August 31, 2018

View of the day-The man in demand...no rest for the buggy man.

Early start and a productive day. As more and more got cut, the tractor and cart were having to cover more of the field to get to the combines, so there was a bit of waiting.

The rest of the half section was finished by 5:30, then there was a 15 mile move to the last spring wheat field...another 300 or so acres. That won't take 5 combines too long.

Then, it's on to the canola...

August 30, 2018

View of the day-If it wasn't for the red tractor and cart, we would be outnumbered by the green machines.

Another early start to the day, moving from the finished oats field to the yard for cleanup and setting for spring wheat. Two more John Deere combines made the scene, so now with 5 machines, the buggy is covering a lot of acres to keep up.

We got the first half section done and got moved over to the next big field closer to the yard. This one had us waiting once in a while, because even though the plan was to stay together and work each smaller piece round and round, a water way would cut through and split the party up...and it was no party for the buggy man.

We kept going until we all got confused in the dark and the trucks were full, then quit for the day.

More wheat tomorrow...and no rain in sight...

No jinx...

August 29, 2018

View of the day-Cutting near the yard is always handy for servicing and fuel.

With all the fog and humidity during the night, we knew it wouldn't be an early start in the oats...but at least there would be a start. The best part was the cloudless sky, brisk wind and warm temperatures helping to dry down the straw.

First call was for noon, but then that got pushed back to 1:30 pm. Al had gone out and done a bit of servicing in the morning, so he was able to rest his eyes for a bit before going out to the field.

Once the combines were rolling, the acres got knocked down, but once again, the straw had to be dropped for baling, so there was to be no unloading on the go. Never the less, they got the oats done before 10 pm.

Spring wheat is up next...

August 28, 2018

View of the day-A road trip to Stanley, North Dakota for our annual visit with Ray and Robert from CaseIH ProHarvest.

Sorry there was no blog the past few days...Marilyn was in Yorkton working and she had the internet phone with her, so Al couldn't do any updates. Not that he would have anyway. Nothing news worthy from Yorkton, other that the fields had combines in them all over the place on the way up from Kipling.

We had a wedding to attend for one of our H&R Block co-workers son, near Melville. Al had his brother Jeff take over in the combine for the last half of the day so he could get away and after Marilyn got off work, he picked her up and it was off to the wedding. We had missed the ceremony in the afternoon, but went later for the evening's festivities...until Al got a phone call from Jeff that the fuel filter alarm kept going off on the combine. That was it for the wedding. We headed back to Yorkton.

Al went back to Kipling and the combine to relieve Jeff so he could get home earlier that anticipated. Marilyn went back home for the night...one more day at Staples to go.

Al started combining around 10:30am on Sunday and they were running until 5pm, when the rain came. Done for the day. Marilyn worked until 5 then left for Kipling.

Monday we did some servicing on the combine...changing fuel filters was top of the list. After getting it serviced and ready to hit the field, we waited for the call. It never came.

Today, we waited for another call to go, but with the low clouds and the odd sprinkle, it didn't look like it was going to get any drier. Once we had "no cutting" confirmed, we decided on a road trip...at 2:30 pm...it was going to be a quick one.

We had been wanting to get down to Stanley to see the ProHarvest guys and Marilyn had gotten a text saying they would be getting there August 28, so after confirming they would be there, we were off.  We also had some farm toys to pick up at Carpio.

The trip down was a fast one, we sailed through the border without incident and got to Stanley to pick up our ProHarvest hats. It was great to see the guys and get caught up on the current harvest season down south. 

We left Stanley and headed east to Carpio to get Al's stash of toys that he had purchased and had shipped there. After a quick visit with Pete at his "warehouse"...a two car garage...we were on our way to the border. We needed to get there before it closed and we would have had to take the long way home...through the 24 hour crossing. That would have been way too busy for us.

We made the border with an hour to spare and got back to the camper by 9:30 pm...and we needed the furnace.

Hopefully we get back in the oats tomorrow...

August 24, 2018

View of the day-Al makes room for the trucks to park in the latest field of oats.

The combines were rolling early this morning, a good strong wind helped that happen. It didn't take long to finish the last 70 acres and move to the next field. This one will take a bit longer since it is five quarter sections.

Marilyn brought Al lunch then after riding around for a bit, headed north to Yorkton. This is her weekend to work at Staples, so she left early to get some errands done before the stores closed.

A brief shot of rain came down in Yorkton, shutting down the local farmers. Al said they had nothing at their field, but there were weather warnings out for the region. That changed about an hour later when they were talking again, it started raining and shut them down. Al said by the time they got back to the yard it had stopped, but it was late enough they stayed quit.

More of the same tomorrow...and a wedding to attend...

August 23, 2018

View of the day-A change of crop. We are now straight cutting oats.

Since we had the combine all set up and ready to go in the oats, it was just a matter of jumping in the combine and driving out to the first field to get started.

The landlord for this field wanted to bale the straw, so all the combines opened up the back and dropped the straw. We are only three combines now, since the other two left to work on another farm.

With the straw getting dropped, there was no unloading on the go into the cart because those tracks on the rig would be mashing the row of straw into the ground making it all but impossible for the baler to pick it up. Productivity dropped quite a bit due to that and the fact that it was running over 125 bushels/acre, so they were filling up fast and stopping often.

Combining continued on until around 8pm when the straw was too tough to put through.

Hoping for an early start tomorrow...

August 22, 2018

View of the day-The best of both worlds...Marilyn's sewing machine and Al's farm toy.

A road trip to Windthorst to finally settle up the damages for the pickup head repair. Marilyn almost got a picture of Al choking as he was handed the five digit invoice...and that was without the decimal point! What are you going to do...

We put a new backup alarm on the combine to replace the silent one and that was the extent of the harvest related work today. Al did go out to give the farmer a ride back to the yard after running a test on the straight cut oats we will be doing tomorrow. Plenty dry, just have to get the bin space organized.

The next toy show we attended July 26 - 29 was in Austin, Manitoba. We got there a day early, since we had never been to that show before and had no idea about the camping...which we had booked back in April...or how the setup was going to be in the hall. Or anything really.

We got our camper parked, which was relatively easy since it was well before the festivities were to start. A perfect spot, as well, only 20 steps from the display hall across the road. We only had power and water at this spot, but for some reason they had decided this year...and didn't tell the volunteers or campers... to shut the water off from 8am-9pm! We could have had our tank filled had we known they were going to do that. There were not a lot of happy campers in the park for the weekend.

We got into the building early the next day and ended up getting a sweet spot at the end of the hall, nestled in between two steam engines.

One of them was the exact one that the 175th Anniversary model represented.

This was a killer show, lots of people attended and 85% had to pass through our building to get tickets to enter and Saturday they were lined up and down the inside of the building and out the door. The hours were killer too...10am to 7pm!!

We each got a little time to go check out some of the sites. Wow, there was so much to see and it was kept up quite nice. There were a lot of "Pete's Passes" through the trees that were full of campers parked willy-nilly and most of the passes led to another old tymie display.

It was also the IHC Chapter 38 Roundup...a LOT of red tractors in pristine shape. We are members of the group, which was the reason we set up shop at this show. We didn't have a lot of time to check them out because the main outing was to see Big Roy.

This tractor was the only one of its kind built by Versatile. It was redone a few years back for an anniversary and was out for all to see.

It wasn't as big as we had imagined it to be, but it was still amazing to look at. 

We also wanted to see the Versatile pull type combine that had been painted New Holland yellow.

We had seen video of this one on Facebook and though it was fake, but here it was in all its glory.

There were only a couple of these painted yellow.

In the "mini" area, there was a Big Roy working replica that was really cool, too.

Al did get to see the owner crawl in through the cab top and take it for a spin.

Just a lot of neat stuff to see and it would have been nice to have a day to explore it all.

Still one more toy show coming...