September 25

View of the day-Supper in the field...or, at least, in the shop.

We headed for town first thing in the morning and while Marilyn had her hearing test, Al dropped off a toy tractor for one of his friends. Once Marilyn received the results that there is nothing wrong with her hearing, Mumbles...err...Al picked her up and we went in search of answers to the transmission dilema.

The first truck shop we went to printed us off some pages of a service manual so we could see how the parts were supposed to fit together. We had a quick breakfast and then left for Balcarres, first stopping north of Melville at another truck shop that had worked on our truck in the past. He actually had a dismantled transmission, so we could see exactly what we were up against in trying to get the part back where it belonged.

Back at the camper, we went right to work on the truck and after about an hour we had everything put together...with no parts left over-a good sign. We replaced the PTO cable that had broken, then Al took the truck for a test drive...woo hoo...it worked perfectly, and a lesson was learned about asking for instructions before dismantling things.

The farmer invited us to a "supper in the field" that he had won in a draw from his local farm input supply dealer. Al had his heart set on going to the hockey game in Yorkton and talked of nothing else during the day. Marilyn mentioned that they would be having steaks, be only 100 yards from the camper, wouldn't have to drive all the way to Yorkton, then all the way back late at night...Al decided to stay for the supper instead. Since there was no combining today, even with the sun shining and the wind blowing, rather than have the meal in the field it was moved to the shop. It was still a bit cool, but with the wood stove stoked up, and a steady flow of "antifreeze", things kept pretty warm. Lots of story telling and laughs, and the "easy button" came out even though the harvest isn't done yet.

That couldn't be bad luck, could it...