Daily servicing before entering the field
The daily 80 mile round trip excursion is taking a toll on my writing! By the time we get home (which has been 11:00 every night), take a shower and grab a bite of supper, I’m not thinking anything beyond how good my pillow is going to feel! Last night, however, we got a little shower – 2/10 (my brain wants to reduce that to 1/5 thanks to a great math teacher in my past). As luck has it, it appears we have a little more time to wait for things to dry before getting back to work. The high today is supposed to be 68 – if it makes it. Grabbing the sweatshirt this morning seemed a little weird.
The last couple of days have been busy. The wheat is continuing to have a decent yield which means us truckers stay busy with catching full combines, driving to either the auger or elevator and getting back just in time to catch full combines again. Not much time to do anything else. The test weight has been 58-61 and protein stays around 10%.
Denton’s lovely elevator. Yesterday, I was treated extra nice with candy bars and pop (they were giving it out to all the truck drivers).
We’ve switched to barley for the time being. Ed couldn’t decide if we should stay on the wheat and make a move that would take us further away from the barley or just cut the barley since we were right here. After a lot of thought, he decided to just cut the barley and be done with it. This is being dumped in the grain bin. The luxury of dumping in an elevator is taken for granted until a grain auger and bin is in the picture!
We’ve never cut barley – that I can remember. It’s a little on the itchyer side of the grain dust spectrum. Yesterday, Teri (Ed’s wife who is also driving truck) accidentally lost her walkie talkie in her loaded truck. So, when dumping, she had to keep the endgate shut more than usual and slow the auger way down to keep an eye out for it as the grain was emptying. She was still at it when I got there to dump my truck. I jumped out and used my hand as a strainer to help her out. We dealt with that itchy dust the whole while. We had an awesome conversation, though. That was probably the most we’ve ever gotten to talk one on one! I guess we stood back there for over an hour.
Taylor and Callie made the trip out to the field yesterday afternoon. It was good to have the company and it gave them something different to do. We’re down to just a week of having them with us. Seems like only yesterday they arrived in Shattuck, OK. At the time, their departure date seemed a long ways in the future and now it’s nearly here. Dang!
Most days are full of the intense heat of the sun. That is the reason I enjoy the time of day when the sun is going down and the heat is a little easier to take. It also means, though, that one more day of this brief life is over.
