Done ?

Our long time fall operating plan has always been finish harvest by November 1, finish fall tillage by November 15.  Well, actually finish fall tillage by deer shotgun season.  This fall has went so quickly that by October 29 we were down to a day or so of tillage and we'd be done.  Sue and I both didn't have to teach the next Sunday, so we did something we'd never considered.  We went to East Tennessee in October to see Jill.  We told Aman he was in charge, loaded up some things Jill had been storing at our house and took off.  One thing we noticed was an almost total lack of anyone in the field.  The entire trip we saw maybe a half dozen tractors and even fewer combines.  It was nice to get totally away from the farm for a few days.  See a few photos at http://walnutprairie.blogspot.com/

Today we didn't get a lot done but took all day doing it.  We did a few things at Mom's, then headed west.  Aman had taken a friend's truck for a safety test ... and it failed.  So he left it and I went after him.  Today it was supposed to be done so we went after it.  We combined about 3 trips in one.

First we went to Casey and checked on the truck .... not done yet.  We stopped by Farm Pride and talked to Stan about what it might cost to work over the combine.  After we discussed a few options he ran us up front to talk to Cary a little.

We ate lunch at the Oilfield Store then ran over near Lerna and looked at a forklift that had been listed on Craig's List and in AutoRV Trader.

Not a bad looking forklift, but Aman suggested we would be better off putting that money into ours instead of just buying another. I wouldn't mind having another forklift, but it was a bit more money than I need to be spending for a spare.

We came back through Casey.  On the way Cary called with a used combine for us to look at.  It wasn't this one, but looks just like this one

It's closer to my budget than anything else red we have been shown.  We stopped by Schillings's for a minute and stumbled across a deal on a chain saw ... or two.

 Dad's big old Homelite won't run, and after a talk with a chainsaw mechanic I'm not sure it is worth trying to get it to run.  He said the common thing they find with the old Homelites is this: first we'll have a minimum shop charge ... probably around $50 depending upon the shop.  And what they are most likely going to do is put a few parts on it ... plugs, etc, and  find is it needs a part no longer available.  So then we have a saw that is not running and cost us to find out it was not fixable.

John Deere has made an arrangement with Stihl for all its dealers to be able to sell Stihl , so they are closing out the John Deere chainsaw line.  I bought 2 chainsaws for the price of 1.  It isn't quite the saw the old blue Homelite was when it was new, but surprisingly close. I was looking through the owner's manual (GASP!  People do that?!!!) and noted the engine idles at 2800 RPM and working speed is 12,500 to 13,000 RPM.  WOW!

I found my handheld radio was missing when I got home, so Sue and I ran BACK to Casey to see if we could find it.  She found it waiting patiently in the combine cab.  So to celebrate we ate supper at Pizza Hut

Big spenders, huh?