It's getting closer. Marilyn is finding it very emotional to be looking on Facebook and seeing all the great harvest photos and stories coming out of the south. Al misses it too, but he always adds "if all I had to do was sit in the combine and cut all day long, that would be one thing, but all the rest that goes along with it...I pass".
Seeing the harvesting pictures was tough, but as the season has moved on, there seems to be a lot of pictures of combines getting stuck...a LOT of pictures. Marilyn does not miss that at all, which makes staying at home less painful. It seems there has been a lot of rain throughout the southern plains...much needed, but not in such large amounts. We're sure they will take whatever they can get.
Al took the golf cart out for a road trip to the Grayson Sports Day, so he could have a comfortable seat for all the action. We don't golf, so it doesn't see too much action...at least until Al starts taking it to farm auctions, which was his plan for it all along.We didn't take a long road trip this year, due to the lack of timely auction sales. We did take a couple days to go down to the ND Farm Toy Show at Lamoure, ND. We met up with Roger and Linda Miller who had come down from Lipton, SK to take in the toy show as well. They had left earlier to make a run down to the auction house in Waconda, SD to pick up some earlier bought farm toys before meeting up with us in Lamoure.
We didn't have the camper, so we stayed 20 miles away in Edgeley and drove in on Saturday for the show. The auction was to start after the show and since Al was waiting to see what was available there, we got there nice and early to check things out. Al had his eye on a couple of major pieces, but the price was right on a few others, so he didn't come home empty handed...far from it. The big buy...and the one he really wanted for his collection...was the Big Roy, which, as you can see, came home with us.
We wanted to get back early on Sunday, so we left right after the auction and headed north, staying overnight in Harvey, before forging to the border. After dropping some cash to keep the tax man happy, we stopped at Kenosee Lake to visit with Marg and Kim at their cabin, then headed home in the rain.
With both of us at work, we haven't been doing much of anything harvest related...the camper hasn't even been "de-winterized" yet. After the issues we had last year in the straight canola at Kim's, we decided to purchase a cross auger for the flex head. Al's original thought was to take everything out to his friends farm and have them help get it mounted on the header.
We were lucky enough to have the neighbour let us park on his back lot...our yard is postage stamp size...and once we had all the pieces in place and the instructions read, we were good to go. The weather was harvest type...Oklahoma harvest type...hot and humid. Add that to the fact that we are both getting older...not real pleasant conditions.
One of the hardest parts was getting the crating broken away from the augers...well, that and the fact they were pretty heavy to carry. We started on the right side, as the instructions stated, then managed to wrangle the auger into place and get it bolted in. The other side wasn't so easy, since it had to be connected with a hex shaft which had to be slid in about 10 inches...all while balancing the rest of the auger.
We tried a few times to find the "sweet spot" and just about the time we were ready to commence swearing, our neighbour drove by and offered to help. He brought over his tractor with front end loader, chained up the auger and lifted into position so we could slide the shaft in...with a slight twist of the auger, in it went. We got the rest of the bolts in and admired our handiwork...until we realized the "slight twist" moved the hex shaft enough that the grease zerk was out of place on the ujoint. We decided to deal with that later.
Next we had to figure out the two hydraulic hoses that run the motor on the left side. We got them threaded around the back of the header and into place for hookup, but the instructions were not very clear and it seemed like we were missing a couple of crucial pieces. Fortunately, we were in email contact with the head of the MacDon harvest support trailer and he was able to supply us with enough knowlegdge to figure out the problem. We still needed to see how to get the hoses hooked up, so after a much needed shower, we went to town for supper and then cruised the CaseIH lot to find a header that had the auger already mounted. We found out what we had to do and will save it for another days work.
So now we wait for the harvest, but in the meantime, we do have another road trip planned. We have a summer toy show that will be taking place in Killarney, Manitoba. Neither of us has been there, but it is tied in with their Prairie Pioneer Days. Those shows are always so interesting with a lot of the threshing demonstrations and "olde tyme" type displays. There will be a lot of pictures coming out of that one...and that will be followed by the Yorkton Thresherman's Show a couple weeks later.
Then hopefully some "new tyme" harvesting...
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