July 18, 2010

View of the day-This is spring wheat that we have to combine...any guesses on how long we will be here?

Al was up early to do some checking around and maybe see what the problem was with the General. After all the issues we have had with vehicles that refuse to start, now we have one that won't shut off unless you stall it out.

Marilyn spent the day trying to get the satellite aimed...and actually had signal for a brief time. After tightening down all the nuts, the signal just evaporated...why, oh why is it so hard to get signal here in Gettysburg? Not to worry, the phone man is coming tomorrow and we will be getting phone, internet and cable from him...take THAT Starchoice. Rant on. It never ceased to amaze us how the rural telephone companies can get you service in the middle of nowhere for next to nothing and yet at home we are 6 miles from the city and if we want an extra line we have to cough up $700...all this from a company that brags about how technologically advanced they are...they wired the Chunnel, after all. Rant off.

We went for breakfast to the Rock and beat the church crowd, then we went out to move the combine over to the next field north of town. Just as we got to the field it started to sprinkle a bit but we got the header into transport then headed out before the road got too wet. We moved the 8 or so miles then loaded the header back on the combine and went out to get the grain cart. We were on our way back to town with it when the skies opened up and the field where the combine was sitting had disappeared from the rain...there would be no combining today, that was for sure.

We focused on getting the ignition problem on the General fixed and after doing some testing figured out it must be the switch, because when we jumped across two of the posts on the back it shut off every time. Marilyn got everything switched over to the new switch and...the same thing happened. Good thing we didn't throw it away. We left it for tomorrow.

We went out to Bob's Resort on the Missouri River west of Gettysburg for steak supper...actually it was more like a small roast. The view from the restaurant is amazing...and the steak was excellent, even without a potato.

After we got back to the camper Marilyn decided it was time to get the XM radio up and running. We are surrounded by three huge trees which means we don't get any signal from the south, so Marilyn ran the antenna cables through the slide and out onto the roof of the camper so we could get the signal. Then it was time to set up the two way radio for the camper...a job that has been on the list since we left home. Marilyn had to do the same thing...run the cable through the slide...she was spending a lot of time on the camper roof.

The over the air antenna wasn't picking up the locals very good, so she tried to tweak it so we would have at least some TV to watch. There were a couple of harvesters sitting in their camping chairs watching the performance and Al was doing the "good...no, that's worse...no, put it back where you had it" through the roof vent. Eventually we got it so-so and left it as it was. It will take longer to pack up to move having to get all the cables back where they belong.

The rain put the kibosh on any harvesting today...it was so isolated that there were still the odd combine making dust right next to a downpour and there must have been a lot of guys still going because the grain trucks were running up and down the main drag all day.

The pile is getting bigger...