Today I went for another drive in the touring, a round trip of a little under forty miles. Here's where I went.
I expect this brings back some sweaty memories for some folks. I'll have some video later.
Good way to spend the day Steve. Good folks, hard work and sunshine.
Rich
You are cutting grain already, it has not even stooled out here yet.
The redbuds,which usually bloom around the second weekend of April, were finished by the end of March this year. The unusually tame winter moved everything two or three weeks earlier.
We've put up alot of hay here in Old Kentucky already! - it's hard work but fun!
I'm starting to itch already looking at those pictures thinking of the early days on the Iowa farm.
Steve, I am not familiar with that type of machine.Can you tell me how it works. We used a mower/binder which cut the crop, took it to the binder on a canvas belt which then rolled it onto a sheaf which was tied with sisal twine and discharged onto the ground. These sheaves were often then gathered up and stood vertically to dry out. The small groups of sheaves were called stooks.
Are those fellows forking loose hay onto the waggon? I don't think that was a normal practise around here.
With interest.
Allan from down under.
We were supposed to cut wheat yesterday, but Beryl was coming in, with all his rain, so we are hoping to get it next weekend.
Allen,
The machine behind the red tractor is a binder and operates pretty much like you said. It cuts the grain which falls onto a canvas conveyor which packs it into the binding mechanism until there is enough to trigger the mechanism. Once tripped, it ties some twine around the bundle of grain and throws it out onto the ground. The yellow tractor is pulling a trailer that they are loading the bundles onto. Back in the day, they probably would have stacked them in the filed like you said. I don't know what Steve is doing with his. When we do it here at my house, we bind and thresh on the same day. Too hard to try to get everyone together twice. When we do it at my friend's place, we save it back for November, when he puts on a little show. Not sure why he chooses November to do his show, but we have always had to save wheat back for it. Although he puts Sevin in it, it is usually full of bugs by November. I had mine milled into flour. He can't do that with his, as it is full of Sevin dust (insecticide).
In the old days on the farm, the wheat would be taken on wagons directly to the thresher and pitched in. But this is our local tractor club. The wagons with the wheat on them will sit in a shed until August. Then the wagons will go to the fairgrounds for threshing demonstrations at the antique farm machinery show.
The show in Pawnee OK is the first weekend in May, which means that the wheat they thresh has been sitting on the wagons since the previous June. The highlight of every threshing demonstration is when they get down to the bottom of the pile and hundreds of mice leap off the wagon and scatter in all directions.
Here are some views of threshing at our 2008 show.
That is a model T chassis under that wagon.
It sure does look like one, Andrew!
I guess I am just not old enough to appreciate their work! I hadn't considered that the wheat was being cut to be threshed. My mindset was on making neat sheaves with the stalks aligned for making chaff. Those bundles were way too untidy for that, but they didn't need to be for their intended purpose. We used to have a sport at agricultural shows based on the pitching of sheaved hay. It involved pitching a dummy sheaf as high as possible, between two poles set about 10' apart. This was to replicate the skills needed to pitch the sheaves up onto a haystack to the stack builders on top of the stack. Some of those haystacks were a work of art in themselves.
Allan from down under.
Yep,it's a Model T chassis with three Model A wheels. I didn't recognize the right front wheel.
Picking up the bundles this time was freestyle. Some used pitchforks, and others just picked up the bundles and threw them.
Around 1948 when I was a wee lad, a neighbor farmer held a threshing bee with the equipment similar to that shown. It wasn't nostalgic though as modern equipment was still in short supply due to war effort. Local farmers brought in their wheat on wagons, some with teams of horses. It is a great memory esp. the chicken dinner prepared by the farmer's wives as only an old fashion farm dinner can be done. Our car club had a spring tour last year with a stop at an Amish farm that hosts dinners for groups. The chicken dinner with all the home made trimmings was really good and reminded me of the threshing bee.
Loving the tractor shows out here in Washington but none for a while yet.
23 years ago I founded a club which did just those things and a lot more.
Over the years it gradually degraded into a tractor pull.......and I no longer belong to the club I founded and served as president for 14 years.......