Friday, July 2, 2010

July 2, 2010


View of the day-Just like home…combine on the front lawn and a first Massey sighting of the run.

Al was up early again to unload the Freightliner in town, then he went out to the field to take the General to Colby so Marilyn would have some room to start. Marilyn was out servicing and fueling and by 11am we were on our way to finishing the last 100 acres.

Al was able to keep up for the first part of the day and once Marilyn finished the part of the field on the west side of the water run, we got everything moved over to the east side. We noticed a bank of clouds coming in from the west and there were some weather warnings, but nothing severe…we were hoping to get the field done before we got any precipitation. Not like they got back home in Yorkton…5 inches in 45 minutes last night!

Because we have a larger fuel tank on the combine and our slip tank only holds 100 gallons, we have to fill twice a day if we are going hard. Because we are so far from town and we figured we would have enough fuel to last the day, we didn’t run back in after we started…we didn’t have time. Well, we certainly did later on in the day. Marilyn’s alarm went off at 5pm and there was no way to finish the field without getting fuel, so she made a run into town.

She thought she would save some time by going to the Cenex downtown and hope that the pump was faster than the one at the Coop. It was closed for the long weekend, but you could still pay at the pumps…at $75 a crack with the dollar charge and the fuel was .20/gal higher. She decided to go back to the Coop and sit it out since we didn’t really need a full tank to finish.

What ever happen to fuel pump courtesy? Three pumps, the middle one is the one needed and the people fuelling don’t pull through to the front pump so the next person can use the other one…they hog up all three spots. Marilyn sat and waited for a mini van to move so she could get in…a few minutes later a woman came out and got in the van…yay, finally. She proceeds to get organized and looks like she is ready to leave, then a young girl comes sauntering out to get in the van…now, yay…nope. All the while she can see Marilyn trying to inch ahead to get to the pumps…then a young guy comes strolling out to the van…in no hurry. Finally they are strapped in and ready to leave and Marilyn gets “the look” from the woman because now she has to back out to leave…come on, it’s not a semi and she only had to back up 10 feet. Of course, the back was packed so full she couldn’t see anything. What should have been a 15 minute fill, turned into 30…and the clouds were getting closer.

Back at the field, she fuelled the combine then got right back at it. The wind was 40mph most of the day out of the south so almost every time Al took a load in we had to use the combine as a wind break…no tarp catastrophes today. Marilyn was down to the last 10 acres and could see lighting in the west…she still had to get the Freightliner filled which was on the other side of the water run…and get it tarped just in case the deluge hit. She managed that all right then raced back to get the last few rounds and get the cart loaded and tarped before getting wet…which she did.

Marilyn headed back into town after getting everything battened down for the night and once Al got back from Colby with the General, he picked up the Freightliner and brought it into town for it’s daily run. One load left to go to the elevator and no rain so far.

And the locals are not messing around with just the little firecrackers anymore…


No comments: