Harvest 2012 First Day

September 2, Sunday, first day on the combine. As an old friend used to say, "the better the day, the better the deed". There was a time nobody harvested on Sunday but those days are gone.
It was a slow start having to move numerous other vehicles and machinery (one that would'nt start) to get the pull type combine out of the shed. I finally got out to the field by about 2:00. After going a couple of hundred feet with the cleanout doors open and dumping all the oats on the ground, I finally realized why nothing was appearing in the grain hopper. The mice and birds will feed well.
Strong winds blew the 40 foot swath around as it came out the back of the Titan II. Not sure what I was thinking laying a double swath of such a heavy crop but thank goodness I had only swathed maybe ten acres and then switched back to single. That heavy double swath had me right down to first gear and standing still at times. One place where the swather canvas had stopped and dumped a pile of straw was more than the combine could handle. The Magnum dropped from 2100 to 0 rpm in about a second, stalled dead by a heavy wad of green straw that hit the cylinder a little too fast. At least the strong west wind carried the dust away as I worked away underneath the combine pulling out a few straws at a time. That green straw was strong as rope and I finally went to the yard for my hook to help pull out the last of it.
The moisture test was an unbelievable 11% which is well into the dry range. I figured having only laid in the swath four days the oats would not be dry. Guess the heat and wind speeded things up.
Worked til 8:30 in the dark and called it a day. Not a bad afternoon's work.