[AT] Harvesting questions...

Gene Waugh Elgin, Illinois USA gwaugh at wowway.com
Sun Nov 2 13:59:37 PST 2008


I had the experience of using a team to haul bales in the field of a 
cousin's grandfather---well, as a 16 yr old, it was my joy to throw 
bales onto the wagon! (That was a promotion; I was usually stuck up in 
the barn!!) His fields were hilly & small enough that we didn't tow a 
wagon behind the baler. 

I was never around any shocking, however---I don't know how old my 
grandfather's 5 ft Oliver (I'm 99% sure of Oliver) combine was an o-l-d 
one!  Old enough to be replaced in the latter 50s.  Never had the joy of 
working with loose hay, either!!

Gene

Bruce Moden wrote:
> Gene,
>
> I'm a few years older than you, but like you I was a "migrant farm worker" (I migrated from Buffalo, where I lived to the farms of Chataqua County -40 miles away).  I worked farms from 1946 to 1952 (and then later in life on my own farm) picking, hoeing, laying irrigation pipe, haying, etc. on farms of relatives & thier friends, most farms small (100 plus acres) by today's standards.
> But I do remember haying behind a team of horses and to address your "small grain" question, I worked in fields where the grain was cut & bound into "shocks" & we would go through the field & stack the shocks in (I think) stacks of 6 -standing up so the grain would dry.  These would be collected (by hand) on a hay wagon & taken up to the house & barn area where on 1 day the thrasher would come with a bunch of neighbors & thrash the grain.  This is a process that is generally reproduced a antique farm days in most fram communities every summer.
>
> Bruce
>
>
> --- On Sun, 11/2/08, Gene Waugh Elgin, Illinois USA <gwaugh at wowway.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> From: G




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