Silage

Saturday we went to a picnic at a dairy farm sponsored by the hospital Dr. Pediatrician works for. Every September they hold a magnifiicent picnic, with fantastic door prizes, pumpking painting, and other fun festivities for families. This year the picnic was at a large, large, large dairy farm. Ms. Crazy Preschooler rode a wagon pulled by large horses to a pumpkin patch to retrieve pumpkins to paint in the hay loft of a wonderful, wooden rustic red barn. We crawled inside the trauma airlift helicopter. We rode a school bus to and from the picnic (getting the stroller on the school bus was an adventure in itself). It was a hot, sticky day, but magnificent fun.

My favorite part of all, however, was the scent of silage. Upon disembarking from the bus when we arrived at the dairy farm, the soft, comforting aroma of silage hung in the air around me like a thick and fuzzy blanket. It grew stronger as we passed the tall silos, nearly empty from last season's corn, I would imagine. Corn chopping season was always my favorite time of the year when I was a child an lived on a farm. When my dad would start chopping the corn I'd arise at the crack dawn, put on my hooded, zip up sweatshirt and swing on my swingset all day long, coming in only to use the bathroom and eat. I'd watch the tractors pulling wagons filled with freshly chopped corn down the driveway, around the corner and in back of our trailer house to the silage pile. They'd dump the silage in little heaps and my papa would smash it down tight with his green Oliver tractor. I'd pretend that the harder and higher I'd swing, the faster the corn would get chopped, and this made me feel useful. The farmers that came to help my dad and papa would wave at me as they drove in and out of the farmyard from the field from sun up to sundown. I'd wave back cheerfully.

My mother always hated living next to the silage pile, particularly on the third day after corn chopping had begun, when the bottom of the silage pile started to ferment. But I always enjoyed the stench. Later it came to represent the beginning of school, comforting homework, the relieve of academic busyness and the onset of crisp fall air.