June 15, 2016

View of the day-How the hell did we do this?! This afternoon was a killer with the "RealFeel" temperature topping out at 112ºF.

As usual, we waited until the heat of the day to start doing anything...it was so nice and cool in the camper. Marilyn had gotten up for a drink around 6:30am and took a look out the window...or tried to...they were coated with dew, but after checking the temps at that time...83º already...it was no surprise.

We took a drive over to Alva to have lunch at Pizza Hut and do a bit of shopping...we also stopped at the car wash to clean the radiator and see if that would help with the temperature gauge. It did help a lot, but the test will come when we start pulling the camper again.

We stopped at Sonic, then drove to visit with Jay Leeper who was out combining wheat, north of Dacoma. 

Jay was good enough to drive over to the trucks and pick Al up for a ride in the combine. My how things have changed.

It was the heat of the day and shade was not to be found with the sun directly overhead, but Marilyn was able to catch the odd breeze sitting in the pickup waiting to take a few pictures of some actual harvesting. Unfortunately, they were cutting on the far side of the field.

After Al had finished his ride, we said our goodbyes and Jay went back to cutting while we headed back to Cherokee. We cruised town to see what had changed, even took a drive out in the country to see how the "old fields" looked. The ones we had combined so many times over our harvesting career. 

We did see a green one cutting out a terrace on one of the fields that went back to the time when Al was working for Roy Johnston from Arcola...likely his first year on any run.

We stopped in at the elevator to visit a bit with Shane, the manager. They are starting to pile wheat on the ground since they can't truck it out fast enough. They were really pleased with the wheat this year, he said they didn't have any wheat that was less than 60lb test weight and it was averaging in the 64lb range. Yields were also up from previous years, running in the 60 bu/ac range...of course that would be offset by the poor price of $3.79/bu.

After that we met John and his son-in-law, Darren, for a cold drink at the new JiffyTrip at the south end of town. How convenient for us there was also a Subway and a Sonic with inside seating. We need one of these in Yorkton...the Sonic, at least.

After tea, we went back to the camper to get cleaned up to go out for supper with John and another couple, Ron and Leoti from Enid. We had cut for Ron and his brother down at Carmen, but like us, he had retired from the active farming business and was now just renting the land out.  John picked us up from the camper and we went out to the SmokShak again, but this time it was KC Strip steak special night and it was delicious.

After getting filled up and caught up with all things that had happened in the last few years, we came back to town and stopped at John's for more conversation, before coming back to the camper.

All during the day, we kept wondering how we managed to get through the hot harvest days like today. This likely would have been the day that we would have had to load up and move north...not missing that at all.

Now, just to remember this heat when it is -40º this winter...