July 18, 2013

View of the day-Gerry checks the wheat to see how close it is to dry, before moving the combine out to do a test.

The story starts with Lynn, Gerry and their four man crew going back to Canada for a week to kill some time until the wheat was ready in Nebraska.  One of their guys had just come down to help out for a couple weeks, so he was staying in Canada when they went back. The other three, however...decided they were homesick and jumped ship, back to Ontario.

This is a problem for all harvesters...and other businesses as well.  If they aren't complaining that "all we do is combine" then they are complaining "we have been sitting for days" or "I have to go home for grad/wedding/birthday". No one wants to work.

Since we were going to be sitting idle for at least three weeks, Gerry called over to see if we could help them out for a couple of those weeks.  What else did we have to do? The rigs were moved close to our next job, so off we went.

We got out to the machines and did a bit of work on the reels of the combines, then Gerry took one out to do a test.  We took it to the elevator and it was 14.9% moisture, so we had to wait a while.

Another recruit, Craig, was coming down from Alberta to put in a week of service with the crew.  Craig used to be on the USA harvest run, but now only works in Alberta and Saskatchewan.  Since we only had 150 acres to do, he would be sent up the road with the tractor and cart, while Lynn pulled the crew camper to the next stop, somewhere up the road.

That left Gerry and Marilyn to combine and Al to haul grain.  Gerry gave Marilyn a crash course on driving a John Deere 9770 STS combine...WITH AUTOSTEER!!!!  After making a couple rounds with her, he took off to drive his own combine...and Al waited for a load.

Unfortunately, the wheat was barely making 15 bu/ac with test weight of 57lbs, so he wasn't run off his feet.  Although Marilyn did have to wait when there was a short line up at the elevator. 

We got the field done just after dark, so now we load up tomorrow and move north.

And the wind is going to be out of the north...