Two big events for us at the Farm this year.  The first was the acquisition of a gravel truck!  Michener Allen was holding an online auction at its Calgary yard.  I logged on and came across a 1992 GMC C7500 Topkick with a 14', 8 yard aluminum box.  A big plus was that it did not have dual axles at the rear and was not equipped with air brakes.  This meant anyone with a Class 5 licence could legally drive it.  A big minus was that it had been converted to propane.  However, I thought I could live with that so I got in on the bidding.

Much to my surprise, I got it for $4,600 all in.  Now to get it up to the farm 850 kms away.  Drove down to Calgary with Lee and after paying for the truck and getting a set of plates for it at the motor vehicle registry I started north.  Surprisingly, the truck ran fine.  Our destination was my sister's acreage at Wizard Lake where I was going to park it until I could arrange for someone to make sure the hydraulics on the gravel box worked.  Only had to find propane once to get it that far.

Later on in the summer I made arrangements to drop the truck at a grain box dealer in Wetaskiwin.  Left it with them for a week before I got the call that the hydraulics checked out.  I picked up the truck a couple of days later and drove to the farm.  The drive was fine except for several propane stops.  Finally arrived at the farm and parked it.  Wasn't planning on hauling any gravel till next year but it was nice to have the truck up there.

  
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The second big event was the boys had prepared my north field for seeding and managed to put in oats under-seeded with alfalfa.  In late August they came in and mowed the crop then baled it.  We ended up with close to 60 round bales.  Great to have the land finally producing.  We found out very quickly that bears really like oats,  They would sit in the swathes and scoop them up.  We also left a couple of bales off to the side.  Moose and deer fed on them all winter.

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