MONROE — For Chris Guthrie of Monroe, using old farm equipment began as a hobby meant to help him connect with his heritage. Since then, the pastime has grown into a tractor club which hosts an annual tractor and gas engine show in Argyle every September. A group of enthusiasts bind wheat every summer for the last half of a decade.
The Thunder Bridge Flywheelers, based in Argyle, use solely family equipment which has been passed down for generations to perform the old-fashioned threshing
“When I sit on that old piece of equipment, I’m touching the same steering wheel my grandfather touched,” Guthrie said.
On Wednesday, the group met at the John Wuethrich farm south of Monroe to bind wheat with a 1940s binder owned by Glen Burgy, a member of the group.
About 10 members of the group met in the wheat field to work on binding, with Burgy driving the tractor pulling the binder and the others following along with pitchforks as the binder spins around the wheat, cutting it. The cut wheat then gets scooped up and run through the binder, eventually being gathered and dropped back onto the field where the others are following with pitchforks.
The antique binder can finish a field in a few hours while a modern combine could do the work in 15 minutes.
However, the group finds the use of antique equipment to be worth the extra time, Guthrie said.
“To me, it’s not an easier time but a simpler time,” Guthrie said.
Guthrie and the Thunder Bridge Flywheelers continue using their family equipment to connect with their past and get a break from the typical pace of life today.
If you go ...
Thunderbridge Flywheelers 7th Annual Thresheree
■ When: 8 a.m. Sept. 8-9
■ Where: Argyle Legion Park
Contact Chris Guthrie 608-426-0250 for more information.
“It’s therapeutic to be out here working with our hands and today’s fast-paced world doesn’t always allow that,” Burgy said.
Besides putting their antique equipment to use in the field, the group also puts on a tractor and gas engine show every year at Argyle Legion Park in Argyle. This year, the event will be Sept. 8 and 9 and will include a flea market, two days of antique tractor pulls, threshing and baling demonstrations and a craft show all while visitors take in the antique and gas engine tractors.
Guthrie and the Thunder Bridge Flywheelers like to show the old equipment because it can show how farming got where it is today, Guthrie said.
“If it wasn’t for this old equipment, the new stuff wouldn’t be here,” he said.
