September 1, 2012

View of the day-The water has gone down on this combine and header, but it has a way to go before it moves again.  The ducks, however, are happy with it just where it sits.

We were on our way to the farm at Kisbey by 9:30am.  There were acres to catch up for from yesterday and we wanted to get an early start.  We hadn't used a lot of fuel yesterday, so all we had to do was grease and start combining.

Marilyn got the straight combining done in the last field, then went over to where the pickup head was sitting to swap out headers.  After getting the straight head into transport, it was time to get back into the field with the pickup head and take care of all those outside rounds that had been swathed.  This meant jumping around to three different fields, but since they were close together, it didn't take long.

Once that was looked after, we moved the combine four miles west to the next field.  This field had the outside round swathed as well, so after getting that picked up, we switched back to the straight header to start cutting.

While Al got to do the combining, Marilyn took the Dodge back to the bins to bring out the General.  There had been a lot of water in the past and the roads had been rebuilt in several places.  With the heavy oil traffic, the roads were pounded out and really rough, so that meant travelling slow...and the wind had died down, so the dust was just hanging.

Marilyn got the General from the bins and started back to the field, when Al called her to turn around and go back...the wheat was way too wet to continue.  Grant, the farmer, brought his truck out so Al could dump the wet wheat on it, which meant the General wouldn't be tied up with a short load.

Marilyn got back to the bins, then took the Dodge over to the next field to wait for Al to return with the combine.  Al had to swap headers out again, putting the straight head into transport and hooking on the pickup head before moving on to the oats field.  After he got the combine set for oats, he made a round to make sure everything was in order, then went back with the Dodge to get the General. He had to clean the wheat out of the corners of the box, since we were changing over to oats.

By the time he got to the field with Big Jen, Marilyn had a hopper full.  We decided to combine a truck load before calling it a night.  Several others in the area had the same idea...there were combines going all around us.  Across from the oats field, a JD combine was picking up wheat swaths right behind the swather.

We shut down around 9pm, then took the highway back so we could stop in at the cardlock in Arcola to fuel up the Dodge.  Once again, the diesel pumps were giving us fits...someone before us had run the wrong pin to many times and locked out the pump.  Marilyn did say a few things to the surveillance camera at the pumps, but it didn't seem to help.

Back in the oats, tomorrow...