September 18, 2010

View of the day-What we woke up to early this morning...crispy grass and no water in the camper...just as predicted.

We were up at the crack of dawn so we could hit the US border as soon as it opened. We were going to the Toy Show at Kenmare and Marilyn had a package to pick up at the JD dealer. Mr. Happy was at the border, but after checking us all over and giving us the third about the size of our slip tank, he let us go on our way.

At the toy show Al discovered several small items he couldn't live without and Marilyn made a purchase of some air fresheners from one of the other vendors that were there. We stopped to pick up a case of pop, then started back for Canada...this time we had to leave some cash at the border in the form of tax...nothing serious, though.

We had called up to the farmer to see if there was a chance that we might get going today and he figured we would roll later on in the afternoon, so we took a side trip to Estevan to watch Gordie play football against a team from Regina. It was another sunny afternoon, perfect for football, unfortunately the boys lost although they put up a pretty good fight and were leading for the better part of the game.

We got the call at the end of the game from the farmer that he had just done a test and the canola was 13.5% moisture...not dry by any means, but good enough for us to crank it up. Since Marg had to clean up the concession booth and wait for Gordie, Kim got a ride back to Carlyle with us so he could go swathing.

We had to change back to the pickup head, so we decided to put the straight head in transport, just in case we needed to move it without the combine. Marilyn got in the cab and lifted it up all the way, noticing various footprints all over it, just as a grey cat came flying out of the feederhouse, over the knife and into the trees. The mouse he had been stalking did the same, but didn't make it very far before the dogs got hold of him...quite the day for wildlife. Al had another mouse in his trapline in the General and as he was hauling a load to the yard another one scampered across the dash while he was driving. Time to lay a few more traps out.

We got out to the field just as the farmer was starting up after getting his grain truck moved out. Marilyn started in combining...it was two weeks ago that we last did any real combining...and although we only got started at 4:30pm, she was able to get 60 acres of canola picked up. The combine never missed a beat...we definitely have the air filter solved. There was hardly any wind and at times when the two machines were side by side, you couldn't see anything for the black dust...if the filter didn't get filled up then, it never would.

It started to get tough just after 8pm and once the grain cart was filled, we called it a day. We covered a lot of ground today and finally got combining...woo hoo!

Now if the rain will just stay away tonight...