Building Project

Yesterday M and I took a trip to Havre to pick up finger reels for the combines.  The wet weather has caused the wheat to droop and these reels will help it feed into the combines better.  We were at the shop and ready to go by 8 am.  J had wood on the trailer so had to get that unloaded and then C noticed that the plug for the trailer lights was broken.  Then M noticed that one tire on the trailer was bad.  They put a new plug on but the lights wouldn't work correctly when hooked up to the pickup.  They finally determined that one wire in the plug was in the wrong position so fixed that and put another tire on, and we were ready to roll--an hour and a half later.

As we were driving along south of Opheim I thought I noticed snowflakes.  M assured me that I was seeing things until we went a bit further and there was some white accumulation in the grass along the side of the road.  It snowed hard at times, but eventually turned into rain and it rained all the way to Havre.

There was much discussion as to whether we should get one reel or two.  J told me not to let M buy two.  C called as we were on the road and thought we should get two.  M did eventually decide to get two which came unassembled.  We had lunch in Havre and picked up the reels, then stopped at Big R--M's favorite store.  I like it, too, and found a few things to buy--even some Christmas gifts. 

Today they began the assembly process--think giant Erector Set with bad instructions!  M called me this morning and requested my presence at the shop ("you'd better get in here") to make sure they read the direcctions.  I kept reminding them that I'm not very mechanical.  I'm the girl who rebelled against the college physics class because "I don't care how things work."   Anyway, the reel is 36', built in two 18' halves.  The first half took about 6 hours and the second half took about 2.  We learned a few things along the way!  There was some cursing of our neighbors to the north (Canadians) who manufactured these things when parts didn't fit properly.  We've gone as far as we can until we fit it onto the header, and tomorrow we'll start the second one. 

I was seriously worried about smashing a finger or damaging my new nails, but they came through without a scratch so it's all good!