About a year ago the Farm was given a 90+ year old wooden silo. If you have driven the country much you have no doubt seen hundreds of silos. The question is, do you know what they are used for? Because a lot of people don't know that answer we thought it would be a great addition to the current exhibits at the Farm. Our dream was to stand the 30 plus foot silo in the Heritage Center and get people inside of it to learn about the history of the silo, how they were made and what they were used for. To develop this idea, Wagner staff has been working with exhibit designer Kevin Snow of Ravenswood Studio to create this new exhibit. For the blog, I thought it would be neat to periodically show the steps that we are going through for this project.
At this point we have taken the concept drawings and showed them to the building commissioner to see what code and access issues we will need to consider. We have also taken the plans to a structural engineer to better understand the design elements that will need to be included to ensure a strong, safe exhibit. By doing these steps early in the process we will hopefully have a design that is approved on the first round of reviews.
So what does a silo hold? Silage. This is green corn (stock,ear and all) that has been chopped into small bits for cattle feed. The silage actually ferments and makes a hot, sweet feed that the animals absolutely love.
