Our last week in Oklahoma

We finished up cutting wheat in the Pond Creek area over the last week. It turned out to be a really good stop for us. Andy drove the farmers truck for over a week while we were in this area, the guys lovingly nicknamed it the "Brown Turd". Kyle in the combine. Drilling Oil, I guess there are 1000 new oil wells being dug this year just in this county. And there are a LOT of other counties drilling oil. Cattle grazing On the way to a field. Beautiful views in this area! Date night! Jon and I try to go out when it rains, we have had 2 date nights so far since we left home. My cousin Andrew, who is here on the crew with us, has a birthday on June 12. He is a special guy as we all have known for a while, but he is so special that his sister, Melissa, thought it would be fun to come down for a visit around his birthday and surprise him! Melissa and I started talking about it and getting plans made. Melissa's family (her husband Tim and their 3 young boys) as well as Andy's girlfriend Bridget came to visit on Friday, June 8th - Sunday, June 10th. They left MN on Thursday evening after Melissa's daycare kids left and they drove all through the night getting to a truck stop around 4:30am where they slept for a few hours, then came to the camper around 7:30am to surprise Andy. Boy was he surprised! A lot of fun times were had the few days they were here. They left for home on Monday morning as we headed up to Bird City, KS. It worked out really well for Kyle to go home with them as he is in his sister's wedding this coming weekend, then Kyle will be back here early next week. Tim & Melissa's 3 boys: Nathan, Jared, and Owen The morning of the surprise visit; there was a LOT of dew on the ground so it wasn't a big hurry to get out to the fields right away. Jared and Owen. Our crew was split up in 2 groups most of the time we were in the Pond Creek area. On Friday afternoon Tim and Nathan were with Dan, Kyle, Andy and Bridget. Melissa, Jared, Owen, and I were with the other guys for a while. Owen rode with Dan in the truck to take a load of wheat to the elevator. He loved it and didn't want to get out! A full tractor! Then we had more visitors, 2 of Caleb's brothers! They pulled in around 11pm I think. They had been to Tennesse for a rowing competition and "swung over". It was nice of them to come see Caleb. They spent the night in the guys camper and headed home on Sunday morning. A perfect vacation for 3 farm boys. They didn't want to leave! Sand Dunes or Giant Sand Box? I think both! Melissa, Kyle, the 3 boys, and I were driving around exploring for a couple hours on Sunday night. There are these sand dunes outside of town that I have always wanted to go up to, so we did! It was sure a lot of fun! We went past the cemetary, it sure looks different than what we are used to back home. After our afternoon excursions, we all had a late supper and visited in the camper till late since we were done combining in this area. Everyone was up early on Monday, some of us heading to Kansas, others heading home to Minnesota. We had a tire that needed to be changed on a straight truck before we could leave which got us thinking about how many tires we have moving.....today when we had a big move there were 94 tires rolling on the road, wow! Then there are the 22 tires on the combines and grain cart. Thats a lot of tires. We got to Bird City, KS Monday evening. There was some difficulty getting power to our camper, but they got it figured out thankfully. Tuesday morning 4 of the guys went back to Hill City, KS to get the other 2 combines and heads(that some of the other guys had left there on Sunday). The wheat up in Bird City is a little ahead of Hill City's wheat so we will probably come back for the stuff in Hill City later. While the other guys were back tracking for the combines, Jon, Dan, Dan and myself started cutting here. There were several small fields we cut for an elderly farmer and they were a distance away from each other as well. We spent more of the day moving machinery from field to field than cutting, but at least we were working. Going only a few miles north and the flat fields turn into this. The wheat back in Pond Creek averaged about 40-45 bu/acre. It is starting out good here too, lets hope it keeps going good. With Kyle at home for his sisters wedding, I was in the field all day yesterday. But most people have run out of clean clothes now so I had to come 15 miles to the laundromat in St. Francis. Now the blog is updated and everyone will have clean clothes again for a bit.