[AT] Corn Picking and storage.

[Paul Waugh]

This topic is starting to stir some memories.  The snapping glove my father used, I still have.  I have tried it a couple of times. The whole concept of going down through rows and getting beat around by stalks and piling corn in the snow because it snowed way too early, is a lot of work!!

My uncle was a hog farmer, raising 300-400 head a year. And doing it the hard way. A lot of work and TLC, he loved his hogs.  To do this he needed corn, so he built a crib around 1953. Big for our area. 60 ft x 60 ft x 20 ft high.  It was divided into 3 sections. a 40 ft center, with a 20 ft on each side, and of course, 60 ft long.  Each section had a 'trough' in the center of the floor. This was 18 inches wide and 12 inches deep. They were exposed to the outside. There was a lip to hold 2 x 4's to cover the trough before filling with corn. This gave ventilation and is were we would slide the 'drags' for the corn sheller.  It was a pretty neat set up and 2 guys could shell a heck of a lot of corn or a Saturday morning. The sheller was a MM, I have no idea of model, it was a pull type and pto driven. He had 3 section of drags, each 8-10ft long, they could be hooked together to make one one drag.  Just pull a couple of boards off the through and let the corn fall into the drag.

In the falls of 1956 & 57 my uncle contracted to shell 'government' corn. I have no idea what this was about, other than farmers stored the corn in every available place he could find.  Some were nice and used cribs. We would set up the drags along the outside and remove some bottom slats to get the corn out .. very little shoveling.  Some was stored in bins in upper part of barn, and was lot of shoveling.  The worse was hog brood houses.  A couple of farmers just lifted the lid and filled hog houses.  Any idea how hard it was to get that first corner open enough to stand on the floor so you could shovel .... by then you were half done with that house, and the next was waiting on you. We were at one place 4 days shoveling houses.

It was always interesting, bees, mice, rats, oh my the rats, birds nest, just about anything.  It was always fun on a warm fall afternoon, when corn fell down and a wasp nest came with it .... they were pisssed to say the least. We did a round wire crib that had so many rats in it, we took turns walking around and smacking them in the head as they tried to squirm out of the crib and corn  ... must have killed 20-30 rats that day.

I will never feel 16 again, with the warm sun on my back, shoveling, sweating in 40 degree like it was summer .... I was one of the lucky ones, I can shovel right, or left handed.

Paul-46555