Well, I can't claim to be in the best mood as Christmas approaches. I have always been pretty open on FWi about some of my misadventures, but I have to admit I have been holding out on all of you. I had a nasty combine accident the day after Thanksgiving.
I was giving my 4 year old niece a ride on the combine, cutting some of her grandfathers soybeans. We were turning around at the end, waving at my sister-in-law so she could get a good picture. I hit one of the seemingly 10 million little washes throughout our fields from all the heavy rains of 2009, and heard a sound like a rifle shot in the cab. The header went smack onto the ground. Alarmed, I ejected myself fairly rapidly from said combine, and was at first confused, thinking I had broken an axle, because the machine was sitting on the drive wheels. Upon closer inspection from myself, my father, my brother, and my 2 nieces(whilst their mother continued to snap photos) it was revealed that the combine had broken in half, right where it connects to the front axle housing.
I have been quite careful with my language around the next generation, but swear words erupted from me as though my mouth were the opening of a hot soda can. Mixed in with the swear words were dollar estimates of what this was going to cost me, most of those directed at my father. At some point in this tirade, I noted my sister-in-law was still taking pictures. I snarled to my brother "tell Melinda to quit taking pictures, she is starting to **** me off".
The next morning, we had a big family breakfast, where I was chastised by Melinda...."those pictures didn't make that one bit more expensive, they didn't change anything, you didn't have to be a jerk about it"...to which I replied "it's a good thing you live in Nebraska".
I had called a couple of local "machinery surgeons" to size up the situation, one an excellent mechanic, the other an excellent welder. We were blessed with one of the nicest days of the fall, it was about 65F. Upon arrival the welder crawled under the machine and commented "I've seen worse". For nearly 7 hours we ran chains and boomers back and forth, had porta powers and jacks everywhere. No matter what we did we couldn't line things up, then, as if by magic, suddenly everything went back together, and after about an hour of welding, we were solid again. It was dark, but I fired up the machine and everything seemed to be in working order...seemed to be.
40 acres of soybeans later, I could see alot of beans on the ground. I had sheared off two augers in the auger bed, and bent alot of the sheet metal that held the bearings. Parts were ordered, then it got really cold and caring for livestock took over. With some luck, the combine might be back to working order by the end of this week.
80 acres to go now. Many of my neighbors are finished, and the stress is getting to me. I combined on Thanksgiving, the question now is, will I combine on Christmas, or will I possibly be done. Stay tuned.