July 29

View of the day-Al finally gets into the wheat swaths.

Such a day. We went out for an early lunch to beat the church crowd and then went out to the field to get the combine and retrieve the pickup head. It had been dropped off in a pasture a mile away from the field, when we moved through in May.

First off one of the small gauge wheels had gone flat over the month or so that it had been sitting there. That wouldn't have been so bad if the valve hadn't dropped inside and the tube inside had twisted, making it almost impossible to pump back up. We just set that aside for the time being to get the rest of the header greased and the chains oiled.

Then we notice one of the eye bolts that tighten the belts had broken but was still lined up due to the pressure from the rollers. With nothing open in town for parts, we were able to add another nut which fit over the cracked bolt and stabilized the tightener.

Woo hoo we thought, now we can get rolling, we just had to test it. Well apparently it was tightened just a hair too much, and the outside belt started riding over one of the dividers and split at the lacing where it joined together. We decided to take the belt right off, after all there are seven of them, would we miss one on the end?

Marilyn managed to spin the tube in the gauge wheel until she found the valve stem and we were able to pump it up, although we could hear the air leaking, we decided to just "shut up and drive".

We finally got rolling around 3pm...so much for a productive day, at least the swather man was getting ahead of us. Al started out combining, and for a change, nothing got wrecked (not counting the first three hours of the afternoon). Combining worked without the belt, and because the swaths hadn't had time to settle too much and were big and fluffy, the gauge wheel didn't have to ride on the ground to pick everything up.

We still managed to get 50 acres done before the sun went down and Al was able to keep up with just one truck, making it back before Marilyn had to wait with a full hopper. At the end of the day, Al got to go in early with the full truck but couldn't dump it because the elevator closed early on Sunday. Marilyn combined a full hopper for the farmer to save for seed, although they decided not to bring out their truck until tomorrow. Not to often we leave wheat on the combine over night, but there is no forecast for rain, and the grain was testing 9% for moisture...boy, how quick things turn around.

Tomorrow we finish the winter wheat, or else...