June 27, 2013

View of the day-Al gets to the yard just as the big wind hits and the dust flies.

We were out at the field, serviced and rolling by 10am.  The forecast was for 105º and there wasn't much of a wind.  We finished last nights field, then moved over to the next 70 ac patch.

Marilyn got started, while Ken and Kevin helped him get the tractor and pickup moved over.  This field was going over 50 bu/ac and Al had a farther haul, so he was kept hopping...he had to keep moving or the 108º temps that showed up later in the day would have melted him.

Marilyn forged on and kept an eye to the sky.   There were weather warnings out and she could see the clouds starting to build all around the area. Al would get back to the field in time to get a short reprieve from the heat by unloading the cart and waiting for the last 50 or so bushels that were short of a load.

Around 3:30pm while Al was at the elevator, Marilyn had a full hopper and headed over to the cart to dump...BIG drops were starting to fall.  After dumping in the cart, she got out and tarped it...just in case.  The drops that had fallen had already dried up, so she went back out and started combining, but decided to only do enough so that there was room to fold the hopper down with grain in the tank.

After calling Al on the radio and finding out that he was driving back through a deluge of rain, she decided that was it, and headed over to the pickup to shut down for the day.  She was just getting out of the combine cab, when the big wind hit.  She made it to the pickup just as Al was pulling back into the yard.

We drove out to the tractor to get Al's lunch bag, then stopped to talk to Ken who was out on his 4 wheeler. He was hoping to get some rain out of the storm, but was afraid all that was going to happen was some rearranging of the land from the wind.

We drove back into Great Bend and stopped at the CaseIH dealer to pick up a new camera for the combine hopper...the old one had broken cable issues and she had wanted one that was permanent on the combine.  When we move, the camera from the hopper goes in the combine cab so Al can see what is going on behind him when hauling.  Then, when we get back to combining, everything has to be put back...cables and all.  With all the moving around, it's no wonder the cable gave out.

We went back to the camper, cleaned up, then went out for Chinese Buffet. The rain had passed through and was headed SE...likely to Cherokee.

We have no word how much it rained out at the farm...