October 13, 2010

View of the day-First sight out at the field...the rut has filled with water.

We were at the combine early and Eugene's neighbor, Ken Patrick, showed up with his STX around 8:30am. Once the straps were hooked up, Marilyn jumped in the combine and with one big pull, the combine came out of it's predicament. The backhoe was still at the field, so he went to work filling the holes back in.

We went back to the camper, Al took the General over to get it unloaded and Marilyn made breakfast and through some lunch together...high hopes for a good day now that the combine was out of the soup.

We were able to get started combining around 10am, the straw was still a bit chewy and Marilyn was still nervous after yesterday's fiasco, so Al took over combining and Marilyn ran the tractor and cart until the General was loaded.

We were working on the second truck load and things were going great...we had two hours of combining done and Marilyn was dumping every 100 bushels to make sure there wasn't a repeat of yesterday. She had just finished unloading and made it about 50 ft along one swath when...it happened again...with an empty hopper.

This time it dropped on the other side and the back wheel went down, too. Al made a call to Dale and he figured the truck driver would be able to see the sloughs in the daylight, so he said we could use the Steiger again to pull out the combine...or try to, at least. We drove over to pick it up and Al drove it back to the field and hooked up to the combine and we started pulling...and got the Steiger stuck.

We couldn't pull the combine out and the Steiger had dug down deep enough that the strap was tight and we couldn't get the pin out to set it free. Marilyn got Al to try and back up the tractor just enough that we could get some slack to get the pin out...and that worked. Once the tractor was set free from the strap, it was able to walk right out of the holes it had dug for itself. Back to Plan B.

Eugene called to get the backhoe out again and he was told they were doing some work at the mine and would be out as soon as they could get one free. They showed up around 1:30pm and went to work digging out the gumbo that had oozed up all around the tires. Once that was done, we hooked up to the Steiger again, trying to get far enough away that there was solid footing to pull the combine to. This time the Steiger was enough to get the combine out and the job of chiseling off the mud from underneath and around the tires had to start.

We had left the chain looped through the hook holes on the back of the combine and it had sunk so low, we couldn't get the hooks slacked off enough, so we just looped the tow strap around the chain...but not in half like yesterday...Marilyn threaded it back through the loop so we could have a longer reach. Not a good idea...it was pretty much fused in the loop, so we just wrapped the whole strap around the tool box step and wired it on...just in case.

The backhoe started to fill in the ruts we had made...then he got stuck in the slough. It was a good thing the Steiger was still there and was able to pull him out. Al was feeling confident enough to take the tractor back to Dale and Marilyn was going to avoid any more sloughs at all costs.

We were able to continue combining until the sun went down, which was the plan since we didn't want to be surprised in the dark...also, Al wanted to go to Yorkton to see the Terriers play hockey. By the time he got the General unloaded and got cleaned up, Marilyn was finished filling the cart and was done for the night. Al was somewhat disgusted with the hockey game, so he left during the second period...the score was 6-0 and not for the Terriers.

The good news is tomorrow can't be any worse...or are we tempting fate...