View of the day-A couple of fields outside Hamill, SD...winter wheat and spring wheat...you can probably guess which is which. Al was up early to work on a few things on the trucks. The Freightliner needed a new filter for the air compressor and in order to get to it, the cab and box had to be lifted...the easy part...the hard part is putting the cab back down without an extra set of hands...or at the very least an arm span of 8 feet. He also needed a chunk of flexpipe to replace the one that was leaking. The General was in need of a new ground cable so that had to come off as well.
Our farmer had been calling around to the various elevators to see about prices and penalties for protein and found out they would be closed on the weekend, so we wouldn't be able to do any combining...we didn't even try a test. They told him if the protein was under 12% they would deduct $0.50/bu per percentage point under...and if it was over, they would pay him $0.05/bu per percentage point over...doesn't seem fair.
Once Al had his list of needed items, we went into Winner to hopefully find all the parts. We brought the header trailer in to the tire shop to see if he would be able to set the toe in on the front set of wheels so we wouldn't need to be purchasing new tires every 600 miles. They couldn't get to it today, but since we wouldn't be going anywhere until next week, he said he would get it done Monday, so we left it there.
We went for lunch, then Al dropped Marilyn off at Pamida to get a few things while he went in search of his parts. Marilyn was finished and sitting out on the lawn chairs outside the store waiting for Al to pick her up...not often the shopping trips end like that...but once he got back and explained the delay, she understood completely.
He had gone into the CaseIH truck shop to get a length of flex pipe to repair the exhaust on the Freightliner and was waiting on one of the guys...who was on a personal bluetooth call...to get the price so he could pay for it and get out of there. After waiting 15 minutes, he finally got fed up and said he would pay for it over at the main office, which didn't go over very well with 'Mr. Bluetooth". He started in on Al...not a good idea, especially since he had been waiting for so long already...and Al gave it to him with both barrels. The guy even admitted it was a personal call and after Al went back to the main office, they tried to call to the truck shop to get a price and they couldn't get an answer...many an 'f' word was flying by the boss. He got his pipe, paid what they thought it was worth and left.
It might not have been so bad if he hadn't just come from the John Deere dealership where he was looking to get the ground cable made and he was left waiting while the guy there was on a phone call. This guy actually told Al he had to return a couple of other calls before he could help him...what ever happened to giving service to the guy who got off his ass and came down to the store? What's going to happen when the harvest rush hits?
After we FINALLY got all the parts we needed, Marilyn picked up a few groceries...it's cooking in the camper time...then rushed back to Hamill to meet the fuel truck that was coming to fill the combine and trucks. He was supposed to be there at 5:30pm, but didn't show until 8pm, which cut into the Canadian Football League game that Al was watching...but it wasn't the Saskatchewan Roughriders, so he pulled himself away to get the rigs filled.
There's a long list of "things to do" for tomorrow and Al's brother Jeff from Gerald, SK, just pulled up to the camper on his motor bike to visit for a couple of days.
Looks like Al has someone to help him...
No comments:
Post a Comment