What are we doing in this picture? Wrong answers only in the comments. But we would be shocked if anyone had the correct answer anyway. We will update this post in a few days with the answer.
(Update) We are storing silage in barrels. Silage is corn fodder that is converted into livestock feed through fermentation.
That morning a team of participants had harvested the feed corn. (Most corn in Japan is grown for livestock feed.) The corn stalks are cut at the base.
In the afternoon we ran the entire stalks, including the leaves and the ears, through a wood chipper. That leaves a large pile of shredded corn. You can see some of it on the ground.
What we are doing in the photo is putting the corn fodder into barrels with some ground rice husk to encourage fermentation. While Chrys sat on the overturned barrel to the left of the picture, Scott would put three pitchforks full of corn material into the barrel, then two handfuls of rice husks, and mix it up a bit. Then Chrys would get into the barrel and stomp it down. She has plastic bags on her boots to prevent dirt from the boots getting into the barrel.
Repeat until the barrel is full. Our team filled up about 15 barrels over two days.
There are two methods of compressing the material in the barrels. Chrys opted for the stomping method, but some of the younger and more energetic team members opted for more of a jumping method, shown in the video.
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