August 31

View of the day-We're not the only ones with problems. This Cat has hair balls, and it's trying to swallow the hired man!

Another early start to the day, not necessarily combining, although we did get rolling before noon. It was a weird day, weather wise...hot (for here), windy and with a haze in the air. It was reminiscent of Oklahoma, right up to the plethora of combines making dust in the area.

We finished the quarter of barley we were on around 5pm and moved a couple miles south to the other half section of barley. The farmer moved over first and opened up a parking lot for the trucks and carts. Those first rounds can have treasures hiding in them, as the picture will attest. The hired man did find the rocks that were jamming up the works, and was rolling within a half an hour of parking.

Things were going way to good. Just as Marilyn was making the last pass around a slough, the combine started making some interesting noises and the rotor alarm went off. She shut off the back end and headed over to the truck to dump and inspect which of the belts in the back was responsible for the heavy blue haze and aroma of burning rubber. Al went up to check it out and found the rotor belt had completely shredded...no problem, we have a spare one tied up in the rotor compartment ready to be installed for just such an occasion.

Upon further inspection, the remnants of the rotor belt had tightly wrapped around twice between a pulley and gearbox and there appeared to be an oil leak from somewhere that we couldn't see. It was impossible to get the belt out, it was jammed that tight, it was also getting dark. We decided to go back to the camper and check what the service manual could tell us and deal with it in the daylight.

Al is sure someone is giving him a sign...