Saturday, August 30, 2008

August 30, 2008


View of the day-Another wildlife day...these antelope have been in the field next to us for the past couple of days. They always stick together and never seem to be in a hurry when we drive by or wait for them to cross the road.

Well, we didn't make 120 acres, but considering the day we had, the 100 acres we did do was pretty good. We got started around 11am and were going great guns until Marilyn heard a ticking noise coming from the knife drive on the header. Al took a look at it and we discovered the wobble box that drives the knife was on the brink of quitting.

This one was a new on that we had gotten last year and when we took the old one off back then, we tightened the nut underneath it and figured that had been the only problem, so we just carried the old one with us all summer. Good thing too. Marilyn went to get it from the combine trailer where it had been riding...it only weighs 100lbs or so...and Al took the other one off the header. We were hoping the old one would work, so we put it on and started combining again...it worked like a charm.

We had called ProHarvest and one of the guys was coming up to Stanley, about 30 miles south of us, and before we realized the old one would work he said he would bring a new one up to the dealer. Al called for a price and was quoted $1200...yikes. The parts man called him back later to tell him the price was $1700 and the change was due to the fact that it was a 'peak season' charge! We're going to fix the broken one and keep it on hand...what a rip job.

Surprisingly we only lost an hour and a half so we were on the same schedule as the past couple of days. We finished the field, then had to move to another field about 5 miles away. Marilyn took the combine and Al drove the tractor/cart over and the farmer picked us up to bring us back to get the pickup, shop and General. He was having his own problems...his A/C went out in one of his 2188 combines, a disappearing finger broke on his header and went through the combine taking out on of his chopper blades, then he had an fuel injector go...

It was a cooker of a day...upper 90's and a blast wind...excellent for combining...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey Big Al!

Didn't know there were antelope on the buffalo quarter. I thought with all the Esterhazy logins in your live feed you were a bit further north. You are going to miss some birthday cake at the rate you are going.