October 17, 2009

View of the day-Al gets to back the camper for the last time as it gets parked for the winter.

It turned out to be a beautiful day out, just as the forecasters had predicted...sunny and warm. Since Al had decided we would be commuting to Esterhazy until we were done..about 50 miles one way...Marilyn go to finish unpacking the camper.

Once again the best laid plans fall by the wayside...bring two boxes in unpack and put them away, turns in to...fill everything up in bags and bring inside to cover most of the floor and counter space, so we can deal with it after the camper gets winterized. And 'we' means Al asks where 'item X' is, Marilyn finds it then continues putting everything away. We eventually go everything out, got it cleaned out and winterized just as the sun was going down.

Al got to watch his football/baseball games, then went in for the Terrier game in the evening. Marilyn had to help work a wedding bar in Esterhazy for a member of the theatre group who was tying the knot. The hope was that we would still be staying in the camper at Eugene's, then the trip home would only be three miles...no such luck, so she didn't get back home until 2:30am...hence, the late blog.

But the big news is that we will be in the combine on Sunday! Of course it will just be to move it to the straight canola and do a test.

But at least we will be in the field...

October 15, 2009

View of the day-Not again. We just about got rid of the last round of snow and we woke up to this, this morning.

I has been a few days without a blog entry, mostly due to the fact that Marilyn has been back at work during the day and splitting evening unpacking the camper, doing theatre work, fixing computers...just not enough hours in the day.

Al on the other hand has been doing all sorts of things during the day...none of which have been archived, so Marilyn can only guess at the doings of the day. He has been travelling to Esterhazy, Melville, Gerald and who knows where else...but he does not take the camera with him, so without a view of the day, it just doesn't seem right to have a blog entry. Wouldn't it have been nice to see one of the rain gauge on the combine with an inch of ice in the bottom of it, or some foolish farmer testing canola at 20% moisture?

Marilyn has gotten quite a razzing at work because there hasn't been an entry for a while...those doing the chirping might want to watch the back of their shiny head...it could appear as a view of the day before long.

So the weather has been horrible...cold, rainy, snowy, windy...but, it is supposed to get up to 50ºF this weekend...just before the rain comes back again. So now, Al has made it official...we will be commuting to Esterhazy once we get rolling again...so that means a total clean out of the camper...oh, joy.

There hasn't been a wheel turn in the area and the crop report says the harvest is 75% done in Saskatchewan...we wonder where they get their stats...maybe 75% of the carrots or potatoes have been harvested...there is a LOT waiting to be taken off.

Al actually got to do a bit of harvesting related work, he went down to Esterhazy to unload the truck and grain cart into the bin at the farmers...it won't be that dry and dusty coming out of the truck for a while. When he got home, he was full of promise and started to schedule out the next day...then it snowed...back to square one. Lucky for him he has had hockey and football of all sorts for entertainment, live and on the tube.

We had a recall on the pickup...windshield washer motor...so Al took it in to the local dealer to get fixed. He sat from 8:45am to 10:20am and not one person even drove through the parking lot...those commission guys must be hurting.

Speaking of hurting, Marilyn was making stew for supper the other night and was stirring the pot with a metal spoon...you can see where this is going...she got such a shock that the spoon hit the ceiling and she jumped two feet...WOW, that was something! The house must be purged of the evil thing and a new smooth top range must nestle into it's place...no talk of bad grounds or faulty wiring will change her mind. Might as well match up a new fridge while she's at it.

Marilyn has been busy getting organized for Paper Bag Players upcoming dinner theatre in December, working on sets, sound and lights...and getting the web site set up to sell the reserved seating...a new experience for everyone involved. We are doing four performances, Dec. 17-20, in town. We just started advertising by sending flyers out to the businesses for their Christmas parties and the Saturday night is pretty much sold out...not even one poster has been put up...there will be some cranky people that didn't get tickets, we're sure of that.

Let's hope everyone gets harvesting soon...

October 12, 2009

View of the day-The snow is trying to melt off the camper, it now has some extra stability with the icicles that have reached the ground.

We got to sleep in today, before commencing to unpack the camper. The job never ends...it seems like the bags multiply if you leave them too long in the camper and they aren't filled with anything new.

It was our Canadian thanksgiving and we had the leftover care package that Marilyn had brought home from her mom...almost as good as fresh. Al got to watch football most of the day while Marilyn worked on unpacking, computer repair, script analysis, sound effect prep then got sucked into the 'Dancing with the Stars' vortex.

Al made the mistake of giving Marilyn the remote, since the Monday Night Football game hadn't started...and he never got it back. After DWTS was over, she found the Canadian equivalent...Battle of the Blades. What a brilliant concept...take professional figure skaters and team them up with NHL hockey players for a figure skating competition.

Anything to get out of unpacking...

October 11, 2009

View of the day-A couple of Massey combines waiting for the snow to disappear...at least they are lined up this year.

Marilyn was up before the crack of dawn to get ready for a road trip to Moose Jaw to have Thanksgiving lunch with her parents, her brother Tim and his wife Naomi who were visiting from Calgary, Alberta.


It was pretty dismal all day, low grey clouds that looked like they were ready to dump at any time, but the roads were good and the only snow that fell was around Regina and it didn't last long. After lunch and a visit...and a motherboard catastrophy on her parents computer, Marilyn left for home with a piano keyboard and a desktop computer that badly needs a transplant so her mother can get back online. Because who can last without the various 'pass this on to 10 friends for good luck' and 'good jokes you probably forgot about since you got them the last 30 times' emails?

On the way home Marilyn was amazed by the amount of crop that is still out in the field and it was quite obvious that we did not get near as much snow as they did closer to the Qu'Appelle Valley. The geese were able to find some open water and could be seen picking through some of the swaths burried under the snow in the fields. The field of canary seed looks as though it will be a bit of a nightmare when the snow disappears...all lodged and laying down...not good at all. There was a lot of standing canola that didn't look like it it had made it through the wind without giving up a lot of seeds, but the stuff in swaths...well, rock and a hard place...

Marilyn decided to call Al before she went through town to see if she needed to pick something up in town, but there was no answer at home. Then she remembered that he had gone to Melville to meet his step-dad for supper and coincidentally, she was just passing Melville as she was talking to him, so she stopped in and had a chat with them while they finished their supper. Al went to the hockey game after they had eaten...the return match against the rival team and this time on their turf...the Terriers lost 8-6. You win some, you lose some...

And this internet is slower than dial-up tonight...grrr...

October 10, 2009

View of the day-More of the same...

Another slack day. Marilyn got the desktops all put back into their winter desks, no easy task, but at least the cords are all labeled. Al did more propane tank shifting as the camper seems to think 50ºF requires the furnace to be running constantly. Good thing Marilyn found a nice oil filled heater in her Walmart pit stop last night, so Al will have a break...he claims the tanks are heavy and clumsy.

It is our Canadian thanksgiving weekend and the first anniversary of Al's nephew Myron and his wife Shantal, so the family decided to go to our favorite place for steaks...Slow Helen's in the Waverly Hotel in Melville. There were about 20 of us there and the Roughriders football game was on the big screen, so after everyone had eaten, we decided to stay and watch the end of the game...they won...Al is back on the bandwagon.

We came home and after a long day, Marilyn did the blog, but apparently pressed the 'save now' button instead of the 'publish post' and didn't realize it until she started in on the next entry.

Sorry...won't happen again...

October 9, 2009

View of the day-We knew we would wake up to the white stuff covering everything and it fell off and on during the day, then it kicked up a nasty one just as everyone was heading home from work...ahhh...Saskatchewan weather.

Marilyn was up at the crack of dawn...no, really...she was going in to Staples to do a bit of training in the shipping/receiving department so she had to be in by 8am. Al decided at the last minute to drive her in to town so he could have the truck to gad about in without the worry of getting stuck or sliding off the road somewhere.

Al took a road trip to Melville to pick up a jersey he had won in a charity auction...a Dallas Stars NHL team jersey signed by Marty Turco, the goalie of said team. He had hopes that it was a goalie jersey so that it might fit him...no such luck...BUT, it does fit Marilyn quite nicely! He stopped to have lunch with his H&R Block buddy, Curtis, then picked Marilyn up from work at 4:30pm. The oat swaths along our road were all covered with snow and it looks like some of the 'beaver houses' left by the swatherman will really soak it up once it warms up.

It was Yorkton Terriers hockey night in town and they were hosting their Hwy #10 rivals, the Melville Millionaires...always a good match up. They have a great deal on some excellent steaks in the lounge at the arena and since Marilyn didn't get taken out to lunch, it was decided that we would eat there before the game. Marilyn was just along for the steaks, so once the game started she headed back for the farm.

Of course, she needed some new hair goo...and Walmart was on the way home. Apparently they are expanding the Walmart into a Supercentre, so there was a lot of construction going on and everything was moved around, so she had to cover a lot of the store to find what she was looking for...only to find it where it has always been. Imagine that.

After the Terriers came out with a 4-2 win, Al got a ride home with Darlene from next door, who was working in the concession at the rink. The snow had let up a bit after the white out that hit during the game and the roads were starting to get iced over with all the traffic that had been on them all day and the temperatures hovering just below the freezing mark.

And there is more snow forecast for our Thanksgiving weekend...

October 8, 2009

View of the day-Need we say more? It started around 8:30pm and there is no sign of let up.

We really got to sleep in today and it was nice to be inside and warm. Marilyn spent the day working on emptying the camper and Al took a trip into town to do a bit of shopping and visiting.

The forecast was for snow...most of it was going to fall further east...kind of where we are combining, of course and originally Friday was supposed to be the heavy day. We certainly hope it is over by tomorrow.

Al spent the evening watching hockey/baseball and Marilyn was entertaining, Pam, a fellow Paper Bag Player theatre group member. We spent the evening bundling and addressing 2000 flyers to go out to the surrounding communities for our annual dinner theatre coming up in December...fortunately, there was no envelope licking, just vicious rubber bands. By the time Pam left at 11:30pm we had to find a broom to sweep off her car so she could see to go home...it was starting to pile up already, but she made it back to town safely.

Marilyn had left the awning out so she could get from the camper to the house without getting wet with the unloading...the snow was not sliding off at all, in fact, it was sagging it enough to make a nice little trough to hold the snow. That got cleaned off and the awning rolled up for the night as the snow keeps falling.

Can't wait to see what it looks like in the morning...