September 8, 2011

View of the day-No clouds to speak of, but the contrails didn’t want to give it up as they criss-crossed the sky.

Al took the General out early to get the combine serviced…he brought it home when he quit last night at 12:30am…then he had to drive the combine about three miles into town to fuel up at the card lock. He was able to get combining when he got back while Marilyn got lunch ready and showed up later with the straight header, then went back to the bin site to get the trailer for the pickup head…there would be some straight cutting later on.

Al was helping out at the bin site as the truck was parked at the auger and the grain cart would shuttle its load from the field to the bin which eliminated the need for another truck driver. Here is a shot of Trapper picking up the last of the canola swath in one of the big Massey combines.

Just after lunch, Marilyn and Phil got rid of the pickup heads and moved over to a wheat field that had some cutting done on it, and put the straight heads on to continue the job.

The other two combines were still going on the canola and they had the grain cart, so we were left with the General and the Mack tandem. Al was driving both of them to start, but since the wheat was running over 60 bushels/acre, he was having a time of it…Phil had to leave his combine once to meet Al with the loaded Mack, to swap out on the road as Al was coming back from the elevator with the General.

Ahh, yes…the elevator. Now, you have heard stories of some of the elevators we have frequented…oh, how we wish this place could take a lesson. This is a relatively new concrete elevator built around 13 or 15 years ago, capable of unloading trucks in record time…however, unloading is not the bottle neck. Think of those high school girls in Oklahoma and Kansas who do the probing and testing of the trucks…weigh…probe…send you to dump…return to weigh…get your ticket delivered to the truck…on your way within 5 minutes if there isn’t a lineup.

Here in Balcarres at the Cargill elevator, they pretty much take the probed sample and make bread from it. They get the tweezers out and pick through it, grind it, weigh it, pick through again…you get the idea…all while the trucks are lining up outside. Oh, no, you won’t be unloading until they have done all their tests…they will not be rushed, either.

So here we are combining wheat and the moisture reading is not that bad…13.5% is wet. We had 12.6% on the first load, 12.8% on the second…and they told us we had to quit!!! Too many green seeds…seriously. Al had a few words to say about that, but the guys with the tweezers have the control, so we had to quit early and will have to find something else to combine tomorrow…sounds like barley.

Al still had a load of wheat on the General, but the elevator closed at 8pm, so he parked it at the elevator and Marilyn picked him up and we came back to the camper for supper. Bob, our landlord came over to inspect the premises and have a chat after a long day of seeding winter wheat. The camper got his stamp of approval, including the solar sunflowers planted outside the door.

Yesterday when Marilyn got back to the camper, there was a bag with cucumbers and a big ripe tomato, courtesy of some garden gnome…the tomato disappeared at supper tonight between a couple of slices of toast.

C’mon, seriously…12.8%...