Back At It

We finally got back to cutting on Friday afternoon.  I had mentioned to R the day before that the guys needed to get busy or they were going to kill each other as the nerves were a bit frayed.  He agreed.  Friday morning M was trying to bale some hay barley and peas.  When I picked him up on the way to take lunch to the other guys at the camper he was ready to blow up the baler.  He has struggled with it all summer, some electrical problem, and was at his wits end.   He had J help him work on it after lunch, and I made J promise to not let M blow it up since it does have some trade-in value.  They got it working and he thought he could finish baling but then broke a belt and was done because the wheat was finally dry enough to cut.

Yesterday they were able to cut all day, well almost.  I was riding the combine with M making a bin chart of what wheat was stored where when we smelled burned rubber.  We stopped and got out to check where it was coming from and found a belt rubbing on a pulley because a bracket had broken.  I caught a ride in a truck to get the service truck which was in the previous field, brought it back and they set to work taking things apart and fixing the problem.  Luckily, the belt was a double belt because one side of it was damaged and separated when M started the combine back up.  He's running it that way, but I made a trip to Plentywood today to get a new one just in case.

My in-laws were gone all week and arrived back home last evening along with M's sister and her husband and their son (aka our third son) from South Dakota.  The husband wanted to "experience harvest."  I asked M's sister if she told him harvest wasn't all that fun.  They've been riding the combines and helping out as needed AND he has a prime rib in the oven.  That should take care of lunches for a few days!

We missed rain last night and had a beautiful morning today but now it's cloudy and cool and windy.  I've seen a couple of raindrops on the window, but we're crossing our fingers hoping that we'll miss most of it.  We still have thousands of acres to cut so really want to keep going.