October 13, 2013

View of the day-Not a ripple on the pond means no wind and slow drying.

We had gone home for a night due to the rain and stayed at home, which meant most of the electronics were back at the camper...hence no post yesterday. But here's what happened...

We were up and at 'em early to get the toy trailer unloaded and the packing list "refreshed". Marilyn had come up with a way of keeping track of where all the farm toys were packed, just in case someone would ask her for a specific toy when Al wasn't around. With the list, she was able to find it without any issues at the toy shows. Unfortunately it is a pain in the a$$ to put them back in the same boxes, since a lot of them get sold and it is easier to consolidate them...which means a new list every toy show. The biggest problem is that after the last show, it doesn't get done and then to top it off there are all the new toys purchased from throughout the summer that need to be added in. It's all done now.

While we were doing the cataloging, Al had Marilyn take pictures of the toys he was going to put in the auction in February. She also had to get them up on the JAKz website...but that had to wait for a return to the camper and the laptop. We got everything tucked nicely away and the lists all made up, ready for the first show of the season...next weekend in Regina. Al is pretty sure we will still be combining, but he will take a bit of time off to help Roger get set up at the show, since Roger is finished his harvest for the season.

We were going to stay overnight again and go back to Balcarres on Sunday, but since they only got "a tenth at the field", we thought we might have to start combining earlier than anticipated. So we went back to the camper, even though it meant Al was going to miss seeing the return match between the Terriers and Millionaires in Melville. Too bad, really...the Terriers won this time.

Today, Al finished getting the guards on the header...the JD guy must not be able to count, because we were 4 guards short and had to use the best of the used ones. We had a quick lunch at the camper, then went out to the field to do a test...it was plenty dry. The new knife and sections really made a big difference in the cutting, now we hoped we wouldn't have an issue with the wiry straw wrapping.

Since the piece we were on was only 15 acres, Al wanted to combine so he could listen to his Seattle Seahawks NFL game on the Sirius radio. Marilyn went back to the camper...only a couple miles from the field...and waited for Al to let her know when he was finished.

After she got the call, we moved 15 miles to the next field, then went back to get the General. Al had to unload the wheat that was in it from the last field that Bob had used it on, then he came out to the flax field, where Marilyn had started combining.

By this time the sun had gone down and the straw got pretty tough. Marilyn had been out a couple of times to pull straw, then when Al took over combining, he was left with the job of pulling straw...in a blur. We figured we might as well shut it down for the night and head for the camper.

Tomorrow that flax is "going down"...