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Tradition brings farmers closer
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Times photo: Brian Gray Troy Gorr, left, helps Bob Faith load the corn shredder Saturday at a shredding party hosted by Faith and his wife, Nancy, in rural Monroe. Neighbors and friends gathered at their house to take part in a traditional farm event that took place on farms across the county for years. This is the second year the Faiths have had a shredding party. Food, music and activities were available for the guests.
MONROE - A group of neighboring farmers working in the fields to get the corn ready for winter used to be a common sight for people who drove through the rural areas of Green County.

That scene has been replaced by combines picking corn.

But for a second year in a row, Bob and Nancy Faith recreated the days when farmers gathered together to help each other with their fall crops and spent time talking about the upcoming winter weather predictions, life on the farm and how good their crops were this year.

While the farmers talked about their livelihoods, their wives also got a chance to talk with the neighbors and catch up on each others' lives.

Nancy Faith said she and her husband provided shocks for Farm Technology Days. They decided to make a few shocks last year and invite some friends and neighbors over to help shred them. The shredding party went so well last year they decided to do it again. About 100 people showed up Saturday to help them shred corn, eat a meal and talk about the old days, when neighbors worked together to make sure the corn was harvested and ready for the cows.

Neighbors and friends gathered to eat sandwiches and desserts and drink some coffee or warm cider.

Shredding corn was a yearly tradition for farm families and neighborhoods since the 1920s, Bob Faith said.

"A lot of people helped each other," he said. "There was a lot of work that went into it."

He remembers tying the string around several shocks of corn to make bundles when he was younger.

Working together gave the neighboring farmers a feeling of community. When something needed to be done, a farmer could count on his neighbors to pitch in, whether it was milking the cows or doing field work.

Ali Mayer, who provided one of the corn shredders for Faith, said he remembers neighbors getting together to help shred corn. No matter what the weather, they helped each other.

Saturday was cold and windy and there was some rain in the air, but that didn't stop the people who came out to take part in the Faiths' shredding party.

Young and not so young gathered around the machinery operated by Bob Faith that separated the corn cobs from the stalk. The cobs went into a wagon for feed and the shredded stalks went into a pile for bedding for cows.

It was like a shredding party from the old days as people gathered to help and watch while Bob Faith fed the shocks into the machine.