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View of the day-Well, not today, but close enough. Nice and clean, ready for storage.
Al and the rest of the crew...a Massey 9790 and a CIH 2588...combined, and finished, the canola around 3pm. There had been some ground condition issues earlier in the week, so our tractor and grain cart had actually shuttled down earlier in the week for the farmer to use. With the canola done, they made the move to a new field, then shut down at 8pm.
The next day, they were able to get the last of the canola finished and get things changed over to do the wheat. With only one straight header between three machines, the swather was called into duty. In order to get well ahead of the combines, the swather went solo and the combines got parked for the night.
October 24 was the last day for combining as we got the wheat finished and Al brought the combine home. He even managed to get it blown off and washed while Marilyn was at Staples working. While he is able to do most of the work Marilyn usually had to do, he still has not gotten the urge to take any pictures, even with autosteer. One reason is that he doesn't keep a camera with him...that 1 megapixel flip phone that he carries doesn't take great pictures. Except of the inside of his shirt pocket...and lots of them.
So this year, the combine is going to be under cover for the winter. After getting it all cleaned up, he drove it back up north of Canora to park it in the farmers storage building. The sparrows will be so disappointed they won't have anything to crap on this winter.
So that winds up the season for us. We have a couple of toy shows coming up. The first is a one day show in Tisdale, which is a killer...setting up for one day with all our stock is a lot of work. This year is especially tough since the fellow that was a big part of organizing and an even bigger customer and friend, took his own life less than a month ago. It was such a shock...you just never know. We couldn't see backing out, but we know it won't be the same.
We get back home Saturday night after the show and throw some things together for the Red Deer, Alberta show. We had been setting up in conjunction with their annual farm show, Agritrade, but this year, the powers that be decided to change the setup. They wanted the toy guys to set up in 10x10 booths and pay the big bucks. Toy displays don't work that way. Fortunately, one of the toy guys lives in Red Deer and he took it upon himself to find us a new venue apart from Agritrade. This will be a learning experience for everyone involved. They cut it back to three days from four, which means we will get back home a day earlier.
We will need that extra day to get back home, then pack up for an extended stay in the sunny south. We will be going back to Phoenix for a couple of months, to enjoy some shirt sleeved NHL hockey games...among other things. Our first game of the 15 we have tickets for, is Nov. 15, so it won't be a leisurely drive down.
Our last game is January 6, which will be followed by a mad dash home to get the toy trailer and head up to Saskatoon for the toy show on January 11, 12 and 13. It will be a rude awakening to hit the -40ºC after all the lovely desert warmth.
A final shot of the "Heritage Fleet"...
View of the day-Lawn ornament time again...for a short while, at least until the DEF fluid barrel is empty.
The wait has been unbearable. Every day Al would call to see if this would be the day to give it a try and every day the farmer would go out and test, then come back with the bad news. Too wet. Problem is, the days are getting shorter and even if the sun comes out by noon, it is disappearing by 5pm.
While we were down Marilyn was able to work on show tractors for the 2019 Farm Toy Show at Yorkton in February. We always do a show tractor...only 35 of them, which are spoken for by regular customers. Al chooses the 1/64 scale 4 wheel drive tractor for the year(this is the 12th year), then Marilyn makes stickers for the boxes and tractors, then boxes them up. This year it is a tracked black Challenger and it is the earliest we have ever gotten them done!
Finally on Wednesday, Oct. 10, Al got the call that the canola was "close enough"...which, by this time, meant it was still wet, but what the hell. Al drove up to the farm and got reacquainted with the combine...it started, no problem and at 5pm he was back in the saddle. He got 45 acres in before they had to shut down.
Al was going to stay in the camper, but the water system didn't want to cooperate, so he just drove the 45 miles home. The next day was a good one for acres, he combined 110 acres. The farmer has three New Holland combines along with Al, so they covered a lot of ground once they got going.
The next day it rained...and the day after, it snowed. We decided to bring the camper home and winterize it. We had taken the 200 gallon tank of water to use in the camper and it had gotten a little "hard" around the edges from the freezing temperatures. The rough road on the way back home broke it up into smaller chunks...now all we needed was some warm sunny weather to thaw it out.
The tanks on the camper had fared well...we had kept the furnace at 45ºF and had a radiant heater keeping things from freezing inside. Oddly enough, when Marilyn shifted the radiant heater (an oil filled heater that looks like the old time steam radiators) there was a dead mouse under it. And not in a trap...one less to worry about. She turned on the tank heaters...which Al was unaware that we had...to thaw things out down under for a couple of days.
By Tuesday, Oct. 16, the weather was starting to turn around. It wasn't raining as much and it was warming up. Marilyn got the camper cleaned up and winterized. Just the thought of all the mouse crap in the drawers meant that everything was going to get scrubbed and sanitized. Those little bastards chewed on tin foil, cardboard, rubber, hard plastic, and...for those who use the "shaved Irish Spring soap repellent" theory...they even ate the soap!! Those bright green turds didn't seem as rank.
We don't usually have issues with mice over the winter in our camper when it is parked in our yard, likely because of the "community cats". No one seems to have ownership of them and they do have a path worn out across our yard to the neighbours on either side of us, so we must be sharing. I did see the momma cat carrying a mouse to her kittens the day I cleaned the camper, so perhaps we will have another rodent free winter.
With the camper nestled in and the water tank thawed and emptied, we were done with that "harvest" aspect. Now to finish combining. The weather was great...all the way up to double digits in Celsius, we even hit 20º one day. A lot of combining was getting done in the area.
Al was driving back and forth, while Marilyn just kept working at Staples. The guys were covering a lot of ground and we had hoped to get done in time to take part in the Regina Toy Show which was to be Oct. 20 & 21. Al just couldn't bring himself to attend with all the harvesting left to do, so we had to bow out. It sounded like there were others in the same boat and with more farmers trying to get finished, the crowd was down quite a bit. Can't have every year a bonus year like last year.
Sunday, Oct. 21 we got finished at Canora. Marilyn actually went up for the day...mostly because she had to bring the shop trailer home. Since Al was going to drive the combine home, rather than getting it hauled, it made sense for both of us to go up in one pickup, then everything would get home in one trip. We had some red backup in the field for the last day as two CaseIH 2188's came to help finish the job.
Al roaded the combine back to our place last night, then parked it on the lawn as he usually does. This morning before Marilyn left for work, we emptied out the remains of the DEF barrel into the combine. We have one more job to do about 15 mile SE of us, so Al had another drive ahead of him.
He got down to the field mid morning and was able to get 90 acres combined before shutting down.
There is light at the end of the tunnel...
View of the day-Snow on the canola...not much more to tell.
We took a road trip to see if there was any propane left in the camper up at Canora. Propane was just running out as we got there. We got the dish aimed...hopeful thinking...then went in to pick up a few toys that had been in storage after our trip earlier on.
Marilyn checked around and discovered we have a mouse problem. Every drawer had those little turds spread around...they didn't get into the food storage though. The trap line has been laid out again.
They even gnawed the tip off the rubber spatula...
View of the day-The view out our front door...this mornings snowfall. Just what we needed...again.
Not a wheel has turned since we moved up to Canora. Here's how it's gone...
Rain a bit. Stay cold. Next day no rain. Next day more cold non-drying weather with an hour of sun just before sunset. Next day more rain...just enough to cancel any thoughts of testing the swathed canola, followed by no sun for 10 days. During those days if there was no rain we had snow, but no accumulation...at least in our area. Start the cycle over again.
Marilyn is back at Staples until combining starts and Al went back to H&R Block after running out of things to keep occupied with at home.
Crap weather in the forecast, but next week...yes, next week is looking up...
