June 9, 2011

View of the day-Al picking up canola in the wind, yet again.

Al was up early to take his load of canola to Alva, then he went out to the field, serviced the combine and started on the canola. Marilyn came out later to take over and finish off the rest of the field.

We moved a mile down the road and started in on another quarter of canola…odd how this one is running almost 25bu/ac and it is just down the road from the last field that went around13bu/ac. Productivity was down a bit on this one as there were some ‘window-kissing’ terraces to work up and down…shut up and drive.

We had been listening to the weather band all day and the forecast was for more bad weather but we had high hopes that it would miss us. Al had taken the first load into the elevator at Dakoma which was a few miles closer than Alva, but still a jaunt. He jumped in and combined until he had a cart load, then waited while Marilyn made another round to top off the truck. While at the north end of the field, Al mentioned that there were some rain drops hitting his window on the tractor but Marilyn doesn’t quit until it is running off the header, so she was able to get enough to fill the truck…even though the wiper had to be used a couple of times.

More warnings were coming on the radio and Al was off to Dacoma again, with reports back that the highway was wet…and news on the weather band that Cherokee had two inch hail…ouch. Al called back to say he had hit a wall of rain and if Marilyn was near the south end of the field, perhaps she should bail out. She did just that as the rain and wind started, but she still had to tarp the grain cart after she unloaded the combine. She got that job done just in the nick of time and after driving the combine over to the pick-up, raced out to the highway as it let loose and just poured.

Back in Cherokee, she waited for Al to get back to town and swung by the camper to see if the hail did any damage…no signs of it anywhere. Once Al got back to the camper,we went to Miss Dotties and while we were sitting ther, the skies opened up again, with hail…pea size…and lots of rain. This should make the farmers happy to finally get some of the wet stuff.

Not so good for combiners, though…