July 12

View of the day- "threading the needle", dumping into the farmers grain wagon...the opening is only two feet across. The lazik eye surgery pays off!

Perfect weather, actually pleasant for Hamill, no 100 degree days...yet. We drove into Winner, about 22 miles SW of town, to get our harvest permits, a new spare tire for the camper, and the "F" word...that's right - fuel. We got back to Hamill, got the combine freshened up and moved out to the first field, which was pretty much right in town, two blocks from the camper.

Once we got rolling, it didn't take very long to get the first load, it was running around 50 bushels/acre. Al was hauling to Winner so his round trip to the elevator, without factoring a line up was about 90 minutes. The field was only 35 acres, but was lying down real bad in places, which slowed everything down. That was a good thing for Al because he never fell behind with hauling.

Well that, and a broken bar on the feeder chain. Marilyn heard a noise coming from the feeder house, and upon investigation found the source. Now this took a bit of doing, since the feeder inspection door is below the cab, and short of hanging off the ladder and flipping the switch with your big toe, it really is a two person job. Trying to get the broken bar to the top meant a lot of up and down the ladder...but who doesn't need exercise? Once found, it was a matter of taking two bolts out and it was back to making dust.

Marilyn finished and moved the combine to the next field, about five miles NW of town and got a ride back from the farmer to bring the tractor and cart. Al moved the truck over and the farmer brought out his own grain buggy to fill with seed wheat from the field, giving us some extra room for the 40+ bushel wheat.

Al was able to make 5 trips before the elevator finally shut down for the night, and by the time he made it back, Marilyn had the truck, both carts and the combine full and was waiting. He found a fuel truck filling up a farmer's grain truck on the side of the highway, and got him to come into Hamill to fill our slip tank for the combine. This saved an extra trip into Winner for fuel, because Lord knows, we don't like to drive too much.

We are 1/3 of the way done here, and if all goes well, we could be done by Sunday.

But let's not jinx things by saying that...