We woke up to a cloudy, humid day, so we figured it wouldn't be an early start. Al had a load to haul to the elevator and by the time he got back, Marilyn was getting the last of the servicing done on the combine.
Al took the first shift, then Marilyn came out with the grain cart...but it was all going to fit in the truck, so she was going to jump in and ride along. Al had called earlier to let her know that the header height gauge was not working and the header was lifting really slow, so before she jumped in the combine, she had a look at the feeder house...not good. It actually looked like the feeder house was coming off, but it was just that a bolt had come out and the top plate was shifted. When that happened, it pulled the arm out of the potentiometer which fed the info on the header height to the combine. Looks like we had some fixing to do.
Fortunately, all we had to do was find a couple of bolts to get the plate back where it belonged and we were up and running again. So much for the "uptime inspection" that was done over the winter.
While Marilyn was getting the last couple of laps done on the field, Al took a drive to the next field to see if we could move the combine with the 35ft header on...he saw no obstacles, so once Marilyn had dumped the last of the wheat on the General, we locked up the header and she started off.
Al was ahead in the tractor and when he got to the two mile mark, he called back...there were now some pipeline crews with a ditch witch on the side of the road and he nearly didn't make it through. Marilyn was near an oil well site, so she pulled in and started getting the header into transport mode just as John and Al showed up. We got the header hooked to John's pickup and carried on the next two miles to the field.
When we got there, the guys from MacDon support were waiting for us. Al had called them to have a look at the header, and after a quick look to confirm it all looked good, Paul jumped in the combine with Marilyn to make a round. Probably because he was along, Marilyn managed to plug up one of the draper belts...a first for her. Fortunately, even though he is "up there" in the MacDon chain of command, Paul was not afraid to get his hands dirty and thanks to him we were up and running again.
After Paul left, Jim, the farmer jumped in for a ride...and to point out the new trenches the oil guys had run pipe through. Marilyn was finding them quite by surprise with the combine. This wheat was running close to 37 bu/ac and the test weight was 59 and it was plenty dry.
So we carried on for the rest of the day, managing to get 85 acres done, even with the breakdown and move. The forecasted rain looks like a bust for us, the west looks clear tonight.
Let's hope the humidity doesn't hold us up...
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