June 20, 2011

View of the day-Starting in on the first Kansas field of wheat…plenty dry 10% moisture and running over 30 bu/ac.

We woke up early to find the power was off, and not just in the two of us campers on the same breaker…all five of us along the street were out. The LOW temp for the night had been 83º, so we really needed the A/C…we kicked in the generator, got the A/C running and went back to sleep. We had the power back on by 8:30am and Al wanted AIS by 10:30, so Marilyn got lunches ready and we were off to the field.

We rearranged the pickup head on the trailer so the gauge wheel wasn’t sitting against one of the brackets, then got it parked out of the way. We then took the draper head off the high speed transport trailer and got it into transport mode to move to the first field. Al took the header and Marilyn drove the combine down to the field and after getting the header on the combine, Kevin picked us up to go back for the tractor, cart and General.

Marilyn had three riders with her for a while, then it was solo time for the rest of the day with Al or Kevin running the grain cart. Kevin brought his semi out and alternated loads with Al and the General.

The wind was blowing hard all day and there were thunderheads all around us, but we never had anything serious for weather…except the wind. We did have a few sprinkles, but with the grain getting down to 8% moisture, it wasn’t going to do any harm. The temperature dropped like a stone in the afternoon and Marilyn was wishing she would have had the ND/Saskatchewan uniform of jeans and long sleeved shirt on. At one point, when Al was unloading the combine, she realized there was a section knife with a chunk out of it that had been stripping and after stepping out onto the deck, turned around and went right back into the cab…it was actually cold with the wind chill. That’s not right for Kansas. Al came over and got the section changed out almost as fast as the NASCAR pit crew.

Al wanted to get one more load into the elevator before they closed at 10pm, so he left the field with the General and Marilyn was left to fuel the combine and tarp the cart...in the cold and wind...66º. Fortunately, she remembered having a long sleeve shirt tucked behind the back seat headrest…thinking she wouldn’t really need it until August...not this year. The fueling went fine, but the wind was so strong that when she went to tarp the cart it took the tarp for a bit of a ride. It took some time to get the combine and cart lined up so the wind was actually helping instead of creating chaos and after 20 minutes of struggling and climbing up and down the cart and combine ladder, finally got it tarped. Back at the camper, we had power and thankfully it is cold enough out that we won’t need the A/C.

Maybe we can get a load of laundry done…