May 12, 2012

View of the day-Party on Highway 183 in northern Nebraska...quite a day.

We woke up to frost on the grass, but apparently it hadn't been there long enough to do much damage and since the sun was shining it was gone in no time at all.  After getting the header trailer hooked back up and grabbing the 'continental' breakfast at the motel, we hit the road just after 8am.

We made it through South Dakota without incident, enjoying the fact that there was hardly any wind...crossing the Big Bend Dam at Fort Thompson, the water was like glass, it was so calm.  We stopped at Springview, NE so Marilyn could get fuel and we could get a quick lunch, before crossing through Nebraska.

We had passed through Bassett and were about 7 miles south of town, when Al called Marilyn on the radio to ask her if she blew a tire on the header trailer because there was smoke coming off something back there.  After pulling over on the grassy shoulder and taking a look, it was the front passenger side tire on the header trailer that was smoking...the tire itself was fine, but the brakes seemed to be the issue.

Al came over and with our very limited array of tools, tried to take the wheel off to see what the problem was.  We could see that the hub had shifted over about an inch, which meant the bearings were likely shot and we would have to gut the thing.  Problem number one...besides the obvious...was that we didn't have our 20 ton bottle jack with us, because Marilyn had borrowed it to her friend to do some deck lifting repair and hadn't gotten it back.  We drove back into Bassett and fortunately Brent, the tire man at Rock County Tire, was good enough to lend us his bottle jack and a few 4x4's to block it, then we went back out to the rigs sitting along the highway.  

While we were working on getting the tire off, Cory, a good Samaritan stopped as he was driving by to see if we needed any help.  We had just gotten the hub off and could see we were in big trouble...there was no way to get the crown nut off so we could get the remnants of the old bearings off.  We told Cory we would likely have to go back through Bassett and  west five miles to Sand Hill Equipment, the New Holland dealership, to see if we could get parts or repairs.  Well, what a coincidence...that is exactly where he works as a welder!  He went back into Bassett to see what he could bring out for tools to help get the nut loose and by the time he got back with a wrench that might work, we had good news...and bad news...


We got the nut off...but the threads had been stripped in the process.


We gathered all our parts and drove back into Sand Hills Eq. to see if they could match them up, but they didn't have the parts we needed, so we headed into Bassett to see the Napa man.  He had what we needed, so we bought two of everything...just in case...then went back out to the trailer.  Cory had come back to the NH dealership with us to see what he could do, then met us back out at the trailer after our Napa trip, to help put everything back together.

With the bad threads being an issue, we figured if we could get the nut back on...we would only have one chance to do it...we would tack weld it so it wouldn't come loose.  Now, we needed a portable welder.  It just so happened there was a poster in the Napa store for someone who had just started a mobile welding service, so we called him and he was available to come out when we had it all assembled.

Al always said that it was a good thing moving on weekends because there was less traffic, but if you broke down, the fixing was limited.  This weekend was also graduation in Bassett...other priorities.

We waited for Peter Budde, the welder to show up.  It took him longer to get his cables unwound and laid out than it did to weld the nut on...but at least we were finally ready to get everything back together and hit the road again.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, Brent from the tire shop was driving back to Bassett from Sargent and stopped to see if he could help out...we were pretty much done by then.  We were glad that he stopped so that we could give him back the jack and avoid yet another trip into town, but he insisted we take the jack with us and drop it off on our way back next week.

We took off, stopped to check the hub about 20 miles down the road...it seemed fine, so we carried on to Ansley where we parked the header trailer and Freight, then drove over to Broken Bow for the night.

What a great bunch of generous people we met today in Nebraska...

May 11, 2012

View of the day-The Freightliner backed down the hill to get hooked up to the cart trailer...first thing to get loaded to head south.


Well, it's official!  The go ahead paperwork was delivered to Marilyn at Staples on Wednesday...in one of the FedEx envelopes that we had sent with the application. Bonus! Now the scrambling starts.

We were up early on Thursday to get the tractor and cart loaded on the trailer and hooked up to the Freightliner.  First time loading of the season and we got it right the first time...even discovered that we needed one less set of ramps to get the tractor hitch to clear the trailer.  That will be great for Marilyn, because she has to do the heavy lifting, lining up the ramps so Al can drive the tractor and cart onto the trailer.

Once the tractor and cart were in place, we hooked the trailer up to the Freight and got everything chained down, windows washed and RainEx applied, then Al took off on his own.  He was hoping to beat the rain that had started to fall...so much for the weather reports that the rain was finished for the week.  He had originally wanted to be rolling out of town by 3pm, but was two hours ahead of schedule.  How many times will that happen this summer?

Back at the house, Marilyn was getting things put away and bags packed for the week long run to Oklahoma and back.  After stopping at Staples to pick up some supplies for her sister, Marg, she was on the way to meet Al at White's Ag Service at Whitewood.  We had to pick up the MacDon header, which had been set up and was on the trailer, ready to go.  We stopped to chat with Glen...and to pay for the header...then continued on to Carlyle.

It rained pretty much all the way and as we hit the hills north of Carlyle, in the Moose Mountain Park, it just dumped on us...there was no way we were going to try to get the equipment out to Kim and Marg's to park for the night.  We ended up pulling in to Precision Ag so we could plug the Freight in and stay off of the muddy roads.  Then we went out to the farm to spend the night.

AIS(a$$ in seat) was 8am and we were ahead of schedule again as we left the farm, got the Freight smoking, said our goodbyes and were on the road by 7:45am.  We got to the border and they were expecting us...Marilyn makes a point of faxing and calling ahead to let them know when we will be arriving.  We spent about an hour getting all the serial numbers checked and getting our H2A visas for the season.  for some reason, this year the California centre faxed our approvals to the Port of Fortuna, instead of the Port of Northgate, which has been the only port we have crossed through for the past 15 years...Fortuna is never even mentioned on any of our paperwork.  They did fax from Fortuna to Northgate and we did have the original notice from USCIS, so we weren't too worried.

We left the border at 10:30...we had a time change as we crossed the border...and made it to Kenmare to pick up some toys. There's a shocker.  After a quick snack and a fuel up for the pickup, we were heading south...on a beautiful, sunny but cool, driving day.  Excellent conditions...until we hit South Dakota...what's new?

They had done nothing with the road that we cursed when we came back from the US harvesters convention in March...still rough and no sign of any work getting done.  At one point south of Selby, Marilyn came over a hill and within about a half a mile, there were pylons channeling the traffic over to the right side of the highway...but the channel started on the left side...the most bizarre detour.  They had completely carved away half the highway (the oncoming lane) and had dug down about three feet, for whatever reason.  They had actually just redone this piece of highway a couple years earlier and it was one of the better stretches through the state.

So with half the highway gone, they put the double yellow line on the right side of the normal lane of traffic, making it the oncoming lane and made the shoulder our lane...not so bad for Marilyn's load.  Al's load, on the other hand would have slid down the sharp drop off on the soft shoulder if he ventured too close to the edge...which nearly happen when he met a couple of oncoming semis.

We got through that mess and finally made it to Gettysburg, where we parked at the Gettysburg Inn and called it a day for driving.  We were across the street from the Medicine Rock restaurant and we were lucky enough to get in on the buffet on the only night of the week that they are open.  Of course, they all know us here...it has been over 20 years that we have been eating at the Rock, so the waitress got us caught up on some of the doings around town before we ate and went back to the motel.

We rearranged some of the boxes of toys we had picked up, so there would be room in the back seat.  Al got rid of the bigger boxes that had those Styrofoam 'peanuts' for packing, into the dumpster, but not before the wind got hold of a bunch of the peanuts and spread them on the ground.  He then took the pickup to get fuel in the slip tank for the Freight...that way he wouldn't have to maneuver around the pumps with it.  When he got back and started fueling the Freight, he saw two little girls about 8 or 9 years old, playing with the 'peanuts' that had fallen on the ground.  They were pretending they were marshmallows and they were roasting them over a campfire.


Ah...young imaginations...

May 8, 2012

View of the week-Al unhooks the hydraulics from the tractor to the trailer that was behind the Freightliner.  The first step to getting ready for this season's harvest...we hope.


It's been a busy month for us, Al was getting worked over hard with the tax time deadline coming at the end of April at H&R Block and Marilyn had a hectic time between theatre stuff and preparing for inventory at her winter job at Staples.  We were also scrambling to get our paperwork fine tuned so we could actually think about harvesting.

We thought we had everything in order and had filed early, so we could get the first load down to Oklahoma in plenty of time...wishful thinking.  After three tries with the Department of Labor, making minor changes to wording and the issues with Worker's Compensation, we figured we had finally got it right.  Every time there were deficiencies, they sent back the letter and we would have to FedEx it back with the changes...at least they had the courtesy to use UPS to send it back to us...more about that later.  The worst part is that there doesn't seem to be a contact number for us to get more clarification on what they want.


The Worker's Comp problem was the big one for us.  We have to show proof that we have workers comp coverage in the event that we hire a USA employee.  The way it works is that you have to have employees to get workers comp coverage, but you can't hire anyone without having workers comp...which came first the chicken or the egg?  For the past few years we had used the same company out of Montana that had drafted a letter stating that they had agreements with several other states, should we hire someone from the USA. Not good enough. So now we have to search around to get new coverage...at an added cost, of course.  We followed the lead of a few of the other harvesters and went with a company out of Kansas and they had the stuff to us the next day. Too bad we couldn't get a refund on the one we had already paid for but never used, because it wasn't acceptable...red tape.


The next step for us was to send the approved forms to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services...usually a rubber stamp after the DOL business...unless you forget a page in the application.  We sent the forms on the 18th, they received and sent them back to us on the 19th...in the mail!  We have always enclosed two prepaid FedEx return envelopes, one for the receipt and one for the approval notice...they sent the whole package back, including the two envelopes...by postal service...and we received it on the 27th!  They never have used the envelopes we send, but one year...just maybe.  So now we wait...they have cashed our cheque, so it's just a matter of time. And don't we have lots of that?


Our original date of need was April 23, no chance of even getting close to that and we have been getting calls because now the harvest is running 3 weeks ahead of normal.  For sure now we won't make Frederick, Oklahoma.

So now we are in limbo.  If nothing else, it has given us time to get some purging of useless stuff that has collected over the years.  The garage and house have more room than ever now that the treasures have found a new home at the local Salvation Army store.


But back to the beginning of April.  Al took a break from some of his tax work to help his brother, Jeff, get ready for his big farm auction.  Al had his eye on the CaseIH 7220 Magnum that was on the bill, but the way people were spending, he barely got a bid in before it went for $76K.  We hit another auction a week later where there was another Magnum for sale and managed to get one bid in...this one went for $56K...looks like the 2390 will make another trip south.


While Al was at the auction, Marilyn was spending her days from 8am to midnight at the Sacred Heart School theatre, being the stage manager for Theatre Saskatchewan's full length drama festival.  Seven days of full length plays from community theatre groups from across the province...lots of culture happening.  It was a long week with great performances, but it was really nice to have it finally over so we could get into panic mode and stress out some more.


Al worked on getting the pickup head and trailer loaded onto the combine trailer so we could take it down to get some canola work in Oklahoma.  Since the combine is waiting for us in Great Bend, KS, the trailer will be empty for the trip at least that far and then it is only about another 130 miles to Cherokee...spitting distance, really.  Al brought the cart trailer home with the Freightliner so we could get that hooked up and ready to run when we get the go ahead from Uncle Sam.  Marilyn will pull the new MacDon FD70 draper head on the first load, which we will pick up from White's Ag in Whitewood, where it waits patiently for the trip.


And Marilyn has actually started loading the camper...

March 4, 2012

View of the week-Marilyn, Dana Peterson and Lynn Prevost, with the guys from High Valley after they entertained us at the United States Custom Harvesters convention in Grand Island, Nebraska.

Oh, how plans change from day to day. We had planned on leaving for the convention on Tuesday the 28th, right after work, then getting as far as Carlyle, where we would spend the night, then be at the border when it opened at 8am. That was before the weather forecast.

There were winter weather warnings for North and South Dakota, with heavy snowfall and wind warnings...actually, it covered a bigger area than that, but we were mainly concerned with the route we were going to take. We decided to forgo the pit stop at Carlyle and drop the hammer to get at least as far as Bismarck after a short visit with Glen at White's Ag in Whitewood. We made Bismarck by 11pm and only had a few flurries to deal with...we had dodged a bullet.

Up early to get on the road...the weather had pretty much missed Bismarck, but we weren't out of the woods yet...the warning was out until 6pm. We rerouted to miss where the brunt of the blizzard, opting to take US83 to Pierre, SD, then cut back over to Winner. By the time we had gotten Pierre, the sun was shining and it looked like everything has passed on to the east, the only thing we had to deal with was

a 75 mile stretch that hadn't been cleaned off, so the slush was pretty deep,which made going a bit slow. We had clear sailing after that and made it to Grand Island around 10:30pm.

Thursday morning we were at the Heartland Events Center to get Registered and plot a course for the day. With almost six times the membership of the Canadian Harvesters, they have a lot more sessions to cover the interests and concerns of all types of custom harvesters. With so many things on he agenda, we weren't always able to get to the sessions we wanted, but rather than miss the entire meeting, we cut short and ran to the next one so we could at least get some information.

Fellow Canadian Harvesters, Gerry and Lynn Prevost, Lee and Dana Peterson, Chuck and Colleen Roy, we're also attending. The Prevosts were on their way back home from a winter swing through CA and AZ, the Petersens flew in just for

the convention and the Roys were passing through on their way to some NASCAR races. We had to make a point of getting in on one of the CNH tours,even though we had just been on a great one at the end of December when we had seen our combine being built...but, it never gets old. The trade show was quite a bit bigger than ours as well, and we got a lot of information from everyone there...and a lot of their swag. It was a great opportunity to get caught up with the latest from the manufacturers and to see our harvest friends under a lot less stress from the run.

The entertainment for the first night was a great comedian, with a farming background...a lot of "hit home" stories. The highlight of the evening was a performance by High Valley, a trio of brothers from LaCrete, Alberta...which is, as they put it, is straight east of Juneau, Alaska...a long way from home...check out their website for their interesting back story. A great close to the evenings they did "On The Combine", then posed for pictures with everyone who wanted one.Friday was filled with more meetings and "hospitality"...and, of course,the auction. This year New Holland had a neat little replica of their Harvest Support truck, but since we don't have yellow and the drivers seat was a bit tight, this item didn't make the short list...especially after last year's purchase of the mini combine. Marilyn did check with Ryan and Al at Trailtech to see if they could build a combine trailer that would haul the mini88...don't think the scale is the same, though. Just as we did in Calgary,we came away from the auction with a big green purchase...this time a JD lighted display cabinet that looks like a fuel Bowser, and a chrome CLAAS 4wd tractor - 1 of 300 replicas of the 600hp that is not available in North America. Marilyn kept her hand down during the auction, channeling all her "want-its" funds to the display case. As with last year, the auction went late and the things we wanted were close to the end...but it was still over least an hour earlier.

Saturday morning we took in the session with Trent Loos, who always has an interesting tale to tell. Thanks to him, we can go back to drinking whole milk...and lots of it. At lunch, Marilyn was wished Happy Birthday from the podium, thanks to the discovery on Facebook by Dana, as she was killing time in line for the buffet. This was the second year she got to spend her birthday at the convention, instead of with her sister Marg, who also celebrates her birthday on the same day...oh, well,we'll cake it up on our way back through Carlyle.

We left just after lunch to head back north to Canada, since we both have to get back to work first thing Monday morning and we wanted to get back early enough on Sunday to regroup after a great week. Thanks to the Verizon MiFi, we were able to get Internet most of the way...which was VERY important, what with Al's Terriers going head to head with their arch rival Melville Millionaires in hockey playoffs. We were able to keep updated at the auction between the Internet access at the Heartland and the scathing texts from Al's boss, Curtis...a die hard Mills fan. Terriers won on Friday....but lost on Saturday, so the texts were flying.We made Bismarck around 11pm, hit the sack, the got rolling again Sunday morning. There had been just a skiff of snow, so the roads were not an issue and the sun eventually broke through by the time we hit the Canadian border. The border crossing was relatively painless...just had to cough up some cash for the tax.

It was a great few days away with our friends from the south and after seeing all things harvesting, it makes us anxious for the season to get started.

Mind you, there is a ton of things to do before we get that far...

February 26, 2012

View of the month-The tables are set for the toy auction...209 pieces consigned and almost as many people present.

We got some catching up to do! We have been so busy trying to get organized for the toy auction and show...and it's tax season, so the jobs tend to get in the way at times.

We took off running in the new year with the Saskatoon toy show Jan 9th & 10th, then working the booth for the Association of Canadian Custom Harvesters at Crop production on the 11th &12th, then the following week, we were doing the booth thing again in Brandon, Manitoba for a day on the 17th...just like summer...shut up and drive, only a lot colder. Although not as frigid as it has been in past years...ohhhh...we're going to pay before the winter is over.

This was the second year for the auction and we were glad that we had made plenty of notes last year...things to do...and NOT do. We were able to get prepared way ahead of schedule and with the help of several people including Marilyn's sister Margaret, Pam and Brenda, Marilyn's friends from the theater group, Al's brother Jeff, and Al's toy buddy Roger and his wife Linda, diorama expert, Murry and auctioneer Jamie from Yorkton Auction Centre, everything went smoothly.

Part of the chaos of the weekend is getting set up for the Friday auction, while finding enough time and manpower to get the tables set up for the toy show at the other building which starts at 9am on Saturday...only a cargo trailer full to set up on five tables! Again, because we were well prepared with the auction and had backup, it got done,which made the auction even more enjoyable.

We started at 6pm sharp and the hammer dropped on the last toy at 8:40pm...well ahead of last year. All had the plan to start a tradition at this year's auction, since he

plans on making this an annual event. He wanted to create a special toy on a plaque that would be auctioned off with the proceeds going toward a worthy cause. The organizers of the toy show hold a pedal tractor raffle that does the same thing and he wanted to tie them together, so when he found out about three year old Lyric Solonenko, who was undergoing cancer treatments, it was

settled.

The Steiger Panther 285 was sandblasted and repainted pink by A's brother Jeff, then the base was made and the tractor mounted on it by one of Al's 'regular' customers, Mike. We were really pleased at the outcome, with Chad Leibrecht gaining the winning bid of $475! One of the crowd got caught up in the moment and donated back a toy that they had bought for the fund, so we ended up with $530 for the little guy.

Marilyn managed to buy an item at the auction...much to Al's dismay...a beautifully crafted wooden tractor, pieced together with precision. The cylinders move in and out, the axle walks, the tires are made of almost 300 sepa

rate pieces on their own. A later blog entry will have more pictures and information.

Al was kept busy at the toy show the rest of the weekend, while Marilyn had to deal with getting the numbers crunched so the consignors could get their cash before they left town. It was a very successful weekend and once what was left on the tables was packed up and back in the trailer, we were finally able to relax. We were disappointed that we weren't able to get our 1/4 scale 7088 into the show...maybe next year.

A rest for two weeks, then another road trip...

December 21, 2011

View of the day-No, it’s not the same picture…we just watched this combine get built and drove it off the line.

Lots of catching up to do since the last blog entry. We had a big road trip to Calgary, Alberta to attend the Association of Canadian Custom Harvesters annual convention. The weather was fantastic for this time of year…no snow, above freezing…at least until we got to Calgary. We met up with Lynn and Gerry on Tuesday night when we got there and did some shopping for the fundraising auction and scholarship raffle, before calling it a night to rest up for the next three days of ‘meetings’.

When we woke up in the morning, it was white with about 6 inches of snow…and the wind was blowing, resulting in blizzard conditions and closed roads. Apparently we got there in the nick of time. We were thrilled to have a contingent from the US Custom Harvesters Association attending the convention. President Tracy Zeorian and her husband Jim from Nebraska, VP Kent Braaten from ND and Roger and Lisa Sammons, a board member from Montana. Tracy started a blog this year and updates it a bit more regular during the off season than Marilyn does. And the Sammons were featured in Harvest a 4 episode reality show on the History Channel…reality being used loosely…but great harvesting shots.

We came up just short on the auction…we didn’t come home with a second mini combine, even though we bid it up way more than we did on the last one. Too bad the auctioneer decided the combine would sell like the big ones did and split the header and trailer from the main unit. Really…what would you do without the header and trailer? We also bid on a VIP trip for two to Belgium to tour the New Holland factory…missed it by ‘that much’…but maybe they will have another one at the US Harvesters convention in March. We did end up bringing home a new portable Weber BBQ to take with us in the camper…unfortunately it is plastered up with John Deere logos. But it should work great…we know how well they burn.

The snow was pretty much gone by the time we had to start back home, so the trip back to Yorkton was not as bad as we had anticipated. Al had stopped to look at a toy collection on the way out to Calgary and had planned on picking it up on the way home, but the lady wasn’t at home and it was just as well, because we had a truck full without the extra four boxes. Looked like another road trip was in our future.

Marilyn had another dinner theatre to set up for, this time on the road in Spy Hill. Those are always a lot of fun…the stage is sooo much smaller and the cast never gets to rehearse, so the performance is a crap shoot. Even so, this was the best audience we had for the five night run. The next day she was on the road to Regina with Pam and Teresa…her “Queen of Bingo” girls, to volunteer for Theatre Saskatchewan’s dinner theatre on the Saturday night. Sunday, she got to stop in Moose Jaw to visit her mom and dad, then drive out to get the toys that Al had purchased. That will go on “the list”.

Al finally went back to work at H&R and Marilyn was back trying to placate the Christmas shoppers at Staples…doesn’t the season just bring out the best in people?

Time for one more, very important, road trip. We left right after Marilyn finished work on Sunday, Dec 18 at 5pm and raced for the border, so we could cross before they closed…we made it with a half hour to spare. We continued on to Jamestown, getting there around 1am and booked into the Super 8 for the night. Monday, we continued on to Grand Island, but we had to take a bit of a detour, to pick up some toys in Wakonda, SD, that Al had purchased in an online auction. It was a bit out of the way, but we had the whole day to get to Grand Island and we made it there by 8pm…just in time for Al to watch the power outage on Monday Night Football at the hotel.

Tuesday morning, we were at the CNH welcome centre, to get geared up to watch our combine being built. We had decided to get one of the last 7088 combines to be built with the Cummins Tier III engine and it was down to the wire as the line was shutting down on Thursday. We had our favorite tour guide, Lew, spend the day with us, taking us directly to the station where our combine was getting the cab installed. This year, Al got to turn the key to start the engine for the first time…and it took off like a top. He also got to stay in the cab through the next four stations as it passed all the diagnostic tests with flying colors.

We took a lunch break, then got to see more of the factory, this time we got to see more of the windrowers being built. Marilyn is trying to figure out how she can get that roomy swather cab on her combine. There are approximately 1100 people employed in this factory and as we passed by each of the stations, they all greeted us and thanked us for buying CaseIH, some stopped to chat when they were finished their tasks and were waiting for the line to move. We watched as one lady was putting a sieve into the main frame of a 7088 and when Lew told her we were there to see our combine being built, she said “you must be Al and Marilyn”…wow, we were impressed!!

We got back to our combine in time to watch them putting the decals and tires on, then we watched from the cab as they did some of the final testing. We got our picture taken in front of our new combine by Charlene Goeden, the tourmistress extrordinaire for the plant, then Al drove it off the line and out the door.

Back in the visitor’s centre, as we were getting ready to leave, the plant manager came down and thanked us personally for choosing CaseIH and they gave us a framed picture of us with an engraved plate that had the date, serial number and our names on it. He asked us if we had any questions about the tour or the combine and Marilyn actually stumped him with a question on the frequency of greasing on a particular zerk…the answer is yet to come. They even called Kelly Burgess down out of his ivory tower to see if he knew the answer…Kelly was the big push behind the building of our Mini combine, so it was nice to see him on his home turf.

We said our goodbyes and hit the road around 5pm and started on the marathon drive back home. We weren’t sure how far we were going to go, we just pointed north…shut up and drive. About the time we hit central South Dakota, we decided to get as far as Selby and book a room for the night. That way we could get an early start in the morning…AIS 8am.

We ended up AOS…Ahead of Schedule…at 7:30am. We were interested in finding out how the construction on the highway turned out, north of Selby…we had suffered through the detour all summer long…surely it was finished by now. But of course, this is South Dakota we are talking about. The signs were all down…so far so good…but after we turned the corner…NOTHING WAS DONE! In fact, the first 5 or so miles were so full of craters, we thought we were in Saskatchewan. What the hell had they been doing all summer?? We went down a stretch of highway in Nebraska that had been completely redone and we never saw an orange sign…and it was between backhauls last summer. Enough about that.

We stopped ran into some snow in southern North Dakota, but before we hit the highway north of Bismarck the sun was shining, but now we had a brisk wind to drive into. We stopped in Minot for lunch, then stopped again in Kenmare for Al to pick up all the toys that had been shipped there for him, then it was on to the border. We stopped on the US side to turn in our H2A work visas...pretty sure we wouldn't be doing any more harvesting this year...then had an even briefer stop on the Canadian side. We had another couple of pit stops, one in Carlyle for a visit with Marilyn's sister and one in Whitewood...you guessed it...to pick up some more toys.

We finally got home and since last Sunday, we had logged just under 2000 miles...but that's the story of our life these days. Now we get ready for the Christmas rush and hopefully the next entry will contain our annual newsletter...

November 23, 2011

View of the day-Technically not crop harvest, but Marilyn and her Paper Bag Players group did manage to harvest a couple of trophies for their performance of Queen of Bingo, (Winning Entry, Best Actress-Pam Milani) and an honorable mention for directing (Marilyn and Brenda McMillan) at the provincial short play festival, TheatreOne, in Kamsack. L to R, Teresa Weber-Babe, Pam Milani-Sis, Marilyn-Director, Leslie Moldowan-Exec-Sec, Theatre Saskatchewan, Brenda MacMillan-Co-Director(while Marilyn was planted in the combine), missing was Mike Hall-Father Mac, who's employer, Cargill, had him racing around the province.

So much for getting in at least a monthly update. It seems one week runs into the other and before you know it...Christmas is not that far away. Marilyn was back at work full time, working 8-4:30 M-F and between that and the rehearsal schedule for the Queens, there wasn't time for anything else. Our first big snow of the season hit while we were north at Kamsack for the festival so the trip home was a 'white-knuckeler' and took a couple of hours longer than normal.

While Marilyn was slaving over a hot script, Al got to make his pilgrimage to Dyersville, Iowa for the National Farm Toy Show. This year, he went with his toy buying buddy, Roger, from Lipton, SK...he said it was almost like having Marilyn along, since she never offers to drive, either. They were fortunate they didn't run into any nasty weather until they got north of the border, then they had issues with the cargo trailer loaded with farm toys slip-sliding around...but they kept it upright.

Once Marilyn's mad rush for festival was over, it was time to get some set construction done for the group's annual dinner theatre, which was two weeks later...nothing like leaving things to the last minute. Two weekends at the Painted Hand Casino in Yorkton, and right now we are mid way between performances, so after Saturday, we will pack up the bus and wait for our next performance, Dec. 9 in Spy Hill, about an hour away.

Al was busy getting things put away after his big toy trip...he managed to get a toy show in at Regina to disperse of some of his stuff before the tour south. He hasn't gone back to work at H&R, so he had a lot of free time on his hands, which he managed to fill up with some winter prep around the house...getting the snowblower operational, winterizing the camper and pressure washer, cleaning out the garage to make room for more toys...you know...that sort of thing.

Al also had some field prep to get done on the land we had bought in the spring. It never got seeded, just sprayed, so he helped work it over, then hauled some gravel in to make a base for the hopper bin he had purchased...and he is still waiting to get it delivered. It seems there is a call every other day that it is coming, then it isn't, then it is...hopefully it gets here before the next big dump of snow. We have had a couple of days with beautiful weather, just above freezing, which was a nice change from the -30º that we had been experiencing the last couple of weeks, so the outside work that was left was almost bearable.

We have always had a 'beater' for our second vehicle over the winter at home...an '87 Grand Marquis, an'89 Dodge Caravan, and most recently a '91 Grand Marquis. Because we have different schedules...and interests, there was no way one rig was going to cut it, but we had always been looking for another 4x4 pickup because our road can be treacherous in the winter. Al made the rounds of quite a few auctions, but always came back with a 'thumbs down'...until a couple of weeks ago...he finally lucked out, and now we are the proud owners of a 2005 Dodge Ram 1500. Exactly what we had hoped to find, and today someone came and bought the Marquis...bonus!

Today was the day that the combine came out of it's hiding place to get cleaned out for the last time. It seemed wrong to get into the cab and not be heading out to the field, although the snow on the ground might have made things a bit tough. Tomorrow Al drives it into the Case IH dealer in town to go on the lot...that's right, we are retiring it. Well, trading it in, actually. We will be making a fast trip down to Grand Island, NE once again to see our final (according to Al) new combine being built and to drive it off the line...on Dec. 21.

And if we aren't busy enough, next Tuesday we are driving to Calgary for a fun-filled four days of catching up with other harvesters at our Association of Canadian Custom Harvesters annual convention...there a lots of changes on the horizon, so it won't be all fun and games.

Watch for pictures and news of the event...