May 4, 2013

View of the day-Well, actually the view from most days over the past winter and half of the spring.

It's May and all things should be thoughts of the harvest season, but it is a bit tough to do when you have to wait for the snowbanks to melt to get the equipment out.  It's been a long four months or so since the last post, but it has been anything but quiet on this end.

We finally got our tractor home and were able to find a snowblower to mount on the back, thanks to Al's connections on the toy circuit...it's not what you know...it's who you know.  We had a lot of snow to move around all winter, and it did a great job...after a bit of a learning curve going from pushing with the blade to backing up with the blower.

January was crazy for travel.  We went to Saskatoon to look after the trade show booth for the Association of Canadian Custom Harvester at the Crop Production Show.  It ended on a Thursday and on Friday we had the Toy Show there for the weekend.  As usual, the weather was frigid for loading, but we got home late on Sunday night, then packed up Monday to go to Brandon, MB to man the booth at Ag Days.  We only had to do one day, since there were other harvesters to take over for the rest of the week.  

By Thursday, Al was on the road to Lethbridge with his toy collecting buddy, Roger, for a first time at that toy show.  Because of the chaos of the month, we weren't able to take in the US Custom Harvesters Convention in Kansas City...so we couldn't come home with any "treasures" from the auction.

February had the big Yorkton toy show and auction. Al was busy getting the final touches done on the auction...all the note taking from last year really helped to make sure there were no glitches.  This year he decided to have a projector with large pictures of the toys on a slide show, so the buyers could have a better look during the auction, which worked out better than anticipated.  Once again we had a charity tractor to auction off, with the procedes going towards a memorial splash park and it raised $700! 

This year we decided to take the M88 mini combine to the Yorkton toy show...something we had been planning on doing since we purchased it several years ago.  We borrowed a flat bed trailer, loaded it up and after Al's buddy, Mike from

Minute Muffler, gave it the once over at his shop, got it hauled over to the hall to move in.  They have the tables pretty tight, so finding room to park was a bit of a task, but after it was backed in between the tables, it was good for the weekend.  It got lots of action from the little guys...some of them spent hours on it.  By the end of the show, we had decided that perhaps we should get a trailer to haul it to a few more shows...and it just so happened that Mike was looking to sell the one we borrowed.

While the toy shows were going on, we were still managing to fit our work schedules in.  Al was now back at H&R Block, getting ready for the tax season and Marilyn was still at Staples and helping Brenda out occasionally at liquidation world.  Marilyn had a few extra hours to spare, so she started working at H&R after her Staples shifts, but only in the back office...taxes are not her cup of tea, but she seals a mean envelope.

Marilyn was also busily involved with the theatre group, since they were short of actors for their next production of Noises Off, she took one of the roles, so now there were rehearsals to add to the mix three times a week.  The set for this production was a bit of an undertaking...it needed two stories and had to be rotated between scenes, so the audience could see the backstage antics.  

Fortunately, she was able to enlist the help of one of the construction guys from the big musicals that used to be held in Yorkton and with the help of Brenda, a fabulous set was built.  We had to do the building in Willowbrook, which was 13 miles west of Yorkton...they were good enough to give us the gym rent free in exchange for being able to have a dessert theatre for the dress rehearsal.  The people that got to see the rehearsal at Willowbrook would not have recognized the play as being the same if they had come a week later to Yorkton...quite a bit of improvising going on.

We took one final weekend off to take in the Lloyminster toy show which we had missed it for a couple years.  We had good weather and the toy show was pretty good, but with so much going on at home, we were glad the season was over...that, and the toy trailer stock was pretty well depleted.  Marilyn was always impressed by the dioramas, and especially the one from the couple from Calgary, AB who had been at all the toy shows we had been at.  Their cattle trailer accident scene detail was amazing!

So the toy shows were over, the performance at the beginning of April was in the books, which gave Marilyn a bit more free time.  Al was still watching his Yorkton Terrier hockey team, who had captured the league title...and bragging rights for another year.  They are now in Nanaimo, BC playing in the western finals for a birth in the national playoffs which will be held in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, starting next weekend...they have one more game to go tomorrow to decide if they make the cut.  We had bought a ticket on the hockey club's fundraising raffle...grand prize being $100,000 to be drawn in June...and were thrilled to get a call that we had won a prize in the Early Bird Draw...$10,000!  Al has decided if the boys are going to to the finals in PEI, thanks to the winnings, so are we.  No Jinx.

So now we are waiting...checking the crop reports and calling our farmers down south to see when we need to get rolling.  Marilyn is itching to get the camper out of it's spot and opened up, Al is working on repairing the hoops on the grain cart that collapsed under the weight of the massive amounts of snow that we had this winter.  It's almost as good as new...ish.

And the blog is back on board...even if we aren't harvesting yet...