We are having really nice weather this past week. Hopefully we can continue and get this crop off in good shape. Have a safe and bountiful harvest, everyone.
On the home front, we are still struggling with our swathers. Just about every day there is something. I know we are using the oldest swathers in the community as they both have had their 25th birthday now. Newer ones would still have guard, section and canvas troubles. If you had a newer one you would have a large amount of money either invested in them or a big loan. Mine are paid for. That is the most endearing feature about my machines. Also, I know them inside out and I still consider them to be reasonably good swathers. I do begrudge the amount of fuel these gas pots burn, but there is nothing I can do about it.
I have my wheat swathed and on Thursday I did everthing I could to get combining. Da Devil was against it. We had a thermostat in the truck that was sticking so we wanted to change that out before we started. When we get it apart the seal the thermostat sits on was buggered. One of the bolts holding the thermostat housing broke off in the block. Jaco dragged the mig out there to weld a nut on the broke off stud. He has rigged up an extension cord that we had for the aeration fans so he can reach quite a ways from the shop. I sort of smile to myself as I had showed Jaco how to weld a nut on a broken off stud. He had never used that method before to get broken off studs in South Africa and now he has become quite proficient at it. My body don't work so good anymore but my brain still works, I think.
Then, here the damn bolt is metric. Lord love a Billy Goat. I hate that metric system. It has caused me nothing but problems. We had one thermostat but we needed another one. Off we go to Lloydminster. Four different places to get another thermostat and this ##@&& metric bolt. Jaco got it together about 4 p.m. and I steal Sven away from the swather as he has a roller bearing gone. Down the hills we go, Sven in the combine, Jaco driving the super-B and me bringing up the rear in my truck. We had us a real convoy. I show them how to combine and the guys are impressed with the amount of wheat coming in. It is 60 feet of swath. We get a sample and I go to Marshall with it.
My wheat tested 14.6 moisture and 11.9 protein. Tim said it was the driest wheat he had seen combined this year. That made me feel good as I have been told I am an old fossil who doesn't want to change and here I had drier wheat than these high clearance sprayers and straight cut guys. I knew that was how it was 30 years ago when these smart young pups were still in three-corner pants. There is lots of beautiful wheat you can straight cut at 16 to 20 per cent moisture but what do you do with it? It will not keep. It wants to heat. Elevators don't want it. Your only option is to put in aeration. It takes a long, long time in aeration if your wheat goes in at 20. Been there. Done that. Swathing is more work but I think it is better. It is drier faster which is important in the short harvest window we have in this area.
Then the Da Devil did his thing. Just when I thought we could combine, it rained. Damn you Devil leave me alone. Maybe combining the next day?
In world news, I am thankful I live in the country near small town Waseca, Saskatchewan. Oh I get vandals wrecking stuff in my elevator and skunks, porcupines and coyotes come by in the night and bother our dogs. It is nothing compared to the poor people in the Ukraine, Palestine or Iraq. Some of them don't have a home to come home to or they are dead.
In 2011, I had a trainee from the Ukraine, Valdmerenn Karas. He was from near Kyiv. I hope he and his family have been spared the fighting, but I have no way to find out. He has a cell phone but he doesn't always answer it. They are very couscous what they say on the phone. I phoned there once and got his sister. I told her who I was and she said in perfect English, "I don't speak English." I asked her how Valdmere was doing and she said in perfect English, "Everything is fine" and then "good bye." I only got to talk to Valdmere once since he went home and for a man who didn't have many words he almost talked my ear off. He would like to come back to Canada, but has little chance that he could get out. He was a good, honest man.
In Iraq the ISIS rebels are doing ethnic cleansing and executing people. If your home was in their path, you either fled or you were dead. These are not nice people. Who is giving them money and arms anyway?
In Palestine, the Hamas rebels have fired more than 2,000 rockets into Israel. The Israelis responded by shelling the buildings these rockets came from. Hamas of course had fled by then and the poor Palestinians whose house it was lost their house and maybe their lives. What was the point of Hamas shooting rockets at Israel? Where did they get the money to buy the rockets? A lot of innocent people lost their lives or have nowhere to live and all for what. Nothing has changed.
I am thankful I live here in Saskatchewan. The dogs can fight the coyotes and the vandals will get caught one day.
Joke of the week by my brother-in-law, Gary: There were these two mischievous little boys aged eight and 10 who were always getting into trouble. If any mischief occurred in their town, they were probably involved. The boys' mother heard a local preacher had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak with her boys. The preacher agreed, but asked to see them individually. So, the mother sent the eight-year-old boy first, and the older boy would see the preacher later. The preacher, a huge man with a booming voice, sat the younger boy down and asked him sternly, "Do you know where God is, son?" The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response, sitting there wide-eyed. So the preacher repeated the question in and even sterner tone, "Do you know where God is?" Again, the boy made no attempt to answer. The preacher raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the boy's face and bellowed, "Where is God?" The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran directly home and dove into his closet, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him he asked, "What happened?" The younger brother, gasping for breath replied, "We are in BIG trouble this time. God is missing, and they think we did it."
