Let the fun and games begin

Over the past few weeks we have been slowly edging towards harvest. Well a couple of hot days earlier this week has given it the hurry-up and in fact we have made a start. After pulling the New Holland TR88 header out of the shed and getting it all serviced up ready for work we took it over to the canola paddocks that were windrowed a coupla weeks back. After setting up the pick up front for the header, and installing a new air-foil sieve - ideal for handling canola, we pulled the header in to see how it goes. Well it was a bit "experimental" for a start. I had trouble getting the windrows to feed into the front properly, and the stone trap was tripping open all the time - and we weren't even picking up stones. A header is a complex machine, with many settings and adjustments that have to be set just right so it works at it's optimum. Well it took me a while to get those settings just right. Once I was happy that it was going to reap relatively successfully I left my brother and my old man to it and went of to service and prepare other vehicles for harvest. I'm in the process of getting the Kenworth ready. She got an oil and filter change, plus new mudflaps, and I would have had her all ready to go, but I found a few holes the size of 20c pieces in one of her exhausts - not a good thing to have out in a thick stubble on a blazing hot day. So she got to take a trip into town for a new section of exhaust. This mornings job was to head up country to collect a brand new chaser bin - yes it's even shiny still. Normally the reaping would have continued, but with the rain that we've had yesterday we had to stop, and took the opportunity to get the bin. A chaser in is used to empty the header into while the header is still reaping. It saves time during harvest as the header doesn't have to stop and drive over to a stationary field bin to empty its grain box.