious adventure... I am but a newbie to this thing called farm life.**


Best job ever!!! I get to wear boots, be outside, drive my truck, bring a cooler, sit in my chair, climb silage mountains, and drive an occasional piece of heavy equipment. Now you should know that I'm the only "female" (that's what my kind are called on the farm). I think that is the reason they let me on the huge tractor things... to see what I'll do like when you hold something just outside of some baby's reach. Is the baby going to cry, walk to get it, make some ridiculous face, say "gimme dat", you get the idea. That's what I think it is like for the male population here on the farm... what will I do. Haha. Mostly I'll just be overly excited to do things like drive a front end loader or stick my arm all the way in the mountain to get a dry matter sample.

Sidenote "female" story: Because I'm a female, Curtis, my trainer and new friend, had to show me where the closest bathroom is. He said, "It's cuz you females need things like that toilet paper." Of course he also said sometimes people come from down the road to steal the toilet paper and that's why there's a padlock on the door. I thought that was maybe a bit much but nope, yesterday evening the lock was unlocked and no toilet paper to be found. So, this morning I added toilet paper in my truck. I packed literally everything I thought I might need over a 12 hour period in it, except toilet paper. I'll blog an inventory of my truck one day when it's real slow.

Things are slow sometimes and sometimes we have lots are trucks coming in and out. This will hopefully be a good way to pass the time.

A fact I learned today: In silage, corn kernels cannot be whole. They have to be cracked or crushed. Cows can't digest whole kernels all that well and will almost immediately eliminate them. Or something like that...