August 29

View of the day-First on the bus for the first day of school.

We were roused this morning with at knock at the camper door at 7am. Al got up and checked, but it looked like it was a prank...no one was there. Gordie had decided since he had to get up early for the first day of school, we should be up too. Marilyn went in for coffee and to see him off, while Al kept his pillows from floating away.

We went to town to pick up our clutch cable but the courier hadn't dropped it off yet, so we went for breakfast. As we walked into the restaurant, we ran into an old friend from Grayson, who was working in the area and had a quick catch up on what was happening in his life. We had just sat down and ordered our breakfast when a harvester that we had worked with in the area last year came in for breakfast too. He was staying at the motel we were having breakfast at and was working in the area again. We had another recap of how his summer had been going. We had contacted him when we were in Tuttle to see if he could finish up some work that we couldn't get to, and the last time we had seen him was in Alva, OK. As a matter of fact, he was in the group shot in the "view of the day" at the motel.

We got our part and put it on the General...good as new(well, new for the General). We put the chaff skirt on the combine and then tried to figure out where we were going to combine, since the weather was finally cooperating.

One farmer tested his wheat and it was 17.8 at 2pm, we went out and took the "portable combine" and tested the barley and it was 14.5. It needed to be 13.5, so we waited a bit, then got the "go ahead" to move the machines out to a different field and just start in on it. We decided to move the combine and General, towing the pickup behind it. We got everything hooked up just as Gordie was coming off the school bus so he came along with us, riding in the General with Al. We didn't even make it 1/4 mile from the yard when a couple of bolts broke on the hitch and the pickup was wanting to pass the grain truck. We pulled the grain truck into an approach and just took the pickup and combine the 8 miles to the field. We'll get that hitch working yet.

We did a second test once we got to the field, then stopped to get it tested at the Ag Service Centre where Marilyn's sister works...it was down to 13.8...woo hoo! The wheat had gotten down to 14.4%, but we had already moved, so the barley was where we were staying. After we got back to the camper, Marilyn took the General out to the field and Al brought the tractor and cart, and at 5pm we finally got rolling.

We combined about 30 acres, then called it a night. We had to call to get a ride home since we had left the pickup at the camper when we went back for the grain truck and cart. Kim was just getting home from combining at his field of barley, so he picked us up. He made a point of telling us that a big raccoon had crawled up into the back axle of his semi trailer and must have rode along back to the yard...great.

The semi is only parked 50 feet from the camper...