September 4, 2011

View of the day-That time of the year again...time for a pedicure for the horses.

We had a chilly night, it got down to 38ºF, but we only noticed it when we had to pry ourselves out of bed into the cold temps. The furnace did not seem to want to work, but at least the fireplace took the bite out of the air and with the sun shining it, it didn’t take long before we were back to normal.

We had brunch at the house, then got started with a few little things that needed to get done on the combine. Marilyn picked the header off the trailer and moved the combine by the shop so we could use the compressor…Al wanted to blow the rads, air and cab filters, while Marilyn had an ‘inside’ job to do. The wheat awns, or beards, tend to pack in along the edge of the sieves and it takes a screwdriver and some nifty maneuvering to get all the stuff chiseled out.
After spending an hour getting the sieves cleaned, it was time to put it all back together and blow everything out the back. Al got all the tires aired up to the proper pressure and by then it was time to get into the house for the big Labor Day Classic, between the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers…quite the rivalry.

Marilyn went to work on the furnace in the camper…it didn’t seem to want to kick in…so after some monkeying around, she finally got it to start and run. We will see if it works tonight when it cools off. Kim’s dad, Bob, went out and did a test on the canola, but it was pretty wet under the swaths, so it looked like we wouldn’t be doing much combining today, that meant there was time to watch the Riders kick the Bombers 27-7…a pretty good deal since the Bombers were doing a lot of crowing…they even took out a billboard to raz the Riders. Who’s eating crow now?

Kim and Marg had gotten a boat this summer and since there was to be no combining and it was reasonably nice out, we all decided to take the boat up to White Bear Lake, just 12 miles north of Carlyle, to do some wake boarding. Marg was at the casino for their big game day festivities so she met us at the lake just as we were getting organized on the water.
It was a nice change of pace to be on the water, neither Al nor Marilyn took a chance on the board…we left that to Gordie and Kim. Gordie was new at the sport and initially had a time of it trying to get up and stay up, but eventually he mastered it and after quite a bit of time in the water, gave up the rope to Kim so he could give it a whirl. Marilyn and Marg were riding in the front of the boat when a passing boat sent out a wave that soaked them pretty good, so it cooled of a lot with the wet clothes and the wind. Marilyn had started taking pictures with her camera when the rope snapped down and clipped the camper…fortunately she had the loop on her wrist, but the impact popped the battery door open and they both went flying, so no more pictures…at least from the camera. Good thing the new Blackberry had a good charge and you can bet the big bucks that she was on guard every time a boat went by.

As the sun was setting, we loaded up the boat and headed back for the farm. The first thing Marilyn did was to go directly to the back of the closet to get the ‘fall’ clothes…the toasty sweat shirts and fleece pants. She was pleasantly surprised when she put on her hoodie and the long lost set of camper keys fell out of the pouch…another bonus. After supper in the house, we came back to the camper and ran a test on the furnace…it worked…so far so good.

Of course, we wonder if it will work during the night when we need it…