August 30, 2019

View of the day-It's been a long week of due to rain by the look of this growth on the header.

We did get the weekend off...and then some. Marilyn ended up staying in Yorkton until yesterday and Al came up for a couple of days, to do a few "rainy day" jobs. While we ended up with 1.5" of rain at the combine, some places were at the 4"+ range.

While Marilyn was at home, she decided to do a job that had been needing to get done for several years. Al has a lot of toys that belong in his collection stored in various closets and cupboards around the house. We have no basement, so storage space is at a premium. 

The front hall double closet's top shelf has a short opening that requires the items to be lifted up and the new items put underneath for them to fit. This shelf was jam packed and Marilyn had no idea what was in the back, or at the top for that matter. We had also been wanting to catalogue all his toys, so with the days off, this was the perfect chance.

It took some doing to get them all out and set up in the dining room. This picture is all the items from the closet, with the exception of the two 1/16 Big Roys on the chairs and the gold Steiger on the top of the cabinet.

After opening each box, taking the tractor out, taking a picture, then repacking, Marilyn "restocked" the closet shelf. This time she decided to put the Big Roys all together by adding the 1/16 set with the 1/32 and 1/64. Everything was back where it belonged...since we don't have an extra room for displaying them properly.

Next on the toy extravaganza was to make a display with some of the Versatile tractors, which are the main style that Al collects. Marilyn had cleaned out the china cabinet in one of her "purge" sessions, so there was now some room to put them. The only problem now, was that she realized the Big Roys were the main ones she had earmarked a couple of shelves for...and they were packed at the back and bottom of the closet shelf.

Fortunately, the stacking job had been done in such a way that it only took a short time to dig them back out and replace them with toys from other cupboards in the house. After a few hours of figuring out where all the tractors that she had found were going to sit, her work was done. Sort of. Al will have to group them according to series, style, etc. Marilyn went by color and decal style.

This shelf had a a few Versatiles already, but the rest of the non ones got moved to make space for the Versatiles scattered on other shelves around the house. 

This one has all Al's CaseIH and IH combines and Case related items...belt buckles, badges, notepads, etc. And his MacDon sign.

This is the main cabinet that has the Big Roys and a couple of other older Versatile tractors that he had spent time re-collecting after selling his complete collection a few years back.

It's true...it's not the "having", it's the "getting". Marilyn always jokes that whatever Al spends on toys, she gets the equal amount to spend on her "stuff". Al complains that she spends too much on her sewing/embroidery machines. Marilyn is pretty sure she has some catching up to do.

So that gets us to today. We finally got going in the barley and it was reasonably dry. At least dry enough for the farmer, so it was full speed ahead. We cut until dark, which was when the humidity was high enough to make it tough going and we quit for the night. Another factor in shutting down was there were a lot of hills on this land and we didn't want to take any chances on a wrong turn in the dark.

There is a threat of some rain again, but it is the weekend and you know what those weather reports are worth...