My Grandfather was a thresherman and I worked "on the rig" for a few years in the 1940's. In our area in Southern Michigan small grain was harvested in the "thresher days" by first cutting it with a grain binder which bundled the stalks of wheat, oats, barley or rye and secured them with a twine. These bundles were then put into a shock that usually consisted of ten or so bundles set on their "butts" (cut ends) in a definate pattern and capped by two bundles spread and placed head to head on top to make a sort of a roof over the ten upright bunbles. The shocks usually " dried and cured" in the field(s) for anywhere from one to three weeks until the "threshing day" came for the individual farm. Then the bundles were forked one by one up onto a flat rack wagon(s) where they were loaded in a definate pattern and hauled to the threshing machine and then forked into it one by one in a continuous stream onto a slatted conveyor(feeder) into the threshing machine which threshed or seperated the bulk into clean grain kernels which were usually caught in sacks and the bulk became a grain free straw which was blown into a pile or into a loft in a barn. All this was a very labor intensive operation and required fifteen to twenty five men or more to make up the threshing crew. The men were the neighboring farmers who "exchanged hands" doing their harvesting operations on their individual farms and crew of two or three men that traveled with and tended the thresher and big gas tractor or steam engine that powered the thresher. Usually about four or more neighboring wives and/or daughters from nearby farms helped the host farm wife to prepare and serve the gigantic meals that fed the workmen and mealtimes were great events marked by huge amounts of "rib-stickin'" food. "Pleasant memories of good times...even with the hot summers and hard, dirty, dusty, work".
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Today's Featured Article - Usin Your Implements: Bucket Loader - by Curtis Von Fange. Introduction: Dad was raised during the depression years of the thirties. As a kid he worked part time on a farm in Kansas doing many of the manual chores. Some of the more successful farmers of that day had a new time saving device called a tractor. It increased the farm productivity and, in general, made life easier because more work could be done with this 'mechanical beast'. My dad dreamed that some day he would have his own tractor with every implement he could get. When he rea
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