September 23, 2012

View of the day-Motherwell Homestead National Historical Site just south of Abernethy. "Motherwell Homestead is a place to discover life as it was. Well cared for, bright buildings draw you into the homestead. Through the sensory experience of food, travel the path from field to fork. Hop on a wagon and tour the grounds, explore the nooks and crannies in the huge barn and magnificent stone house from the ground up!"

What a gorgeous day!  Even with frozen water.

Al was up early doing the usual unloading of trucks.  Marilyn got fuel for the combine, then we met Bob and Jeannie at the Motherwell Homestead for a yummy Sunday Brunch.

This Historical site closed for the season on Labor Day, but they still have these fundraising brunches to help keep the site running.  They are actually running a petition to have the government continue with funding to help with the cost to keep it operational.  In our school bus driving days, we brought more that a few class tours here and someday, we might even get to see the old time threshing that they do every year.

After brunch, we went out to the field, serviced, fueled, then started combining.  We still had 125 acres to go on this half section, so we knew we wouldn't likely be moving to another field today.  Al kept up hauling until the elevator closed at 5pm, then we worked to fill the trucks and cart.

The last 25 acres on this field was on the other side of a small waterway, so we had to move around the road to get to it.  Marilyn had just opened it up and had started to dump in the cart, when she though she heard a sound like the grain elevator chain jumping a cog or something.  Since she couldn't get out of the drivers seat to see it running, Al came over and decided the chain needed tightening...which we did, then we went over to get the General from the other field so we could top it off.

When Marilyn got back, she started the combine up...the sound was still there, so with the lights of Big Jenn, we checked it over again, but this time we could see the problem was a belt skipping over the edge of a pulley.  It was the same style pulley as we had the problem with in Carlyle, except that this time about six inches of the pulley lip had broken away leaving a jagged edge to chew on the belt.  The belt still looked like we would be able to use it once we got a new pulley...which we wouldn't be able to do until tomorrow.  So that, was that, for that.  We were done for the day.

Still managed 105 acres...