Into every life a little rain must fall. Usually when you are having a parade!

My parade yesterday was going fine. It was marching by and I was just enjoying it. That is until I had a knock on the door. Cricket was having a problem with unit #222. We got him going and filled him with diesel, the whole time I was rolling things through my mind trying to figure out what was going on. The truck would roll black smoke and accelerate normally and then a plume of white smoke would billow for a brief period followed by the familiar black smoke again. It was almost like the fuel solenoid would turn off and then back on. I told Cricket to baby it back to the other end and have the fuel filter changed. I followed him six miles just to be sure he didn't have another problem.

In the mean time, LM had called on unit #22 and said he could not build any air. I filled my truck with gas and then lit a shuck to go the thirty miles to where LM was at. When I arrived he told me he couldn't even get the hood latches to release. After some contortionists tricks I laid my hand on the latch release and pulled. The hood popped up! I began to inspect the air compressor and air governor, I took a wrench and tapped gently on the latter (any real mechanic knows how instrumental a good beating is in a repair). I walked around the truck and began to bleed air tanks. I moved to the trailer and found a glad hand gasket leaking and finally moved back to the air tank reservoir. I could hear a gurgling as the air was trying to fill the tank, yet I noticed the air bag suspension was not up. I opened a petcock to drain water from the tank and found there was an abundance present! After about ten minutes, I sealed the system, charged the brakes and began to repair a broken cable on the hood latch release. In a few moments, we checked the air pressure and found it to be better than it was. I told LM to go ahead and see how it behaved at road speeds. I ended up following him to Coahoma before I turned back.

I could not believe all the phone calls I missed while I was crawling around the truck and trailer. I still haven't gotten all of them returned. We may try to find time to pick up a new phone for me today. My phone needs an exorcist. It has a mind of it's own and will change rings or choose not to ring depending on it's mood! Crazy thing is we have witnessed that lots of time it won't ring while being charged. Go figure.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. Cricket was at the compress two hours trying to get unloaded. Mr. Helms and I are going to have a chat about that. In fact, I had three trucks sit there, all of them over an hour wait time. But back to the plot! I had told Cricket to take the truck by the Cottonwood shop and let their mechanic check the connections on the starter. I thought maybe when the dealer shop replaced the starter they had not tightened them up sufficiently. The mechanic wasn't there so Cricket went on down the road to B-Line. As Cricket's luck would have it, they were feeding barbecue yesterday! So Cricket lost another two hours eating and getting his fuel filters changed. Turns out last week this truck was serviced and B-Line failed to change the primary filter and in addition to this, the truck had gotten a pretty good dose of water in it's fuel supply at some point! This truck has taken on thousands of gallons of fuel from the coop fuel stop while only taking on less than a hundred gallons else where. Who do you think has water in their fuel. Anyhow, the truck is running good now!

It seemed that last night every time I woke the plant was at high idle. The had an alright night production wise, but it was nothing to brag about!

Currently we have threatening rain showers that have followed a damp foggy night. I won't allow myself to really look at the board numbers but I know we are closing in on the fifty thousand bale mark! Lat year that would have meant we were almost through (56,000 bales), this year it means we are between a quarter and a third!

One day at a time sweet JESUS!

FATHER, YOU the GOD!