The good harvest weather is tough to find as it is dewy now until almost noon and is getting dark just after supper. Oh where, oh where did summer go? This almost feels like November weather. Those who still have crop out, I suggest you hurry hard! Get'er done, guys.
On the home front, we are almost done the fall tillage. I like to go over my land with spikes after harvest. It makes the soil a little black and it buries some of the trash. The soil warms up in the spring quicker. I look upon it as a start for seeding. The land has to be fit to seed and it doesn't get fit to seed by drinking coffee and checking markets on the cellphone. There are ruts out there from spring work and spraying that I don't want to bounce over forever. My apologies to the brain-dead zero-tillers; I like working my land.
When I started farming again after my auction sale, I needed some tillage equipment so I put an absentee bid in on a couple of Morris cultivators that were coming up on auction sales, hoping I would get one of them. When I started out my farming career, it was with Morris cultivators. My uncle, Ernie Snell, sold them. There are not many things I don't know about those machines.
So, sight unseen, I put in these bids on auction sales one day after another and I got both of them. They are what they are, built a little lighter but get the job done.
The new man Chris got to show me he knew how to weld which is a bonus around here. I was pleasantly surprised that he is a good welder. The wing came apart on the Morris cultivator he was using and he got it all repaired and back in the field working.
We had to take the frontend loader tractor down to the hills and carry the wing back up to the shop. Chris and the 7018 welding rod got them repaired and married back together. If the Morris engineer who designed this machinery would have put one size larger bolts in to start with, this would have never happened. Water under the bridge now; the machine is back out working.
Chris also got to repair a leaky hydraulic cylinder. We got a repair kit from Moody's and the cylinder is not seeding expensive hydraulic oil on the ground.
Apparently Chris demonstrated to the other guys how to put a seal in with a piece of wire and his trusty fencing pliers he brought with him from South Africa. Here, I thought a happy hooker was the only tool to use. I was quite happy to be able to buy a seal kit for this cultivator as the machine is 30 years old. The price was only $35 which is quite a bit cheaper than other makes I know about.
We are going to see the adjuster for the burnt-up combine next week. Meanwhile, the canola is still smoldering away in the hopper. Sure stinks around there. The only salvageable parts are the front left-hand pickup wheel and the straw chopper. I just put a new shaft in that thing last winter. One guy told me we should charge admission for the amount of people driving by for a look.
The orange elevator has consented to take two super-Bs of wheat. I looked into going to ATL in Edmonton. I could get $550 more for my load of wheat by going there but trucking was $900. Not possible without a deal. We will see.
The companies are again doing their thing with protein testers. They are "adjusted" from head office by phone. An ice cream pail of wheat sitting at my back door went from 11.6 to 12.3 with a different company. Was it the tester or the cat?
I think the cat here is innocent - the one hair-bag cat that is in the house, never goes outside and spends most of the day sleeping. The only time you see any action out of her is when she feels Beverly isn't prompt at getting her soft cat food out, then she does some plaintive meowing. There is other cat food in the self-feeder but that food is beneath it and it must offend her dignity to have to eat it. Beverly justifies the cat's action by saying the cat is old. It is also spoiled.
The two other cats are dedicated mousers or birders, or at least they are always wanting out to hunt. There is one I call my black pussy. I rescued her from the clutches of the Big Poacher. She rewards me by always hunting but goes to Bev to be petted. You can figure out whose cat it really is.
The other one is a fixed boy cat named Linda. We didn't name him. He came to keep the mice down in the shop but he soon sucked up to Bev and he is now in the house, too.
They are in and out. If they are out, they want in. If they are in, they want out. They have the people here trained to open and close doors for them. They must be catching mice as their fur is really sleek.
In police work, pedophile Michael Stanley has escaped detection on a Canada-wide warrant and now is in the United States. How could that be, that he could get completely out of the country? Did we let him go? He really is not the type of person we want in Canada. If the Americans let him in, they can keep him. If he re-offends down there he will find the courts are a lot tougher. Good place for him and good riddance.
Joke of the week by Chris K: A cowboy advertises his old horse for sale. Eventually a guy comes and looks at the horse and decides to buy the horse. "I just need to warn you," the cowboy says, "This horse don't look so good." "No problem," said the buyer, "He looks pretty good to me." He loads the horse and off he goes. A week later, furious, he brings the horse back to the cowboy, and says to the man, "You sold me a useless horse, he is blind in one eye! "I know," the cowboy replied. "I told you he don't look so good!" As my uncle Harold would say Ooooh boy.
