As this draft is written the summer solstice, just before noon Sunday, is already past. At that first moment of summer, the sun is directly overhead on the Tropic of Cancer, the entire region north of the Arctic Circle is bathed in sunlight, and the entire area south of the Antarctic Circle is shrouded in total darkness. As the earth continues in its orbit, the angle of the sun toward the northern hemisphere changes and our days get shorter.
Many people declare autumn to be their favorite season with its crisp mornings and colorful autumn leaves against azure skies. Those days are indeed glorious, but we get so few of them. Autumn in this neck of the woods is more likely to be gloomy and dismal.
I have always considered June as my favorite month with its warm weather and long hours of daylight. Maybe it goes back to school days. It was such a relief to get away from classrooms and books for awhile with the whole summer ahead. Oh, how welcome were those days of early June. The feeling remains.
Living so close to the edge of town, I went to the old North School in Monroe instead of to the one-room Iliff School that was in our district. My pals from town enjoyed coming out to the farm in summer and even participated in simple tasks such as "tripping the fork" during haymaking. Kids today have no idea what "tripping the fork" means and it would be futile to try to explain it.
As I got older, simple farm tasks progressed - if that's the correct verb - to serious physical labor.
Under mid-20th century technology, we cultivated corn with tractor-mounted cultivators. Sounds easy, just driving the tractor, but it was the most tedious of all the tractor jobs, especially the first time through. The emerging corn plants were small. Shields on the cultivator protected the emerging plants from being covered with soil thrown off by the shovels. The shields had to be low enough to protect the corn plants, but just high enough to let some soil flow underneath to cover the emerging weeds between the hills of corn. And you had to drive ever so slowly and carefully.
Later as the corn got bigger, you could remove the shields and roar through it, not having to worry about covering up the corn.
In those days, we started making the first crop of hay along about mid-June. When I was old enough to do serious work, we switched from making loose hay to baling. Whether loading bales on the wagon behind the baler, or stacking bales in the hot hay mow under the barn roof, a day of that would cure any hypochondriac of insomnia. Looking back, I don't know how we did that day after day.
Haymaking conflicted with the second and third cultivations of corn. June was a mad race and juggling act to get the haymaking and corn cultivating done, all between the inevitable rainy days. Even with all that, I still liked June.
With first crop hay out of the way, come early July, the oats were turning and soon time to cut it. We didn't have to wait till it was totally dry like you do for combining. For threshing, oats could dry in the shock.
I enjoyed riding the binder, pulled by Brother Louie with the Farmall H. There was a set of four levers to operate. One was for adjusting the height of the cut. Another lever was to adjust the height of the reel that knocked the cut oats back onto the platform and moving canvases that elevated it up to another platform to be tied into bundles. A third lever adjusted the placement of the tie on the bundle - you wanted it approximately in the center of the bundle.
As each bundle was automatically tied, a set of arms rotated and kicked the bundle out and down on to a carrier. As several bundles accumulated on the carrier, the operator, with a lever operated by foot, would drop the carrier, leaving the bundles to accumulate in rows to be put into shocks.
On those rocky hills north of Monroe, the oats varied in size, short on rocky hillsides, taller on fertile hill tops, and much taller close to the ravines. This required constant adjustment of three levers. When the oats were short, you wanted to cut it lower for a nice bundle. You also had to drop the real to get it low enough to knock the oats back onto the platform. And you had to adjust the position of the tie; otherwise it would tie too close to the top of the bundle, making it awkward to shock.
If the oats were tall, you could raise the cut and also have to raise the reel so that it wouldn't hit the oats too low and flip it backward on the canvas. You also had to adjust the level of the tie to avoid tying it too low, making sloppy bundles that were hard to shock.
I don't recall what the fourth lever was for, but I think it was to adjust the size of the bundle. I don't recall monkeying with that fourth lever.
Oats that were down from wind or heavy rain - lodging is the technical term - presented additional challenges. In severe cases, it would have to be cut from one direction so that the binder could get underneath it.
Shocking oats was another matter - a laborious task. Sometimes farmers confined that job to the morning hours, or after evening milking, to take advantage of cooler temperatures.
None of this obsolete technology can mean much to many readers, but will evoke memories to those who have experienced it.
The interesting threshing days were ahead.
Next week: Threshing memories.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
Many people declare autumn to be their favorite season with its crisp mornings and colorful autumn leaves against azure skies. Those days are indeed glorious, but we get so few of them. Autumn in this neck of the woods is more likely to be gloomy and dismal.
I have always considered June as my favorite month with its warm weather and long hours of daylight. Maybe it goes back to school days. It was such a relief to get away from classrooms and books for awhile with the whole summer ahead. Oh, how welcome were those days of early June. The feeling remains.
Living so close to the edge of town, I went to the old North School in Monroe instead of to the one-room Iliff School that was in our district. My pals from town enjoyed coming out to the farm in summer and even participated in simple tasks such as "tripping the fork" during haymaking. Kids today have no idea what "tripping the fork" means and it would be futile to try to explain it.
As I got older, simple farm tasks progressed - if that's the correct verb - to serious physical labor.
Under mid-20th century technology, we cultivated corn with tractor-mounted cultivators. Sounds easy, just driving the tractor, but it was the most tedious of all the tractor jobs, especially the first time through. The emerging corn plants were small. Shields on the cultivator protected the emerging plants from being covered with soil thrown off by the shovels. The shields had to be low enough to protect the corn plants, but just high enough to let some soil flow underneath to cover the emerging weeds between the hills of corn. And you had to drive ever so slowly and carefully.
Later as the corn got bigger, you could remove the shields and roar through it, not having to worry about covering up the corn.
In those days, we started making the first crop of hay along about mid-June. When I was old enough to do serious work, we switched from making loose hay to baling. Whether loading bales on the wagon behind the baler, or stacking bales in the hot hay mow under the barn roof, a day of that would cure any hypochondriac of insomnia. Looking back, I don't know how we did that day after day.
Haymaking conflicted with the second and third cultivations of corn. June was a mad race and juggling act to get the haymaking and corn cultivating done, all between the inevitable rainy days. Even with all that, I still liked June.
With first crop hay out of the way, come early July, the oats were turning and soon time to cut it. We didn't have to wait till it was totally dry like you do for combining. For threshing, oats could dry in the shock.
I enjoyed riding the binder, pulled by Brother Louie with the Farmall H. There was a set of four levers to operate. One was for adjusting the height of the cut. Another lever was to adjust the height of the reel that knocked the cut oats back onto the platform and moving canvases that elevated it up to another platform to be tied into bundles. A third lever adjusted the placement of the tie on the bundle - you wanted it approximately in the center of the bundle.
As each bundle was automatically tied, a set of arms rotated and kicked the bundle out and down on to a carrier. As several bundles accumulated on the carrier, the operator, with a lever operated by foot, would drop the carrier, leaving the bundles to accumulate in rows to be put into shocks.
On those rocky hills north of Monroe, the oats varied in size, short on rocky hillsides, taller on fertile hill tops, and much taller close to the ravines. This required constant adjustment of three levers. When the oats were short, you wanted to cut it lower for a nice bundle. You also had to drop the real to get it low enough to knock the oats back onto the platform. And you had to adjust the position of the tie; otherwise it would tie too close to the top of the bundle, making it awkward to shock.
If the oats were tall, you could raise the cut and also have to raise the reel so that it wouldn't hit the oats too low and flip it backward on the canvas. You also had to adjust the level of the tie to avoid tying it too low, making sloppy bundles that were hard to shock.
I don't recall what the fourth lever was for, but I think it was to adjust the size of the bundle. I don't recall monkeying with that fourth lever.
Oats that were down from wind or heavy rain - lodging is the technical term - presented additional challenges. In severe cases, it would have to be cut from one direction so that the binder could get underneath it.
Shocking oats was another matter - a laborious task. Sometimes farmers confined that job to the morning hours, or after evening milking, to take advantage of cooler temperatures.
None of this obsolete technology can mean much to many readers, but will evoke memories to those who have experienced it.
The interesting threshing days were ahead.
Next week: Threshing memories.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
