April 29, 2011

Before the big storm, Al gets the combine parked...

April 30, 2011

View of the day-The Freightliner looks like it would seriously like to make the trip south in a hurry...this snow thing is getting old.

Quite a couple of days...yesterday it was overcast and started to rain later on in the day. This eventually turned into snow around 10pm, but the forecast was for more snow to the south, so we weren't too worried. But it was the weekend report so we should have known not to be too complacent.

Al woke up around 3am and took a look out the window...wow...at that time everything was already white and the trees were loaded down with the heavy snow. The wind was blowing hard out of the north, but since we have a pretty good stand of trees protecting us, all the snow did was pile up on the roof and swirl around the front of the house.

Around 4am the power went off and it continued to snow and blow...by now the weather band was stating that we were in a winter blizzard. How can that be when winter has been over for at least a month? The power was out until 8:30am, but since we had no place to go, we just went back to sleep to wait it out...thankfully the temperature wasn't that bad.

Al decided he had to take a trip into town to see if the big consignment auction was a go...the gates were locked and it was postponed until tomorrow. He continued into town to see how things were looking there...not so good, but there were still other people that had ventured out. Too bad they didn't have 4WD, there were a lot of them stuck in snow drifts.

We saw a glimmer of the sun just as it was setting, so it would appear the snow is done and now we will wait for the melt...which shouldn't take too long with the temperatures going up into the 60's later on in the week.

Of course, this won't help the flooding issues...

April 28, 2011

View of the day-Al cranks up the M88 for a ride before parking it.

Time for a quick update...one has to ease into these things...

We have been busy...Al doing taxes at H&R Block and getting down to the wire as cut off is the end of April. Marilyn was busy with work at Staples and also the community theatre group, building a set for a production of Rumor's by Neil Simon with her friend Brenda...the most challenging set to date.

We have had a lot of runoff with all the snow that has been melting, so much so that it has been running across the road to our place, cutting us off from the highway into town. This means doubling the distance to town from 6 to 12 miles...and there is no sign of let up for the next while.

We finally took possesion of the M88 combine we bought at the US harvesters convention. They delivered it to our dealer here in Yorkton and with the help of Jeff's snowmobile trailer, we were able to get it loaded and brought out to the farm. Marilyn got it unloaded and drove it around a bit...somewhat of a task, since it has "armstrong" steering and as soon as you let off on the joystick, it stops dead so you can't use both hands to crank the wheel. Al even got to take it for a spin to show it to the neighbour and see how it would handle on the open road...he was very impressed with the handling.

His last comment was "at least I get to drive one combine"...

M88 Mini Combine

Here it is...the latest addition to our fleet!!!

March 5, 2011

View of the day-Al checks out the view from the new Gleaner at the US Custom Harvesters Convention.

What a couple of days with informational meetings, trade shows and the auction. We were able to catch up with a lot of harvesters that we knew and we met a lot of new friends...there is quite a crowd that attends these conventions.

We had waited all day for the auction and the hundreds of items that were up for bid and we actually got to put our hand up on a couple...without much success. Our Canadian Custom Harvesters association had donated a copy of our harvesting book to go towards their scholarship fund and then there was the big item...the 1/4 scale 7088 combine from CaseIH...both went close to the end of the list.

Al decided what his limit was for the combine so when it came time to bid, he did...and we won! What an awesome job they did of building this combine...13.5hp motor, hydrostatic drive, the unloading auger swings out, the header lifts and lowers and it even comes with a header transport! More stats and pictures later...when we finally get it home...not sure how that will happen, it's too big to put in the back of the pickup.

We left Grand Island around 10am and drove without incident straight through to Bismarck, ND where we are spending the night before making it the rest of the way home tomorrow.

Of course there is a cargo trailer full of toys and tires to pick up on the way...

March, 3 2011

View of the day-CaseIH never ceases to come up with unique auction items...more pictures and info to come.

We were up early on Tuesday and off to Valley City for the toy show. Al managed to find some toys that he couldn't live without and Marilyn found some tools that she couldn't live without, and after a quick lap around the displays, we started the trek south.

It was surprising to see how the snow in the fields disappeared for long stretches, then would be piled up again straight across the ditches. The temperatures seemed to take forever to rise, but we finally broke through the wall and were able to finally see them nearing 0ºC. We forged on and after switching drivers a few times, made Grand Island, NE around 8pm.

We were up early and over at the Event Centre to see if we could get in on one of the CaseIH factory tours that had been set up. We had been booked in for Tuesday, but since we didn't get there early enough, we ended up on the waiting list for the Wednesday tour. We were lucky enough to get in on the 10:30am bus, but that meant missing out on one of the combine sessions. The tour was a lot faster than the last time we were there, but it was still informative and we got to see our tour guides from when we were there watching our combine being built.

We took in several sessions and got to catch up with several harvesters...they have almost 900 registered so we were bound to find a few that we knew. After supper and entertainment by a magician/comedian, we went back to the hotel to call it a day. We had covered a lot of miles at the factory, trade show and sessions, so an early night was in order.

Marilyn is celebrating the fact that she can now get the early senior discount...it's her 55th birthday, she shares the day with her sister, Marg who has a few more years to catch up. Marilyn usually gets a pretty good haul with Valentines Day, then our anniversary Feb 23(20 years this year!) then the birthday on March 3, but the new camper has filled all the gift spots...for a while at least.

No jackets needed today...almost spring...

Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) Part II