September 7, 2009

View of the day-A New Holland combine between Minot and Bismarck laps up the last pass as the sun goes down.

We went out to the farmers yard at 9am to get the Freightliner started and to get settled up before making the move north. We decided that to avoid getting one of the trucks stranded in case it rained a lot, we would take the General and combine up to Wilton...about 40 miles north...and park it in the Cenex lot until tomorrow. That way if there was a deluge, we wouldn't have to worry about wrecking the farmer's yard or getting stuck trying to get to the highway.

We took the shop trailer and General to Wilton then came back to get the Freighliner, tractor/cart and header, then started out again...but this time we would take the loads all the way to Kenmare.

We had a south east wind which was a great help for most of the way but just out of Minot Al called to say that he was having power issues and perhaps the fuel filters were plugged. Now, the Freightliner doesn't see a lot of action, it's really just to haul the cart rig and for backup grain hauling, so the fuel filter hasn't been changed for...well, let's just say they haven't been changed in the 2000's and leave it there. We got to Carpio and found a place to park the Freight because Al knew it would never make the climb out of the valley.

We took the header into Kenmare and the Ace Hardware store was open and luckily we were able to get new filters for the truck, so with a gallon jug of diesel fuel and the filters, we went back to Carpio to doctor up the Freight...we just hoped that was the problem with the power.

After we got back to the Freight, we changed out the filters and it started right up so we figured we might as well get it into Kenmare as well. The filters did the trick and Al had all kinds of power...for the Freight, anyway...to get us parked in Kenmare.

We stopped in Minot to pick up a few things at the Walmart, then forged on back to Menoken to get things in order for the move across the border. We encountered a couple of showers, but nothing serious and hopefully that is all of the precipitation that falls so the rest of the harvesting gets done.

Tomorrow...the border...