Bad Luck or No Luck At All

Thats an old expression that comes to mind lately. Although I should not complain too much as I have a lot of help to try and keep the wheels turning. Two combines here on the farm, either one of which should be able to handle the 700 odd acres of crop without a problem. And yet here I sit with both broke down and the last 40 acres of canola swaths still in the field. Cloud and showers in the forecast for today so it will be just a matter of covering things up to protect them from the rain and then try to fix the problems when weather permits. The canola swaths have been a nightmare to put through either combine. The self propelled IH did pretty well but suffered from the abuse of these big canola lumps hitting the feeder and finally something has #@*ed up inside the feeder house causing me to park it. Too dark the investigate much so the John Deere pull type was put into duty after some hydraulic hose replacement to at least cut oil consumption by half. It worked pretty well in spite of numerous feeder house plug ups that are very time consuming and strenuous to unplug. Luckily I have my nephew available most of the time to help out. Due to John Deere's ridiculous belt drive system for the feeder chain it is impossible to turn it backwards by hand because the belt just slips. One man needs to turn the lever while the other holds pressure on the belt so things turn. Otherwise its hand work with hooks and saw to remove a handful of straw at a time. My grandfather Nevard would be shocked to see me using his mitre saw to cut canola stalks out of the combine feeder area but thats what I'm doing. The John Deere gave out on a beautiful harvest day suffering a breakdown of a bolt in the shoe area. Its fixable but going to take time. The showers forecast will give plenty of time to work on it. Of course it is located on the second farthest away field so repairs involve plenty of driving back and forth for tools, parts, etc. There can't be much good weather left at this time of year. Will I finish before winter sets in? Will the grain be dry?