Pea-ing PICS!!

NO! It's not what ya think!

Local canning co. harvesting peas just to the South of me.Pretty interesting machines.

The peas (last I heard) were at 76 tenderness.I know they like 'em a little harder than that,but some fields were lost due to dry weather,so they are taking all they can get.

Another...BTW SE Minnesota

Interesting! When I was a kid, they grew some peas here. Cut with mower, forked on a wagon and taken to the pea huller which was run with a steam engine. J.

In the 50s my older brother worked the corn and pea pack in Montgomery, MN. They had swathers rear-mounted on AC Model C tractors. Basically steered with the brakes because they were so heavy on the rear.

Brad- that brings back a lot of memories of chasing those things around the country when I used to haul peas. Kinda funny, but I don't miss it a whole lot........
John

If someone would have come around with a machine like that AND HAULED THE PEAS AWAY with them my brother and I wouldn't have had to let the milk cow accidently get out of the barnyard. She always headed straight for the pea patch. Nice pictures. Mike

Farmers been raising peas here for the past several years. Believe they're going to GERBERS for baby food... Picking machines are quite a device, that's for sure. Usually have a service truck right along with evry machine, or at least every field, when they are harvesting. Must be they're pretty fragile, or trouble prone.

Does that shell them, or does it harvest it still in the pod? I'd never seen one of those before. What areas grow a lot of peas, don't know of anyone raising them in Ohio.

I really appreciate your giving your general location.

Shells 'em out of the pod too!.Like someone said,they have repair trucks close to the harvestors.Pretty dang prone to break-downs.

There were actually more harvestors in this field.Eight total running.

Not sure what areas grow peas for human consump., but a bit of info.,a few farmers around here raise peas along w/oats and make as sileage for dairy cows.

Nice photo..
A lot different than the way we used to do it. We would cut the peas with a sickle bar mower. Load the vines and all in a truck and haul them to the pea viner several miles away. Then wait in line while others unloaded. Then once unloaded, load up a load of pea vines and bring it back and put it in the silo. We were lucky enough to pull a hay loader behind the truck to load the vines. Others had to fork it on their truck.
Wonder what they do with the vines in this pictured operation? Possibly plow them under or do they make silage out of them?
Dick

Eight machines in one field- they must move at a snails pace. It would be interesting to see a cut-away of the inner workings. Which reminds me of a farmer I know. Last fall he had a non-farm small grandson riding along in the cab of his combine for the first time. Watching ear corn go into the combine and seeing the shelled corn come out of the bin, he asked how the corn got shelled. Farmer told him there's a bunch of tiny midget men in there. Kid got wide eyed- until the farmer set him straight. These things look big enough to work that way. I've used a "Mr. Pea Sheller" with a drill, you almost have to blanch the pods for it to work.

I live between Le Sueur and Montgomery, Mn. and both towns had a Green Giant plant. So when I turned 16 I worked at one of the local pea viners. They were usually 4-6 units. The ripe pea vines were cut with a backwards operated AC tractor with a swather mounted on it. Then the vines were loaded by pulling a offset elevator through the fields and elevating the vines into a single axle 2 ton truck. The vines were then hauled to the viner location and dumped next to a drag line. The vines had to be manually hooked into the drag line using a corn hook. The vines went through a stationary threshing machine type machine. The peas came out one side into wooden boxes and the vines were elevated onto a stack that made pea silage used by the growers of the peas for cattle feed during the winter. When the wooden boxes got full of peas the boxes were stacked onto a hand cart and wheeled via a wooden board walk to the waiting truck to be hauled into the plant. Those were the days...........hard, long, hot work and great fun for us young fellows. Worked for .90 per hour and you worked until all the ripe peas were harvested and sometimes it was a 24 hr. shift. One time the field crew got smart on us, they ran a roll of barb wire into the load of vines, so you can imagine the time us young kids had untangling that mess. The viner units were run by Waukesha gas engine power units, and if things weren't set right they would give a good kick.

Plow 'em under.The vines and pods that come out are dripping with moisture.Gets real nice smelling after a few days fermenting in the hot sun!

Brad , Thank you !! I saw units like these in field off hwy 63 on the way to Rochester over the 4th . I was wondering what the heck they were. Of course the wife wouldn't let me stop to check them out and get some pictures . Quite an operation ,,,and the smell,,,wow .

Lots of peas in western Washington. Dad told of working on a viner in the '30's- they cut and hauled the vines to a stationary viner which moved from farm to farm, much like the old threshing machines. Crew followed it. Dad was pitching the peas into the machine with a pitchfork, along with another guy. A favorite trick when guys got tired was to throw too much in and "slug" the machine and break the shear pin, then everything gets shut down while the clean it out. Wagons backing up, etc., big PITA. Farmer at one place told them he'd give them a 25 cent an hour bonus if they got through the 2 or 3 days at his place without shearing a pin. Pretty big deal, because they were only getting 50 cents an hour. Things went well until right near the end of the job, and the machine just quit. Farmer came over, found that it wasn't plugged, retreived the shear pin and said, "My fault, boys, the shear pin just wore through. I should have changed it every morning. Your bonus is still good." Dad always remembered that guy fondly.

Fast forward to the '60's- mobile viners now, pulled by a fleet of Fordson Major tractors. Running those rigs was the primo summer job- the growers and "good ole boys" kids always got them, I never could, so I bucked bales.

Fast forward to today- self propelled "pod strippers" with air conditioned cabs. They run ads for operators in the newspaper all the time- can't seem to get enough folks to keep them all going.

Sign of the times, I guess.

I love just about every farm smell, especially silage, but I cannot stand the smell of a harvested pea field. Always seemed like they would harvest peas when the ground was saturated and made the vine ferment even more. Yuck.

Bryan,One of the best smells when those things are pickin' aint't it?

Sileage turns sour almost overnight though.Gets pretty rank.

Busy in the shop? I'm totally swamped.2 weeks out.

Buried here too. The heat has been great for a/c work . Parking lot looks like a truck stop today ,lol