"I only hope that in your stumbling around..."

"You do not wake the dragon" - Londo Mollari, Babylon 5

My professional life comes in definite seasons. Maybe some or all of them aren't what you'd ordinarily look forward to, but they're always looming out there. Tangible to be sure, and unstoppable. Yesterday (and last night) another began, this one referred to as 'Grain Drying'.

Long story short, the crops are coming in horribly wet around here. They must be at approximately 15% moisture for storage, and they're coming across the scale at upwards of 34%. So, the grain must be dried. Like everything else, there is a machine for the job, this a large 'burner' that runs on natural gas, electricity, and tired COOP employees. The technician got the drier moving about 3:30 yesterday afternoon, and we ran out of corn about 1:30a.m. this morning, drying at about 13% of the dryer's discharge capacity (about 400 bushel of corn per hour).

In comparison, we were moving about 4 times faster last year... It's going to be a long season.

From a certain perspective, we didn't HAVE to run so late into the night, but... I guess I've finally learned that work needs to be done when it needs to be done. For example, if I had put it off until this morning, the air temperature today is at least 10 degrees colder and the winds are a good 25 m.p.h. faster. *Grin* I'm a little short on sleep, but last night wasn't so bad after all.

Long night, but... If my crew and I can hang together like this, we'll do fine.

*Taking a photo with a cell phone at night is kind of... Not good. But there's a little to be seen here. The 'bright spot' off to the left is the approximate location of the dryer controls - one might call that 'home port', the blue circles on the right are the burners doing their thing (natural gas at its best).

Rainy Days and Mondays...

Farm children are taught to never curse the rain. The reason is of course, once you complain about it, it stops. Generally speaking, agriculture has evolved to the point where it's easier to cope with too much than too little. Unfortunately, Mother Nature has perhaps pushed that generalization to the breaking point this year. I consider myself to be pretty capable at 'making work', but even I'm starting to run short on loose ends to tie up.

My 2IC (2nd in command) and I finished patching up the 8103 Air Spreader this morning. It has been a bit of an extended project, starting last week when a steering tie-rod failed while out on a job and ending two visits from the field repair tech and an emergency trip to Batavia for parts later. Keeping the old girl moving is half of the challenge of fall fertilizer season, I think.

It's hard not to be a bit depressed about the state of things at the moment. Between the issues with the weather, the hard luck our customer base is encountering, and the almost never-ending glitch list our machinery provides... Well, I guess it's best to remember the old saying 'If it was easy, everybody would be doing it.'

On a more personal note, I've learned from my reading of 'Les Mis' that Monseigneur Bienvenu can host ten visitors, or eleven, if he cares to stand. *Grin* Hugo is nothing if not attentive to the details.