Thursday

Yesterday was a beautiful day, great for combining. Temps in the 80's, windy, full sun.....no HUMIDITY! Because of the good weather the combines were able to start around 10:30 or so after they were greased up and checked over. I took lunch out to the field and that was about the time they finished up a partial field that was left when it was raining and so we moved everything a couple miles down the road to the next field which was I think around 120 or 140 acres split in the middle by a creek. As we were moving the equipment along we had to go over a tiny little bridge that crosses a creek. There was a snake laying on the edge of the road, I stopped so I could look at it out the window better. It was dead, run over, head crushed. I said something over the radio but none of the guys had seen it when they were driving. What kind is it they asked? I knew it wasn't a rattlesnake, but other than that I didn't know. "Throw it in the back of the truck and we'll ask Todd when we get up to the field," Jon said. yeah, right. There just happened to be 2 sticks laying by the snake, so I decided I could use those to pick up the snake and would not have to touch it at all. So I did that, holding it as far from me as possible and set it in the back of the truck, it was at least 3 ft long. When I got to the field we were all looking at it and Todd said it was a Cottonmouth, extremely poisonous. Great! Just wonderful. He asked if I touched the head at all and I said no. A guy that worked for him had killed a Cottonmouth with a lasso-rope. He then wound up the rope to put it away. Something stuck in his hand and he thought it was a splinter so he pulled it out and tossed it on the ground. His hand puffed up like a balloon over the next few hours. It had been a fang, not a splinter. Todd picked up the Cottonmouth by its tail and threw it in the ditch for me, thankfully, I wasn't too keen on picking it up again. So now I thought I better look up snakes in OK, well there were 44 kinds listed, 7 venomous. ICKY!! And I know not to go in or by water, rocks, grass, trees, brush, swamps and anywhere even close to those areas if I want to avoid them all. Doesn't leave many options as to where a person can go. Always on the lookout I guess.

The combines had 1/2 of that field done with when Jim heard a different noise in the combine. A bearing was out. It was 4:15 already. Jon called his Dad to look up the part # for him, then called the closest Case Dealer and they did have it on hand. My first parts run of the year at almost 2 weeks into it, not bad at all - SUPERB compared to last year. So I was off to Wichita Falls, only 45 minutes from us. Plus it wasn't an expensive part or anything so that made the trip more enjoyable. When I got back they had finished the split field and had tested another one, but there was so little wheat I think from pigs eating it and trampling it that it did not pay to combine it. We moved across the road to another field. After we got the heads hooked up and made a couple rounds the sun was setting. There was a lot of green weeds in the field and it was really tough combining, it even plugged up the throat of 1 of the combines. So that was that for the night. Fueled and went back to the camper.