July 28, 2010

View of the day-A field of flax near the Qu'Appelle Valley in Saskatchewan...to bad we couldn't have 'smellovision' so you could enjoy the fragrance.

We were up early and on our way north with a list of things to do. First on the list was a stop at Esterhazy to drop off a sample of the bracket we needed fabricated so the pickup head would balance a bit better on the header trailer.

After explaining what we wanted, he said he would try and have it done for today but they close at 3:30pm. We figured if he was able to get it done we would just pick it up on the way back to Carlyle and stay there for the night...if it wasn't going to be ready, we would stay in Yorkton for the night.

We took the scenic route up to Yorkton, travelling the back roads so we could check out the 'disastrous' crops that we had been hearing about on the radio and in the paper. While some of the fields had not been planted or had lots of wet spots, most of it looked pretty good...far from what we would describe as disastrous...not that our opinion really matters. It was somewhat of a relief, but the maturity of the fields were all over the map...it will be a long drawn out harvest...we will agree to that.

We took the back way out to our farm and got the farm toys unloaded and into the house. We live on a hill, so we were untouched by the flooding that had happened in the city a few weeks back...the grass had even been cut, so it looked pretty good. Al did not want to leave, but Marilyn had a lunch date with her friends, so after a quick visit with the neighbor, we had to get into town. Al had made a lunch day with the neighbor and since both dates were at the same restaurant we travelled together...but didn't sit together.

After lunch we took a tour out to check on some land that was for sale...and still will be after we looked at it, then Marilyn had to pick up a few things at Staples for Marg, so she got a bit of a visit in with her co-workers, while Al fueled up the truck.

We got the call from Esterhazy that our parts were ready, so we started back south. We stopped at the junction to Grayson and met Al's step-dad, who collects our mail, and had a visit with him on the side of the road. We picked up our parts and figured out how to tie down the 16ft long 2x2 pipe that we needed for header support and got the rest of the pieces loaded into the truck. We stopped at our campground for a visit with Eugene and his nephew Tomas and after fighting off the mosquitoes, left for Carlyle.

Back at Carlyle, we tried to figure out a way to lift the header off the trailer so we could put the new brackets on. Problem #1-no combine, but we did have a tractor with a front end loader with a bucket and grapple. Problem #2-how to attack the header with the bucket so we didn't end up with a catastrophe. Problem #3-it was dark...that problem settled everything...we quit. We will just drive slower and if it looks like we will have a problem, we will find a CaseIH dealer with a combine and do what we originally had planned to do.

Tomorrow we will play the border lottery...