The wobble Box

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DAY 376


I got up early again today, it was 7.00 Andy was waiting for Jason who turned up fairly quickly so I grabbed the freshly made cup of tea that Andy had made for himself and drank it.

I am not expecting to do anything much today, except catch up on blog work and help if there is a little bit of running around to do. So I am washed and coiffed just in case anything comes up.

I potter around doing a few bits and pieces, there are not so many flies to vacuum up today, they seem to be thinning out now, not sure why or if they will be back again any time soon, but we will see.

Helen reappears and has some breakfast, we hang some washing on the line and I get another load of mine in the machine to soak.

In the meantime Helen made lunches for Robert and Andy, my task was to get them out to the right place and leave them in the right tractor. You would be amazed if I told you that it does not matter where you are asked to leave water or lunch by some quirk of fate that everyone usually ends up in a different place where they are supposed to be and therefore nowhere near where lunch was left for them.

Anyway, I head off to the shearing shed to find Roberts water, I open the heavy doors, find what I was looking for, but on the way out I find that I cannot shut the heavy doors, so I have to leave them. I wander round to the Landcruiser and head off to the paddock over the way, it is only about 5 minutes away. I can hear Andy and Jason talking over the UHF.

Eventually I catch sight of them both in the paddock, Andy wanders over to grab his lunch from me to put it into his tractor and I leave Roberts lunch in the blue tractor as instructed. Fingers crossed that everything stays normal today and it is all in the right place.

Back at Woodstock Helen makes plans to go to the CWA meeting, this is the Country Women’s Association, however Helen gets a phone call, something on the header has broken so she needs to go into Wagga Wagga to pick up a spare part.

In the meantime a young man appears at the door, thrusting his hand out to shake my hand, he introduces himself as Josh, he knows who I am already, his family live about half way between Wagga Wagga and Gundagai and for many years has been coming up to help with the harvest, he asks if he can go into the freezer for some water, he is very polite.

Once she gets back Helen takes the opportunity to put her feet up and read which is what she tried to do 2 days ago. Managing to sit down for a while the phone rings again, it seems that the header is still broken so harvesting is still stopped.

Eventually Josh and Andy appear (Josh is the son of another local farmer) who is helping out today, they have land and an earth moving business, and josh has been driving heavy machinery since he was about 10 years old, and is very capable of driving pretty much anything from, a heavy Caterpillar front loader to B Double.

I forgot to mention one of the highlights of yesterday (I am not surprised as it was so busy, in fact none of us could even remember what day of the week it was!), when we shifted all the equipment to another paddock to harvest, Robert and Helen had to check out the dams, there unfortunately were two lambs (only about 2 months old) that were stuck in the mud in the empty dam. Helen waded into the mud (for the second time that day) to rescue one of them, Robert got some rope lassoed the other one and dragged it out.

We took both these lambs, to a new paddock with water and to mix back with their friends, it looked as if one of them wasn’t going to survive, but they both staggered to the water trough took some water and then staggered toward the dam (note: they have survived their trauma and are none the worse for wear).

Hi Andy Here, I have a break tonight for a bit of Rest as Josh will be harveting through the night in my tractor, So I am going to explain what happened to the header.

At 11.30 we have a problem, the main cutting blade, has failed and under inspection Jason thinks its the "Wobble Box", whats a Wobble Box I hear you all cry will its a box that Wobbles basically and house a Nylon bearing, and lets the Knives slide left and right at a very high speed.

A replacement Wobble Box will set you back $5500.00 but under closer inspection iturns out to be a 18mm Hex head bolt that has sheared, but John Deere in Wagga don't have one.

Jason speaks to their service manager who said they will strip one out of a unit and get it ready for collection with a few other bits and peices, so Helen jumps in to the car and speeds of 60 K' to Wagga whilst jason and me, go and grab some heavy and get back to the Harvester and start to strip it down.

By 2.30 The Header is back in prodiction stripping the wheat and we are delighted by our achievment.

All was going well, Jason just directed me over the UHF radio to rendevouz down in the botton corner of the back of the paddock, this paddock is about 38 Hectares and is huge, it will yield about 76 Tonnes of wheat.

I set off for the agreed meeting place and as I near the meeting point I get another message asking me to return to the front gate, so I set off and as I get over the hill heading down to the gate I seet Jason out of the Combine Harvester looking at the Auger, which I know Caroline has explained, but basically is the delivery pipe from the header to the chaser Bin which I was driving and as we drive along at a pre set speed so he can empty the 6 Tonnes of wheat in to the chaser bin.

Anyway things didn’t seem to look good especially when I heard Helen’s voice, over the two-way advising Jason to park the header and take the comb off, Jason Face told it all, along with the Big dent in the Auger (Feeder Tube).

Oh S*it, this is bad, in the middle of harvesting, the Header goes down
If a rope had been near by I think Jason would have probably done himself in, once Robert gets back to have a look.

We get the combine harvester back to wood stock, and soon the technician has appeared from John Deere in Wagga Wagga as they can have an insurance assessor look at the unit in the morning and it would be possible to get it back to the farm in the afternoon.

We set up the Pilot Vehicle, set up all the flashing lights, and the signs and we leave at exactly 7.00pm, the problem here is no over size vehicles after sunset and it was nearly that time when we left.

The header is slow, and very big, we are in constant communication with Jason when traffic was heading his way.

The progress is slow and it is nearly dark, we get to the bridge in Wagga and Jason is worried the Harvester will not go under the 4.4 mtr railway bridge.

I get out of the pilot vehicle and climb on to the header and stand on the high gantry as the header moves forwards and we have 100mm clearance so we ease it under the bridge.

Only a couple of K’s to go and we pull in to Hutchinson and Pearce the John Deere dealer at exactly 8.30 pm, one and a half hours to do 60 K’s

John Deere Technicians still seem to be working this late and the service manager comes out to look at the damage that has been done to the header.

Still we have achieved our goal and got the header to the dealership so they could start work on it early in the morning and we didn’t get picked up by the law.

After a lot of humming and haring it is decided that the Header needs to be taken
It seems that the problem with the Header is more serious than at first thought, so John Deere are now involved, they have been looking at it for quite a while trying to solve the problem, however it is now having to be taken into John Deere in Wagga Wagga for repair.

We all dive back in the the Pilot vehicle and head back to Wagga as fast as we possibly could, as it was 9.30 and we needed our dinner

Spoke too soon about the flies, there are hundreds if not thousands of them again, so Helens lamp on the lawn is set up to help divert them from the house, the light on the veranda at the edge of the house is swarming and somewhere they are coming inside the house and going straight for the ceiling lights, so Helen keeps as few on as possible so that they do not get everywhere.

I actually thought that it may mean an early night for everyone, but I was wrong, the guys did not get back until gone 10.00 and none of them were hungry, so the dinner that Helen had cooked (Lamb with vegetables and gravy) is now in the freezer.

Andy and I sat and chatted to Josh for a while, he stays here at the farm while he works here as he lives a fair distance away, and during those late harvesting nights and early mornings it makes sense to be near by.

It was gone 11.00 by the time we went to bed, but I think Andy was still hyped from a busy day so better to relax a little before trying to sleep. Everyone here on the farm is tired, they all work hard at the best of times but harvest time is exceptional, I think they would all work for 36 hours a day if they could.

I (Andy) missed a bit from the other day, as the bank manager turned up when Jason was on the header and I was on the chaser tractor, Randell Holmes from NAB, Agri Business had come to see how business was going but really I think he really came to have a sit in the header for a couple of laps.

Jason asked me to go and it my 6 tonnes of grain then pick Randell up as he was waiting by the gate, I pull up in my tractor and step down from it, like John Wayne from his horse, I greet Randall, I have been told his name by Jason and I shake his hand and say Hi I’m Andy, I will take you in to the other paddock and hand you over to Jason in the header.

What a nice chap he was in the short run down You can find out loads of information about someone, he is married, with 3 daughters and lives in Wagga and loves things with engines.

I slow the tractor down and opens the door and he climbs down, walks across to the waiting Combine Harvester, climbs up the steps and jumps in to the passenger seat and settles in for a fantastic view of the paddock from up there.

I collected Randall for his return ride to his car in the tractor and drop him off
As usual our Blog rule is if you have a mention on the blog then there must be a photo of you, I explained what it was all about, so I gave him our blog address and he said he would give it a read.

So that’s the little piece I forgot to put in as we have been working long days and finishing late so the last thing I wanted to do was do the blog when I come in.

The Harvesting is hard work and exceptionally long days but it is quite rewarding when things are going right.

So I will bid you all a good night, until tomorrow.

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Photos

Randall Holmes
N.A.B Bank Agri Business Manager

My rear window
Seeing the header catching up waiting to rendevouz

Comments

[Ben Dicosta]

ceiling light
I love this post because i am great fan of ceiling light