August 11, 2009

View of the day-Al gets to combine...that's right. COMBINE...finally.

The sun was shining and there was promise of some high temps for the day, so we figured we were going to be able to get going at some point in time.

Al went out to cut a test just before lunch...it was 15.5%...too wet for the bin. It had to be 13.5% or less so we waited at the camper, had lunch then Al went out to the field with the General. It had been sitting for quite a few days, so it needed a quick boost to get started...new batteries are on the list before we leave here.

Marilyn went to pick up the mail and threw a snack pack together to last into the evening hours, because if we got going, we wouldn't be quitting until after dark...or if it got too tough.

Part way through the afternoon, the cab of the combine got a bit stifling and when Marilyn looked at the cab temp there was an error code flashing. She turned it off an on and tried shutting the combine off and on to see if it needed to be reset. That plan worked for about two minutes then it was back to cooking again...so she 'shut up and drove' with just the fan blowing hot air.

A call to ProHarvest ended in a voice message to Ray to see if there was something else we could try and while we waited for him to call back, Marilyn went back into town to get the shop trailer to blow out some of the rads to see if that would help. Nope.

Al got back to the field from the bins just as Marilyn was putting the shop trailer back in order and since he had no grain to dump, he volunteered to drive the combine for a while. Marilyn had to do a wiring job on the trailer hookup since it got ripped out of the plug in when she didn't unwind it far enough to make the corner into the field. They haven't been working that good anyway, so it really wasn't a 'make work' project...the clearance lights all work now and the plug looks better than ever.

As the temperature cooled down the cab started to get a bit more tolerable and the A/C started working again. We finally shut down around 10pm...it was getting a bit tough but we did get around 80 acres done...what a great change from the past week.

Tomorrow we have to meet the A/C man at the combine at 8:30am, that won't be easy...