May 21, 2012

View of the day-The start to the 2012 season as Al cleans up a spot near the entrance to the canola field.

Al was up early to visit with John and find out how soon he figured the wheat would be ready.  Since it was going to be a day or two, we decided to make the move out west to start on the canola that had been swathed just before we had brought the first load down.

After breakfast at The Fat Hen…Miss Dottie’s is no more…we took the General up to Burlington to get the shop trailer removed and repaired.  We lined up to the ramp and Royce from Burlington Welding came over with a fork lift to pull the trailer out.

Right at the side of the ramp was a birds nest with a couple of eggs in it.  The next was tucked off to the side, but with the forklift taking up most of the width, Al had to stand to the side.  Just as Marilyn decided it might be a good idea to move the nest, she turned to take the two steps to grab it…just as Al was stepping back to get out of the way.  It was one of those super-slow-motion, “NOOOOOOOO” moments that you could see coming, but couldn’t avoid…scrambled eggs.

Royce got the shop trailer out and moved off the ramp, then he got some extensions and picked the trailer up from the side and moved it by the shop.  We got the tools we thought we might need, then left the men to their work.

Back at Cherokee, Marilyn worked on getting the two-way radio mounted in the combine, but without the shop trailer, we were shy of some screws.  Al had been trying to get the feeder drum raised, but he was having a problem with not having the right size socket to undo the nut.  We made a quick trip to the NAPA store for what we needed, then went back to work.  Al was successful with his job, but Marilyn had gotten screws that were too short…she didn’t want to go through the back wall of the cab, but it turns out that is exactly how it was mounted in the last cab, so now she needs bolts to get it firmly set. Because we were pretty much ready to start moving the 17 miles west, the radio was firmly wedged in the cupholder for the day.

Marilyn gave Al a ride out to the farm to get the tractor and cart, then gave the windows a much needed cleaning before going back to the camper to get the combine.  We moved both rigs over to the canola field, then John came over, picked us up and brought us back for the pickup, header and General.

We got the header on and tuned in, then Al got to make the first few rounds so he could make sure that everything was working as it should be.  Gary, the farmer, took a sample in to the elevator and it was testing 4.1%, so we were ready for action.  After Al got the kinks out and the General full, Marilyn took over combining and he went to the elevator.

It was so great to be back in the combine again, going great guns and having everything working…with the exception of the right speaker on the music radio. It was a beautiful evening with just a hint of wind to keep the dust away.  There were a lot more combines in the field today…mostly wheat, but some canola, too.  More crews were moving through town, heading south…not sure for how long though.

So, considering we didn’t get started combining until 6:30pm, we still managed to get 49 acres cleared off the 80 acre patch we are on.

Just imagine what we will accomplish when we start at 11am tomorrow…