June 30, 2013

View of the day-Breakfast for the combine before we start our last day of cutting here at Great Bend.

Sunday and the elevator does not open until noon, this had Marilyn hoping we could take in the omelet bar for breakfast. Nope. The closest thing to an egg for breakfast was an order of chicken strips from Arby's...apparently they don't have a breakfast menu.  We did get lovely sandwiches for lunch, though.

Out at the field, it was almost the same routine. Since Al had to wait for the elevator to open, he offered to do the greasing for Marilyn before we moved over to the next field.  After the move was made, Marilyn started combining and was just finishing up the 17 ac patch as Al got back from the elevator.  The yield was not so good on this patch, but it had to be kept separate from the next field, so Al had a light run into the elevator.

We moved across the road and Al figured Marilyn would be done with this 14 acre piece before he got back.  Unfortunately, Marilyn broke a knife section and had to change it out, so Al was back in time to take over the combining so Marilyn could get some pictures and video on this field.

There are a lot of terraces on this little piece and it seems like we are always turning around...which we are.  While Al was chasing himself on the terraces, Marilyn moved the tractor and pickup down the road to the next field with the help of Ken.  

Once Al had the field finished, we moved over to the last 100 ac that we had to do.

This last field was a bit of a crap shoot.  Ken and Kevin weren't sure if it should even be combined, it was so poor.  It had been hit hard by the frost and while it looked not to bad, there wasn't anything in the heads. Marilyn made a couple of rounds...this one had a lot of terraces in it. Steep ones, which made cutting even worse because the wheat was so short, it had to be almost mowed.

After cutting almost 50 acres, she didn't even have a hopper full...this was not going good.  Ken jumped in for a ride to see how it looked up at the top of the field and when we could see that it was struggling to even make 3 bu/ac, Ken said "time to pull out".  So we were done.

We moved the combine and tractor up to the bins, then Ken gave us a ride back for the General and the pickup. Al went to the elevator and Marilyn got the shop trailer from the yard and moved it up to the bins and started blowing off the header, killing time until Al got back with the General.

On the way back to Great Bend, Al wanted to stop and take a couple of pictures of a 510 Massey near the elevator that had taken a test while he was unloading. It must have been too tough, because it was sitting when we went through town.  It looks like it has been kept in pretty good shape.

On one of her pit stops along the field, Marilyn came across a patch of, *ahem*..."weeds".  They are actually scattered all around the area.

Gives new meaning to the term "potty" break...