October 18, 2013

View of the day-Quite a load of ice...about an ice cream pail worth...got cleaned out of the water hose this morning.

After making lunch and getting the hose thawed out, Marilyn had the job of servicing a fueling today. She was on her way to the field around 10:30, but was pretty sure there wouldn't be combining for a while...there was actually some snow pellets that fell. Just enough to wet everything down, but not enough to stay.

While she was waiting for the combine to warm up, she got a text from Jean that the crew was going into Balcarres to have lunch at the rink and she should join them. Just as she got close to town, she got a call that she should go back to the field to pick up Jake, who was just moving over with his combine to help out. After picking him up, we were off to lunch...without the company of his guard dog, who remained in the cab.

After a delicious and filling lunch, we were back at the field, ready to get started. Jake had ridden back with Marilyn and when we got back to the field, the HoneyBee tech was out there with a demo header for him to try out on his CaseIH 8120 combine.

While they worked on the header, Marilyn cranked up and tried to combine to the other end of the field...it took quite a while...it just wasn't ready yet. Undaunted, she plugged along, stopping every 50 feet or so to unplug the feeder house, or pull wads off the reels...and only once to get the feeder chain back in place after it jumped a cog. Since Al had been doing the repair every time it happened before and he wasn't around, she had to figure it out for herself. Must have done it right, because it never happened again.

Around 2pm, it was like a switch was flipped and the flax started going through like a dream and she was off to the races. There were four quarters in a row, with three red machines and a couple of green ones all split up among the fields. That poor cart driver had his work cut out for him, trying to keep all the machines running as they worked so far apart.

By the end of the evening, Al had gotten back from his Regina road trip and had started hauling to the bins. Marilyn finally got finished with the piece she was working on...occasionally going out to pull straw off the feeder drum and reels. It was getting back to the way it had started, but she could see the end of the field and kept on cutting to the end.

We even had snow flurries tonight...