Fall is the culmination of all Bruce's hard work throughout the year, the weather and commodity prices are out of his control but he uses technology to try and level the playing field. Last fall I wasn't up to helping with harvest but he had his good buddy, Grassy, who stepped in and did all the hauling. Our elevator built a new dump pit last year and I got to use it for the first time this year and it's pretty neat!
They know who you are and what you have on.
They tell you which pit to use....
....Pit #2 is the new one and there is so much room, in the old cement silo with our big wagons there is only inches on each side for clearance.
I LOVE pit #2!
Back at the scale after weighing in, a little scale ticket pops out of the 'toll booth', Janet is smart, she uses her grabber to take the ticket and doesn't even have to leave the tractor.
With my luck I would lose the ticket and it would fall into the pit under the scale.
I hauled a few loads to town and then who should come riding to the rescue??
Grassy!! He decided things were getting boring in Meriden so he came to help.
To reward him for his good help, he gets a picnic supper while he is unloading beans at home.
To find Bruce to deliver his picnic supper, I looked for a dust cloud in the field, it's a dirty job but luckily he is tucked away in the combine cab.
He smiles, there is a hamburger sitting there with his name on it.
You might ask what I did with all my free time, I canned 11 quarts of pears that the neighbor gifted us, it only took me three days.
Betty Crocker I am not.
Then I cleaned up my kitchen, which took one whole afternoon, it looked like a bomb went off.
When it is extremely dry and dusty, farmers must be vigilant to prevent combine fires from accumulated trash.
Bruce learned the hard way to be extra vigilant when the combine caught fire in the field, he was lucky and caught it early, emptied a fire extinguisher on it and put it out. He was able to drive it back to the farm where he power washed it and waited for Tom's Repair to come put it back into peak running condition.
Nate got him up and going the next day and Bruce and Grassy finished at home, he thoroughly washed the combine before going to the Ehler's farm. We felt extremely lucky, it could have worse, if he had stayed late in the field the night before, it would have happened then and been much harder to fight it in the dark. He caught it early so there wasn't a lot of damage.
Yes, it could always be worse.....and it was. He was 2 1/2 rounds from finishing at Ehlers when it caught fire again and did a lot of damage. Too much damage for Nate to fix, it will have to have a new motor to run again and for a 25 year old machine, it didn't make much sense.
So after the shock wore off and Bruce slept on it, he was up at 4 AM Saturday, trolling the internet for another combine and found one at Boyden. At 7:30 AM he rolled me out of bed and away we went.
He's kicking the tires and looking under the panels of this beautiful machine....
...made the guy an offer he didn't refuse and he was off, smiling from ear to ear.
It was a long, slow trip to Tom's Repair, which is right on the way home, where we left the combine so Paul can work his magic to make everything fit on the bean head that we have. Bruce and I had to run home, separate the dead combine from the head, which was much easier said than done, load it on the trailer to take back to Tom's Repair, then drive on north to Luvern, MN to get the parts for Paul so he could keep working.
By the time we got back home, we were both pooped, a lot of emotion and stress in the last 24 hours was telling on both of us. I was so appreciative of our neighbor, Jade, who left us a chili supper in the fridge the night before, no cooking and off to bed.
Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest and it was, with no combine, but that wasn't all bad. Bruce got to rest up and watch football, we started the corn stove and built a fire in the wood stove, it was down to 62 degrees in here this morning, it was cold!
Tomorrow is the start of another busy week, we are going to do the first step in weaning the calves in the morning, with Grassy's help, and hopefully have a combine tomorrow afternoon.
Several years ago when Bruce bought the 9400 John Deere, he said, "This should last me the rest of my farming days."
I don't think he is going to tempt fate by saying that again about this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment