Hurry up and wait

We finished up the 360 acre job by Wakeeney, KS on Saturday July 3rd. The machinery was loaded up and left at the local co-op. We hooked onto the camper and went back to Dighton, KS to our friend Chad's farm. He had invited us over for the 4th of July weekend since we had that job done and didn't have another one to rush off to. He grilled us steak for supper,and it was about the best I've ever had! The next day was the 4th and the guys had the Tauras in about a million pieces in Chad's shop, so they worked on putting that all back together. It was a hard day for me as I really missed being at our North Morristown 4th of July Celebration and didn't really have a whole lot to keep my mind off of it besides finishing up the invoice. I went for a long walk / jog, I think it was around 7 miles, which helped and I enjoyed thoroughly. It was overcast that day so it wasn't so blasted hot. The night before Chad had told us they have some big cats (cougers and bobcats) in the area, but they are seldom seen. They live on a gravel road, and I only went by 1 other house while I was out, and that had been abandoned years ago. only 4 vehicles and 1 tractor went by the whole time I was on the road. I saw several jackrabbits though, they are so neat. Imagine a kangaroo and bunny rabbit put together. Big critters! The land is pretty flat where Chad lives and you can see forever, the sky is so big. That night we went into town with Chad's family to a party. The town is about the size of Morristown, and everyone was lighting off fireworks, it was nuts! Parties everywhere and explosives going off in the middle of most every street, even little kids lighting off stuff, I don't know how the ER wasn't packed with people missing eyeballs and fingers.....there was a haze over the town from all the smoke and it smelled like sulfur. It made me miss Tim's great fireworks display at North Morristown all the more, it is so much better!!!

Monday the 5th:
Jon & I (along with 2 other guys that have really small harvest crews like us) loaded up in Chad's vehicle and set off on a 3 day tour to advertise, meet people, and try to get more work. We went all over the NE 1/4 of Colorado and and western 1/3 of Nebraska leaving business cards at elevators, putting in newspaper ads, and visiting with farmers when possible. The wheat out there is pretty much all kind of green yet, some a week out yet. Some areas had standing water and others had some hail damage, but overall the wheat looked really good. It was a fun trip, but a LOT of riding in the vehicle. Some highlights were seeing (2) 3-legged dogs, seeing the huge railyard in Alliance, NE (headqtrs for BNSF) it was like Thomas the Train live, and stopping at Fort Robinson for a buffalo burger. While we were gone doing that for 3 days the other guys moved all the machinery up to Julesburg, CO. We landed a job there but it wasn't going to be ready to harvest for another week, so there was no hurry. The owners of the RV park there have wheat and their cutters had to leave so they asked us if we could take over, Yes!! So there is 1000-1500 acres to cut in that area, they combined a sample today but it was still around 19% moisture, it needs to get down to 12% and under, so it may be a couple days yet.

Chris had a friends wedding this past Friday and Ron was in a wedding on Saturday the 10th, they were going to head home on thursday the 8th and I was gonna go home also and stay home until Danny's wedding on the 17th. Well we wanted to head out early in the morning, but of course there was more trouble with the Tauras, they fixed on it some more and we were able to head out at 1:30 in the afternoon. We weren't even sure if it would make it so we looked into renting a car, taking a bus, catching a plane, buying a different car....but we ended up taking the Tauras. It was still not shifting quite right and the RPM's would get really high in the lower gears, but once we got on the freeway and up to speed it ran like a charm. So we only stopped 3 times on the way home for gas and to switch drivers. I got home a little before 2am. Home sweet home!! It felt good to come home for a little bit. I could hardly sleep though because there is so much here I want to get done. 5+ weeks of mail to go through and bills to pay, lawn to clean up, gardens to weed, veggies to pick!, chickens to butcher, possibly hay and straw to work on if the weather permits, people to see, IFTA qtrly taxes to figure out, and a wedding to help with. I am excited to be home and am getting re-charged and ready to go back out, a little break from all those guys is kind of nice though, hehe :) I hear they miss my cooking already, must be getting sick of bread and water!