September 11, 2011

View of the day-The combine pulling the header to the next field, freeing up Al to help with the rest of the shuttling of vehicles.

We didn’t have to get up as early today, but we were still combining by 10am. We finished the part of the field that we were on, then went about our business cleaning up all the patches that we had left when we first started…because they were too tough to cut at night.

The grain haulers were kept pretty busy when all four machines were running, but after we got closer to getting finished…the pieces were getting smaller all the time and we were pretty much running into ourselves as we circled them. Unfortunately, both regular cameras had dead batteries, so it was the phone camera for the view of the day.We got finished with the field and while the Masseys roaded over to the next field with their headers on, Marilyn got her header put into transport and pulled it over behind the combine.

We moved back over to the wheat field that we had started a couple of days back…the one that was dry, but too green for the elevator and the difference in cutting was amazing. It was going through like butter…three days of 80º+ weather will do that…the wind we finally got today didn’t hurt, either.

We got to see clouds for the first time in several days and we were wondering what the weather was going to hold in store. Now, in the USA we usually have access to at least one of seven channels on the weather band on our combine and two way radios…sometimes, as in Kansas we will have up to six channels from the surrounding areas.

Weather is very important in our business, so it is irritating enough that the Environment Canada weather bands have the weather reports in English and French…so that means, if you tune in to find out what is happening and it is during the French portion, you have to listen to the whole report in that language before you get the English version. This has been bad enough, but now we are lucky if we can even find a weather band…even with the French…we had heard they may even be getting rid of some. Guess they think nobody wants to know when there is bad weather bearing down on them…and it’s not like there is a real person doing the reports, it’s all computers now. Priorities…

We all ended up at the bins after we had finished the last parts of the field that we could get done, even with the few sprinkles that ended up falling while we worked. The wind had really picked up and it was still good cutting, but we ran out of wheat, so we quit for the night. We had to wait for the cart to finish dumping and while we were waiting, Marilyn saw the box on the tandem lift as it was being dumped…apparently on its own because she could see everyone that was left there…who was in the cab lifting the box? Al had the remote control for the end gate and the hoist in his hand and was running it from well out of the dust.

Guess what is on the wish list now...