November 11, 2008

View of the day-Al giving the General a boost after it had been sitting for a week at
Kenmare.

We got up before the crack of dawn...a real shock to the system for us and after getting everything packed into the pickup, we squeezed ourselves in and hit the road.

The highways had cleared off quite a bit and the sun actually came out after a few miles of driving and the day looked like it was going to be a nice one. As we got closer to Minot, the snow drifts got deeper and the road had patches of packed ice making it rough and slippery at the same time. We were really happy that we had decided to take the combine up to Kenmare last week because there were places where we would have had a bit of trouble navigating...like getting out of the farm yard, for starters.

We made Kenmare and the snow was pretty much gone...if there had been any start with, but it was still cold enough to give us problems starting the General. We got the booster cables out and tried to coax the General to start, but it didn't seem to be working so we went into the Cenex to see if we could plug it in on the outside of the tire shop. They had a 100 ft cord and we had one of our own and hooking them together gave us enough length to plug in. We left the pickup boosting and the block heater to do it's job while we went into have some lunch and mentally prepare ourselves for the border crossing.

The truck started like a top when we got back out to it and once the pickup was fueled, we hit the road again. We got to the border and it was relatively painless...except for the PST and GST we had to pay on certain "toys" that came across. The US side checked our serial numbers and we turned in our work visas since we were done with harvesting for the rest of the year. On the Canadian side there were a lot of vehicles lined, so we handed in our receipts and took the tax hit on our purchases...a small price to pay, really.

While we were in line at the Canadian side, waiting in our trucks, one of the people in the lineup called over to Al like he knew him. Al walked over to find Danny Ismond, one of the DJ's from GX94 the local radio station in Yorkton. We had emailed into the request show several times during the summer when we would be sitting around surfing and listening to his show online. He always managed to get our requests played, even when we stumped him with Chicken Fried by the Zac Brown Band...but he found it and he always pumps this blog to everyone listening...make sure to give him a listen online on the request show from 2-4pm during the week...maybe email a request...

We got to Kim and Marg's place at Carlyle, unhooked the combine trailer and moved the General out into the yard so Kim could get the straw chopper that we had brought back for him, out of the box. Before we tackled that job, we did some rearranging in his barns so we could park our headers in for the winter...with the flex head in behind the equipment and the straight platform first out for next April or May.

Kim got his tractor out and we figured out a way to use the bucket and grapple to get the pallet out of the box without having anything tip over...it worked like a charm. After getting the combine hooked back up to the General, we called it a night and went in for supper and to get our a$$es kicked at Guitar Hero by Gordie.

But now that Marilyn has one for her Wii...we'll see who's going to do the kicking...