Holes

Everything went well with the chopping until about the last half load. Kris said the chopper started losing functionality - first, the spout wouldn't move. He thought it was something electronic and kept going. Then suddenly he couldn't control the speed. No fault codes went off on the display, so Kris got out to look for something obvious.

He said he could immediately smell hydraulic fluid. He went under the chopper and hydraulic fluid was spraying everywhere. He turned off the chopper and they started looking for where it was leaking from. Luckily, they found a hose that had a big hole - big enough to stick his finger into. He said it was about as obvious as you could get. It was low on the machine, it was a short hose, and it wasn't really big, which is good, because no one carries hose that big locally.

Tomorrow they'll go into town to get a new hose. If they don't have one, they'll drive to the dealer. Kris said that it was actually better than if it happened tomorrow morning - at least they have a plan to get it fixed, rather than have it happen right away and scramble around with people waiting.

And an injury today - not on our farm, but one of our employees! Dave was at home working with a post hole driver and badly injured his hand. He said when he told the doctor what he did for a living, he told him to not milk cows for 10 days, since it's hard to milk when you have to keep your wound clean and dry.

So, two open holes making the day a little bit more difficult.