D-Day for McCain and Obama

Today is the day many of us have been waiting for, either with a relief that we won't have any more political campaigning taking up the air waves or with the relief that they can finally cast their ballot for their favorite candidate.


Our township decided to vote by mail so we received our ballot about a month ago and have already voted. It was quick and easy and in the mail box before we knew it. Several states have allowed for advanced voting and lines were long yesterday. I am curious as to whether everyone will have the opportunity to vote this time. If the lines are as long as they appear to be, we will have some unhappy people. Then again, once the tally is done, people will either be happy or unhappy with whoever wins.


One of the advantages of living in the US is this wonderful right to a vote your conscience and not have anyone force you. We will have some voting irregularities but that is just a part of voting in any election. Since the 2002 election, the US has tried to implement practices that will eliminate voter fraud but this will still continue to be a part of any election.


I spend a lot of time rocking in a rocking chair prior to going on the exercise bike. This warms my knee and increases the range of motion. I haven't had much time to go swimming lately, we have been harvesting our soybeans. I miss swimming and will be starting again in a couple of days.


We finally had nice enough weather to do that. It is very wet in our fields and we had to leave about 3-4 acres as we can't go there. Ardmore decided to put a load of soybeans on the truck yesterday while it was in the field. He has been doing this. i had parked it a little farther from the road and he ended up with it sinking and had to get the tractor to pull it our. That was the first and only time we have been totally stuck this year. We are done combining for the year! Hooray! Couldn't be soon enough either, it is suppose to start raining again tomorrow and then snowing. We had one of the warmest days since 1903 yesterday, it was 70 in Roseau. Today is suppose to be nice also then the cold is suppose to arrive. We will be in the teens in the morning by Saturday. Brrr!

Soybean harvest

On Friday, Ardmore decided to try to combine the soybeans. He always asks me to come and get him when he takes a truck out, and it is invariably just before I am leaving for work, which always makes me late. This time was no different only... He took the truck out and drove it into the wet field and with mud flying behind the back wheels, pulled it right back out and took it home. End of trying to harvest. Saturday he asked me to drive the truck across the chisel plowed field to where he was going to try to harvest. I thought it would be better to fill the combine and drive it home and empty it in the yard for the first trip. He only combined about a 100 bushels and decided the call it quits. It is still too wet and it is scheduled to rain again tomorrow! The question is, will we ever get the soybeans off?

We had stake conference in Winnipeg this weekend. We did not go. Ardmore does not like to stay over night and we can't go through the border before 9 unless we go through the Roseau crossing which adds an additional 45 minutes to our trip making it a 3 hour trip. He and I both had meetings on Saturday but I can't take the long trip two days in a row. I think about how it would have been to cross into Canada if 9/11 hadn't happened. We live only about 5 miles from the border. It is a small crossing and the plans were to make it accessible with an id card similar to a credit card. The cameras and the machine were all in place, then September 11 happened and all that changed. Now we need to have id and a birth certificate or a passport. Hours at our crossing have changed from 8am to 10pm to 9am to 5pm. It has made things so much more complicated. Government intervention in the way of making our country safer.

Now a little update on my thr and tkr:
The swimming definitely has helped as had the rocking chair and riding the bike. There is still considerable stiffness and I have problems with range of motion. I like to go on the computer when I am in bed just before I go to sleep. My knee does not cooperate with the bend I want and then it swells and gives me pain off and on all night.

Harvest Continues

Yesterday turned out to be very nice, 80 and sunny. Ardmore took off the last of the canola and heading north to the home farm to continue with the wheat. Took a couple of hours to finally get rolling as we had to change combine headers. He had considered swathing but it was so nice he decided to just go with the straight header. Hurrah! I would have been the one on the swather and as much as I can entertain myself with my Ipod, hours and hours of going up and down on the swather gets monotonous, plus it is so much easier when we straight head the wheat. I think the wheat is running about 60 bushels to the acre this year. We took off 600 bushels in about 3 hours yesterday.

My Knee
Could I say I am less than happy with the tkr? Yes. It is painful. I think the biggest problem is that I have varicose veins behind my knee and they are giving me so much pain my range of motion is being limited. I wonder now if I would have done this replacement if I would have known this would have been a complication. Well, I guess I will have to see it to the end, whenever that will be, and see what the outcome is at six month, one year, etc. I hear it does get better. I sure hope so.

On September 8, we celebrated 46 years of marriage. Wow, 46 years with the same person seems like an awful long time! Yup, it is. Would I do things differently, perhaps and then perhaps not. I guess the old cliche "life is what you make it" rings true in a 46 year marriage.

What have I learned being married to someone for 46 years?

• You can't change them and they can't change you.
• Be independent.
• Always look for the good in any given situation.
• Have a life of your own and allow them the same.
• Take vacations alone periodically.
• Always remember the things you have in common and don't focus on the things you don't have in common, after all, you don't look alike, do you?
• Enjoy each day for what it brings.
• Last but not least, tell each other you love each other and show it