A couple good days and a torrential rain

Wednesday the guys saw a bobcat on their way to the field, I was so bummed I missed it. They said it was not very big. It got to at least 90 today and humid, 1st real hot day we have had. Todd (1 of the farmers) took us all for lunch to the local cafe in town, it was very good, the place was packed when we got there and packed when we left. After that the wheat was dry enough to get combining. It was going well. All that happened was that Jim's combine had a broken section and guard on the 2nd round of the 2nd field. Andy and Jim had that replaced in no time. When Jon got to the spot where it looked like it broke he spotted the cause, a bent T-post laying on the ground! He picked it up and was awfully glad it did not pop a tire or do much worse damage to one of the combines, a section is nothing at all.


Trucks waiting at the edge of the field.


Andy talking with Todd.


Jim unloading.


Going to the field.


This field we took the spreaders off so the straw would be in windrows. They were baling straw right behind us. The farmer doesn't need the straw but he said the FFA and school could have it if they wanted it, there were lots of people out there and a lot going on, a good time for everyone.


The high school boys loading the bales onto a trailer, they didn't have hay racks like we do back home.


Jon with his combine buddy! Raesh, what a bright little man! He is all rancher and farmer, born and bred. At 8 yrs old he could run their ranch and know how to operate everything they have, up at 5:30am with his Dad, he puts most kids and adults alike to shame. Wednesday was the last day of school for the year, only a 1/2 day and then he was out with his Dad and us till we were done for the day. He rode with Jon all afternoon, till 10 pm when he fell asleep. He talked and asked Jon questions the whole time, probably could run the combine now.


So yesterday, Thursday, was a good day all in all. It was humid, but not as hot as the day before, mid 80's I would say with a very strong wind. Jon & Andy took the trucks that were full from the night before to an elevator about 30 miles away. Jim headed out to fuel and start greasing the combines. I walked, then got $20 worth of quarters from the carwash change maker in order to do laundry. There is a small laundromat right at this RV park which is nice. It is probably 200 feet from the camper, so I just made several trips carrying all the laundry back and forth. It maybe would have been faster to load up the truck and back over there, but it hardly seemed worth starting the truck up for that. There are only 6 washing machines there and they seemed small to me, it was enough for all 4 of our clothes though. Towels and sheets can be another day. While that was washing I cut up watermelon and put together tator-tot hotdish (nothing says Minn-E-sOOta like that huh?) They only had 3 dryers in there, but since this spot where our camper is has 2 good sized trees I was able to string up a clothes line to hang the jeans and sweatshirts on at least. It saved $6 anyways, and I didn't have time for a second round of clothes in the dryers before lunch would be ready to take to the field. It worked out.
The wheat wasn't dry enough till about noon unfortunately. Then it was good cutting most of the afternoon. We kept taking samples for the moisture every hour or 2. After 1 field was finished we moved everything down the road a few miles to the next field. Since most all of the fields have cattle grates or gates we have to take the heads off of the combines as they will not fit in and out with the heads on unfortunately. It takes a little extra time, but we have gotten faster at it. Clouds had been building to the west all day and by evening the humidity was so high the straw was tough cutting, thankfully the wheat kernals weren't too wet to keep going, we were hoping to finish the field that night and we did. Jon saw a dead armadillo in the field and we all saw a couple coyotes running in there. We were listening to the weather on the radio and watching the sky as the afternoon and evening went on. By 9:00 the sky was full of lightning to the west, and the radio was saying there were tornado warnings and golf-ball sized hail about 40 - 100 miles to the west of us, moving very slowly NE. Both of which we hoped would miss us. And it did thankfully! But around 5:30 this morning it started to downpour, and kept raining hard until after 10:30, I guess they got around 2 inches here, north of here 30 miles they got 5 inches of rain! So everybody got to sleep in this morning and then we had pancakes and bacon. Boredom is setting in, must be time to get the cards out soon...


Some puddles outside our camper, and our neighbors.


Andy left ruts when he went to get a couple groceries for me this morning as I was making pancakes and realized I did not have everything.