Wednesday, July 2, 2008

OK, my patience is wearing thin ...

I finally got my internet service back today. We only had 65 messages to download. 21 were from the same person ... I have had to set up a filter to put email from him in a separate folder. Do not be surprised if I change ISP's the next week or so. If I do the cell1net.net address will at some point fail to work. The ARRL.net address will forward to the correct mailbox as well as the firehousemail.com address.

And yes, it is 12:25 AM as I type this. I was upgrading my Open Office and fell asleep at my desk waiting for it to do its thing and now am not sleepy. Its been a challenging day

The backup light on my truck do not work. They don't work because we stole the fuse from them to use in the combine. The combine needed it because the parking brake was locked on.

Oh, you want an explanation?

My son-in-law was running through the field cutting wheat when the combine made a terrible noise and lost all forward motion. It was like someone threw the parking brake on. We could not get it to work right. If you put the transmission in 1st gear you could get some forward movement out of it. This was 5:30 PM. Dad came to take my place in line at the elevator while I looked at the combine. I got back to the field, yep, still looked like a combine. We looked it over, and finally called the service dept about 10 before 6. Everyone had left but a salesman who was no help at all.

Elevator was open until 6, so SIL jumped in the full truck and headed for town. I went back and changed with Dad. I finally got unloaded and put my truck away for the night. Wife helped me get stuff in. We were setting there contemplating when Dad called and asked if we had checked the fuses. SIL popped the fuse cover off and started looking at the diagram to see what fuse it might be. He got this funny look when he discovered the parking brake and the air pump for the driver's seat share a common fuse. He realized he had been pumping up the seat when the combine stopped. We stole the afore mentioned fuse from my pickup and VOILA! he was back in business.

I mentioned challenging? We tried one field this morning and it was too wet so we went to try another. Combine almost didn't start. So we changed fields, it too was wet. We cleaned the battery terminals on the combine, then set up an auger on a bin to put wet wheat in.

OK that is not from today, but it might give those reading this that do not understand "farmer talk" an idea what I mean. If you are reading this and do not understand the significance ... you are fortunate. Putting wheat in a bin now means sometime in the next month you will need to get it out. Combine physical labor (running a scoop shovel or powered equipment) inside a closed circular metal structure with summer heat and you have a setup for heat exhaustion. Nobody likes the idea of wheat in a bin. So we get it all set up, ready to take wheat, I plug in the spreader in the top of the bin ... and trip the circuit breaker.

Fortunately, after we get the first truck loaded I take a sample to the elevator and it has dried enough we can take it directly to town. This is an idea it seems everyone else had as well.

Anyway, broken bolts, blown fuses, non-working devices ... by the way, I forgot to mention I found the big green tractor has a flat tire on it after we got it to the field and a load on the grain cart.But Hey! Yesterday afternoon for fun I talked to the IRS, the insurance company, and of course my internet service provider customer service folks. This is a piece of cake

Well, I've been at this about a half hour and am beginning to get drowsy again, so see y'all later.

1 comment:

Adam Gonnerman said...

YIKES!

Thanks for the update.

I always felt bad that my Dad never had a son follow in his footsteps into farming (he was third generation in Knox County, Missouri), but it's posts like yours that remind me part of the reason why I didn't go that way myself.

Hang in there.

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