Thursday, November 18, 2010

Home

This is the cob house.  It's appropriately named because it used to be the place where corn cobs were stored and used as fuel to heat the house for my grandparents.  In my lifetime it's been used as a storage shed.


In the lower right side of this picture is where we burn our trash.  On a farm we have no garbage service or dumpster.  Metal cans and glass have to separated to be taken to the big city of Newhall.  (Population: 955) The large cylinder to the left is the corn grain bin.  Corn has a much higher yield than soybeans - 3-4 times as much - so the corn bin is much larger.  What you can't see in this picture is either of the two large fans that pump air through the bin to dry the corn.  (But you can see the control boxes that run the fans.)  Corn comes in very wet from the fields and has to be dried.  My parents would routinely have $400 - $500 electricity bills October - December.  If they didn't dry the corn would mold.  And, yes, that is bad.

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