October 29, 2013

View of the day-The other day the water wasn't as "hard" on this slough...that's ice with a skiff of snow on it now.

Al was busy combining, even though it was a late start and an early finish most days. He got the straight wheat finished, then had to come back to take the straight head off to finish the swaths. Fortunately, he wasn't that far from the yard, so he just roaded the combine back to change heads.

Marilyn was working on getting her costume sewed for the competition performance coming up this weekend. While she worked on that, we were getting a new furnace installed, so the guys were there all day getting that job done. Since we don't have a basement in our house, the furnace is in a room just off the garage, so the access was really good for hauling in and out.

Al got the swaths done, then came back home and loaded the pickup head back on the trailer. Now he had to move the straight header a few miles south to a patch of standing oats. He left the header there and called it a night.

This morning, we woke to a thick layer of frost on everything, so Al wasn't able to start much before noon. Once the combine was warmed up, he went down and got the oats cut...a tangled, downed mess...but at least there wasn't a lot of it. 

He came back to the yard and switched headers out for the last time...there was a small patch of canola to do, but he wasn't going to start tonight.

He had talked to another guy from 25 miles south of Yorkton, who had some canola to do, but since he was only able to send the combine, the farmer said he would work on his own and see how far he could get. Al told him if he still had some left after November  11 he would be able to help him out. He also got a call from another farmer he had talked to a while back, and they had just picked up their last swath, so they were done, too.

So tomorrow, he is on his way to Dyersville, Iowa for the National Farm Toy Show, with Roger and his neighbor. That means Marilyn gets to combine the last field of the year...then clean the machines while he is gone.

He gets back Sunday, then we are off to Red Deer, Alberta to set up at a toy show at Agri-Trade for the week.

There won't be any pictures from Dyersville this year...