July 13, 2010

View of the day-What was left of the feeder house drive belt this morning.

We were up extra early to see if we could find a new belt somewhere within 100 miles. Al did a lot of calling before finding the elusive belt at Platte...a 60 mile drive SE of Hamill. Once Marilyn had her go cup filled with coffee, we hit the road.

The humidity was high and it was pretty wet with dew, although, to repeat what we were once told by someone we combined for..."you're not cutting the f-in grass". We had a scenic drive through some rolling hills and across the Missouri before we got to Platte...thankfully we don't have to haul the big stuff up some of those grades.

We had called ahead, they had our belt sitting on the counter waiting for us. We asked about getting the new one on warranty...we had all the numbers we needed...but they told us we could only get it from our home dealership. Marilyn went out to call ProHarvest to see if they could do anything, leaving Al to work his magic with the bookkeeper inside. Marilyn wasn't successful, but Al was...Marilyn didn't ask for the gory details.

We went back to Hamill, packed some lunch, then proceeded out to the field to start repairs. Al had left the oil to drain last night so he could change it and the filter this morning, so we got that done first...with no issues...then came the belt. Kudos to the engineers for making it a lot easier to get the sheilds off that side of the combine...not counting the one that hasn't been on since it fell off and was driven over...Al kept saying "this is way too easy, we must have missed something". We actually had the old one off, the new one on and were combining by 1pm...without any...ahem..."discussions".

We only had one semi running today so we did a lot of waiting after the cart and combine were full. We got the first field finished then moved across the road to the last 50 acre piece and with the wheat running around 54bu/ac we knew it would't take long...providing the elevator at Chamberlain didn't close and leave us in the lurch. The weather forecast was for rain later on tonight and the farmer wanted to get done, so he found an elevator that was open later and got an extra load in.

We were working about 5 miles from town so while we were waiting for the truck to come back, we went to the camper until we saw the semi go through town past our house. After getting him filled again, we were able to finish the field and hold everything in the cart and combine. Marilyn went back to the camper and Al waited out at the field to dump both rigs when the semi showed up, then he brought the cart into town.

So now we are done in Hamill, tomorrow we will get the new tires put on the back of the pickup, get the header trailer...and do some laundry before loading the tractor and cart.

We might even get one load to Gettysburg...