Monday, August 17, 2009

August 17, 2009 Happy Birthday Al!


View of the day-A field of Canola finishes blooming south of Yorkton, SK.

We woke up to rain again and after having coffee with Kim and stopping to see Marg at work we left for our road trip to Yorkton. The fields along the way were pretty much the same as they were in North Dakota...some green, some blooming, some looking like it was close to swathing...weird year. We stopped in Whitewood at the Agco dealership to talk to the owner...an old friend who never stops trying to get us into one of those big red Massey's...the color is right, but we just can't do it...yet. After getting the gossip on the ag machinery market, we carried on north. We stopped in to visit with another farmer south of Stockholm, the place where we have been known to park our rigs before moving south from time to time...lots more farming gossip there and an invitation to a new year's eve wedding dance...that will be the first time in a looong time that we have gone out on a new year's eve.

We drove in to Grayson to get our mail, which had been collecting over the course of the last two months...it's always nice to find a cheque or two in the mix of bills. We took a detour through Atwater...population...not very much, perhaps the Hamill of the north, to see if we could find someplace to park the camper so we wouldn;t have such a long drive from the field. The original thought was to see if we could get power at the yard where the bins were, but after checking it out, we could see that wouldn't happen...never mind that Sask Power would probably want an arm and a leg to hook it up. We were told the garage owner in town might be able to set us up with something so we went to talk to him...we're in! He has a spot for us next to his garage...power, water...no sewer though...but we have a small tote tank to take care of that. A drive around town with the wifi-finder showed some promise for the internet as well...might be a $20 cross a palm to use some of their bandwidth.

We got directions on the route back to Yorkton on the grid roads and since they had gotten rain there too, the 20 mile trip was slow and slippery but without incident. We went directly to the Case dealer to see about some parts...and toys...we needed and to get caught up with our parts and sales men. After getting that bit of business done we went out to our house to unload the toys and see how things were making it through the summer...the grass was cut and everything seemed to be in order.

We went back into town and Al got his driver's license renewed...time for new photo id...then we dropped off a farm toy at one of Al's regular customers before going over to the Chalet to meet with Marilyn's friends to get caught up on the latest goings on in town. Al stayed long enough to have his supper and have the waitresses bring him a fancy cake with a sparkler on it...and we all sang Happy Birthday...something that we cringe when we see it happening to other people. He couldn't get out of there fast enough, but that was probably because he doesn't relate to the 'theatre gab'. He went to put fuel in the pickup at the card lock but of the 30 various cards we have for all the places we get fuel, the Yorkton one was missing...so he went back out to the farm to get the spare card from the van in the garage. After all the gabbing was done, we grabbed a drink for the road and started back for Carlyle, blogging it up on the way.

The border might be on the horizon tomorrow...

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