Great weather......

We are getting lots of carrots out of the ground. The weather has been just great this fall. Today we shattered the record of most trailers loaded in one day. The previous record was twenty one tractor trailers. Today when we got to work, there were nine trailers waiting in the yard. And by the time that I quit digging at 8:30 this evening, Marten had loaded twenty six trailers. Wow, what a busy day. We dug fifty four tandem loads from Harvey's fields today. No major breakdowns. Thanks be to God for all his blessings.

Digging again.............

The next three blogs contain info about carrot digging. I tried to upload video into my blog, but that didn't work. So, I uploaded into U-Tube first and then downloaded into my blog. But it uploads in a new blog every time. That is why I have three new posts. Well, four including this one. Hope you can figure it out.
Have a great weekend.....

carrot harvest

windrowing carrots

carrot harvest

Digging carrots at Blue Bay Farms Ltd...............

I thought that I would try to upload a video of digging from my camera. So, here goes.............Sorry, tried,and didn't work. So the next bit of text goes with the above video's.
This is the carrot harvester, it can also be used to harvest potatoes. We can harvest about twenty acres of carrots in a good day. The yield is about one tractor trailer of carrots from one acre. That means a lot of carrots from 150 acres. This other machine is the windrower. As the name suggests, it digs carrots unto windrows. The harvester comes by after and picks them up. We dug a few more truckloads today. And also loaded five tractor trailer with carrots. The plan is to start full speed on Monday. Hopefully the weather will stay nice. We had beautifull digging weather today. Next week is supposed to be quite a bit colder. But then again, it is almost November. So we can expect some cooler weather. All the equipment is running good. We are getting into our respected grooves again. It took a few loads, but it is just like riding a bike. The crop looks great. We are all healthy hear and doing well. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees now. The lawn is still very green though. Elisabeth mowed the lawn yet today. We are supposed to get some night frost on Monday and Tuesday night. That should take care of the mowing. The barn is kind of empty now. I was in it this afternoon. We were just thinking back on all the laying hens, meatchickens, piggies, lambs that were raisewd in there. And the sheep, cows for milk and meat we kept, and of course our horses. A little trip down memory lane. And now it is all empty but for the mice and raccoons. But they are no fun to play with.
I tried the videos, they work on my site but I don't know if they will work for you.
So here are some pictures.
Here Tineke uses the rubber flail topper to clean the tops of the carrots.



This is the windrower, it is operated by Klaas. It digs three rows and dumps them on top of three rows beside.
Then the digger comes by and picks up those rows and puts them in the truck.Here all three of us in one picture, hard at work.
The truck takes the carrots home, where Marten and the crew transfer them unto tractor trailers.

Anyway, that is the general idea. Hope the video works for you. I know that the pictures will work. Wishing you all a great weekend. God Bless you all.

Slow internet ahead............

Hey all,
Just a few lines, pictures will come later, when our internet works better. It is kind of slow right now for some reason. Pete is scratching his head over it.
We started digging carrots today. It looks like a good crop. We had the usual little problems with starting something new. Pieces of equipment falling appart. Tractor computers on the frits. But all in all, we loaded 9 ten wheelers. And tomorrow we are getting 4 tralers to fill. That should take care of the morning. And then on Monday, when we are allowed to start hauling, we can go full tilt. Hopefully the weather will be as nice as it was today. It was nice and warm,sunny and hardly any wind. It has been a beautiful fall for harvesting. We are very blessed, both with the weather and the crop.
Have a great day today! And I hope to get you some digging pictures soon.
Randall

Sad day............

Today started with the sad realisation that Sapho had not eaten her grain. So I went to look for her and found her down in the field. She had worked herself into a hole and could not get up. This was the third time that she did this. This time however she did not recover. So no more Sapho to feed in the morning or look at while driving by. She will be missed by all of us.
Randall.

Still digging....

After two weeks of digging, we only had one rainy day. If the weather holds we might finish next week. This week saw very good production, 180 loads went in the warehouse in the last 6 days. After six days of constant digging, we were all glad to see Sunday coming tomorrow. Yesterday was an expensive day. Theside elevator belt on the harvester broke completely off. So the potatoes were falling on the ground. Upon further inspection, we noticed that the belt was done and had to be replaced. So,after a quick phonecall, a trip was made to Donnie Allan for a new belt. We were mobile again within an hour. Too bad I didn't bring my camera yesterday.
Another load of PEI potatoes. Yukon Gold. Above, on the right,
Klaas, windrowing
Here are three more pictures taken from the cab of the digger. The field is Exton's. You can see Rustico Harbour as well in the background on the right. The last picture gives you view trough the front window of the digger. My view.
Thanks for your visit, and hope that you will visit again, don't forget to comment.