August 3

View of the day-The grain cart hides behind the bins in the farmers yard.

We actually got up early enough to go have eggs for breakfast at the Medicine Rock before anything else in town opened up to pay our bills. After that was done, we left town at 9:30am and aimed north to Menoken.

We were about 10 miles south of Sterling, when Marilyn had another tire blow on the camper, it was pretty much shredded by the time we found someplace reasonably safe to pull over to change it. It goes pretty quick with the compressor and impact handy in the shop trailer that's pulled behind the camper, and in 30 minutes we were on our way again.

We stopped at the campground to get the camper parked and then took the combine out to the field. We had to make the short backhaul to Sterling to get the tractor/grain cart and header and take them the 15 miles to the field. Once the combine was unloaded and the pickup head traded for the straight head, Marilyn started combining. The wheat was standing perfectly, the field was flat and a mile long, so there wasn't a lot of turning...or rather there shouldn't have been. Al was driving one truck and the farmer had his own truck so they took turns hauling into Sterling.

The wheat was yielding around 50 bu/ac, so Marilyn couldn't make it down the field and back without being full. There wasn't time to get the tractor/grain cart unloaded, so we were just making due with the two trucks for the rest of the day. They were able to back up to the pile and dump at the elevator, so it went fairly fast, but tomorrow could be a different story.

Marilyn had the farmer's wife ride along for the last round of the night, a first ride in the combine for her. We covered 66 acres, even with moving between states...what a far cry from doing 30 acres in a field a block and a half from the camper.

The only internet access is at the rest stop on the interstate going into Bismarck. Fortunately the rest stop is in the corner of the field we are working on and we can just park along the fence to get hooked up. Otherwise, we have to go into the stop from the interstate highway and the only exit to get turned around and back to the campground is in Bismarck.

Wouldn't that be terrible...