May 28, 2010

View of the day-Checking out the MacDon header at their informational meeting in Vernon, TX.

We were up at 6am again, this time it was to go to the MacDon breakfast at Vernon. Once again there was a good turnout with harvesters and farmers lined up out the door of the building waiting for the delicious breakfast...and all the important info. We were 0 for 2 with the door prizes...didn't win a thing, but we did come back home a little wiser and tomorrow when the guys show up out at the combine, we will have everything under control...we hope.

After we picked up a couple of parts we needed, we went back to Davidson to fuel up the combine and head out to the farm. We got the shop hooked up and Al took the combine over to the Coop to put 215 gallons of fuel in...it wasn't completely empty. We will have a time figuring out how to fuel it daily with only a 90 gallon slip tank on the pickup.

The first thing we did out at the farm was to put the header on the combine...a totally different experience from the old header and it will take some time to get used to the size and workings of the new beast.

The next thing on the list was to mount the two cameras on the cart...one on the auger and one on the back. We had been using one of these in the cab of the combine when it was being hauled down the highway with the General so Al could see behind the rig for traffic. These were cameras that we had gotten last summer and never had the time to mount them on the tractor, so they had been sitting for a while. Unfortunately they are still sitting because we couldn't get power the the transformer for some reason...the fuse was fine, just no power. They are still under warranty, so we will see what comes of that.

We were able to park in Keith's hay shed out of the sun, a good thing since it was over 90º and somewhat humid, making working outside rather unpleasant. Al did a bit of work on the Freightliner and Marilyn changed up the elastic cord on the tarp in the grain cart before we decided to quit for the day.

There have been quite a few more harvesters showing up, last night our Nebraska neighbors arrived...well part of the crew did...there should be a few more campers showing up before long. We did see one combine running...a JD picking up canola. There are hopes that we will be able to get started on Sunday, but we might just do a test tomorrow when the MacDon guys come out for our session.

Which promises to be another hot one...