June 21, 2008

View of the day-Three young bucks that got chased out of the crop while combining today. The doe and spotted fawn were too fast to catch.

How depressing...the days are now getting shorter...

The horse Al has a share in, Shiver and Shake, got first in his harness race on Friday and posted his personal best!

We got an early start to the day even though the straw was a bit tough for the first load. Marilyn had a rider with her for a few rounds, one of the landlords of the field. We have combined this field almost every year since we have been coming south, first with Johnston Harvesting and then on our own. This was the first meeting for us with this landlord after all those years..it was kind of neat to finally put a face to the name. It is somewhat interesting that a lot of the farmers we cut for are on shares with other landlords who rarely even get out to see their land.

In the winter, when Marilyn thinks of combining in Oklahoma, this is the field that comes to mind. The windmill, the terraces...the fact that it seems to take forever, even though it is only 150 acres.

It was a beautiful day, the wind was gentle which caused a lot of dust to hang around and didn't help to dry anything out. The clouds kept coming and going and at one point as Al was hauling a load on the highway, he called to say it was raining pretty hard where he was at. Marilyn noticed a few sprinkles on the windshield, but it was one of those "sun showers" that happen...kind of a freak thing. She kept combining until...as the rule states..."the water runs off the header". After tarping the cart and moving back to the pickup across the field with the combine, she decided to do a bit of cleaning while waiting for the sun to come out again. It did about five minutes later and she decided to go where the crop was thinner on the high spots of the field so she wouldn't have to chew through so much wet straw.

Al was able to easily keep up with the hauling until they closed the elevator at 9:30. It was just as well since the humidity went way up and the straw was laying like a blanket on the stubble...that, and the next thing Marilyn had to move to was the terraces which have standing water in them. Tomorrow should be interesting getting those cut out...it's no-till and she can't leave ruts in the field. Even with the short rain delay, we managed just under 100 acres.

Not much left there to finish...