October 3, 2008

View of the day-The good old days...this tractor is in retirement, watching the world go by.

How many ways can we describe the beautiful days we have been having...the warmth, the colors, the harvesting...just perfect.

Al got a ride out to the field with the farmer to get the auger moved and Marilyn got lunch ready then serviced and started combining by 10:30am. We got the first field finished then moved over to the last 90 acres we have to do in Canada...kind of bittersweet with the weather being what it is.

And speaking of weather...we are constantly watching the weather channels and have a couple of weather bugs on the computer...one from the US weather channel and one from a Canadian source. It was interesting to compare them this week, with the US one predicting rain on the weekend...60% chance on Sunday and Monday, while the Canadian one said clear sailing straight through to next weekend (Oct 11). We were wondering how they could be so far apart in their forecasting...the Canadian one did come up to 10% for Sunday in it's forecast, but still...we'll be watching...

About mid-day, Marilyn thought she heard a strange sound coming from the header so Al jumped in the combine to see if he could pinpoint it. Marilyn heard what sounded like metal ticking...something hitting somewhere, and Al heard a squeaking...perhaps a bearing, he thought. This wasn't going well. Upon further investigation it turned out to be a large eyebolt that adjusts the big auger in the pickup header...it had broken off flush with the adjusting nut.

We had no shop...it was back at the camper...so we had to "McGyver" a fix. We found an extra nut and screwed the two halves in so that the break was in the middle and it worked like a charm for the rest of the day.

We lost an hour with the fixing, but even so, Marilyn was able to get another 100+ acre day. Al left with the loaded General around 9:00pm and Marilyn kept on going until the grain cart and combine were full leaving around 30 acres for tomorrow. Al wanted to get in to watch the Saskatchewan Roughrider's play football on TV. They haven't been doing too good the last few games and we figured it was because Marilyn had been flying a Roughriders flag...that's when the down hill slide started. There were two phone calls and one call on the radio before the game requesting the flag be pulled, or at the very least put at half mast on the combine ladder. Marilyn left it up until half time and when it seemed like they were starting to lose their lead...it came out of the holder an into the cab...and they won. Coincidence? Perhaps.

We finally got to see the moon for about half an hour...a little sliver of a thing seemed to pop up then sink out of sight leaving it black again...

It sure made the northern lights stand out...