216 harvest

The corn harvest—cow corn, that is... the corn meant for our species is another harvest story—started last month, and although a number of fields are now shorn, plenty of acreage remains green and growing. But, with rain threatening tomorrow, it was time for a local farmer to bring in the proverbial sheaves. Of course, it's been years... decades or more... since scythe-wielding workers would slice through the corn and stack the bounty into sheaves that would then dry enough to be ready to store; these days, "bringing in the sheaves" is done with machinery that renders the entire plant into a kind of gruel known as silage. This yellow gold is sprayed into the bins of waiting trucks and then hauled to sweet-smelling silage piles that, if everything goes right, will keep the dairy cows fat and happy all winter.