An autumn morning - I was having coffee and reading the paper at one of our fast food eateries.
"Morning, John, I have to tell you that there are still some corn shocks around." It was Joe Klessinger - he had read my recent column about how that iconic symbol of rural autumn, corn shocks, had disappeared from the autumn scene.
With that, Joe informed me of a shredding demonstration that was to be held two weeks hence at the old Five Corners Cheese Factory, hosted by Bob and Nancy Faith. It was an invitation I couldn't resist.
It was a classic Midwest autumn morning as I arrived - crisp air, clear blue sky, leaves in full color, grass still green. As I arrived at Five Corners, Sharon Streiff was handing out coffee and cinnamon rolls to the attendees. Sure enough, there were corn shocks standing in the field, just as in days of yore. The grounds were scattered with vintage 1940s and 50s tractors. These included a John Deere B, an International Harvester M, an old Ford, a Minneapolis Moline, and several others.
There were two Rosenthal shredding machines, one owned by John Wegmueller and one by Allie Mayer. Allie said that as his had sat outside for years, he was surprised it still worked.
The demonstration started with Wegmueller's machine. A tractor was placed so that the tractor pulley and the shredder pulley were lined up, a drive belt properly placed with a twist, tightened up, and the shredding began. Several farmers hoisted corn stalks up to the shredding platform, and Wegmueller and Klessinger took turns feeding the stalks into the machine. They looked like real pros at that task.
The shredding machine separates the ears from the stalks, elevating the ears into a waiting wagon or truck, and blows the shredded fodder onto a pile. In an actual farm operation, there is an entire crew with at least four wagons. Two wagons load bundles from the field while two wagons are unloaded into the shredder. There are two trucks; one collecting the corn ears from the shredder while the other is being unloaded into the corncrib. The fodder is blown onto a pile near or directly into the barn and used for livestock bedding. Sometimes it was fed to the dry stock. The barn on our home farm was large enough to hold a year supply of hay plus the fodder for bedding.
As with the threshing crews of old, neighborhood farm wives cooperated in cooking a hearty dinner for the hard working shredders. On the farm, dinner was the noon meal. The evening meal was supper. On this day, Nancy Faith, with her family and friends, fed the attendees a great dinner in the spacious room that once was the cheese factory. After dinner, our Green County Extension agent Mark Mayer presented Nancy with a "Friends of Extension" award for her long service in assisting with UW extension programs.
Later, I chatted with Nancy on how the shredding demonstration got started. She informed me that it was during the Farm Technology Days in 2007 that someone commented on the nostalgia of the older technology, and thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate how corn shredding used to take place. The event proved popular, and has continued.
I returned to the demonstration. Both shredders were in operation and the corn shocks were diminishing in number. Occasionally one of the machines would plug up and would have to be stopped until the blower pipe was unplugged.
It is probably hard for urban dwellers to understand the affection that some of us have for those old tractors and the implements that so many of us grew up with. There is something about those vintage tractors, especially the sounds that trigger memories.
An old two-cylinder John Deere tractor powered one of the shredders. The sound of those two-cylinder John Deere tractors is especially nostalgic. Although on our farm we went more for the International Harvester line, our neighbors had John Deeres and the sound was certainly familiar. There is something almost hypnotizing about the distinctive sound of those old John Deere tractors that were so much a part of Midwestern agricultural production. It is a friendly sound, just sort of comforting to know that you can depend on that machine to do the work.
Just as the two-cylinder John Deere was replaced by larger, more powerful tractors, farm technology in general has changed at a dizzying pace. As with most technology, labor is replaced with capital, and pushes enterprises toward fewer and larger. And as with any technological change, it comes with mixed blessing.
Much of the repetitive drudgery of hand labor is eliminated, and few of us would want to go back to it. But the capital requirements have increased with the scale of operations of modern farming.
In addition to changing economics, the sociology of rural America has changed, Neighborhoods are less cohesive. There no longer is the need for farmers to cooperate in the same way as in the old threshing, silo filling, and shredding rings. Those activities are a piece of rural Midwest Americana - long gone, existing only in our memories.
Events like the demonstration hosted by the Faiths' keep these memories alive. We all thank them for affording us a visit to a past long gone - gone but not forgotten.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears each Friday in The Monroe Times.
"Morning, John, I have to tell you that there are still some corn shocks around." It was Joe Klessinger - he had read my recent column about how that iconic symbol of rural autumn, corn shocks, had disappeared from the autumn scene.
With that, Joe informed me of a shredding demonstration that was to be held two weeks hence at the old Five Corners Cheese Factory, hosted by Bob and Nancy Faith. It was an invitation I couldn't resist.
It was a classic Midwest autumn morning as I arrived - crisp air, clear blue sky, leaves in full color, grass still green. As I arrived at Five Corners, Sharon Streiff was handing out coffee and cinnamon rolls to the attendees. Sure enough, there were corn shocks standing in the field, just as in days of yore. The grounds were scattered with vintage 1940s and 50s tractors. These included a John Deere B, an International Harvester M, an old Ford, a Minneapolis Moline, and several others.
There were two Rosenthal shredding machines, one owned by John Wegmueller and one by Allie Mayer. Allie said that as his had sat outside for years, he was surprised it still worked.
The demonstration started with Wegmueller's machine. A tractor was placed so that the tractor pulley and the shredder pulley were lined up, a drive belt properly placed with a twist, tightened up, and the shredding began. Several farmers hoisted corn stalks up to the shredding platform, and Wegmueller and Klessinger took turns feeding the stalks into the machine. They looked like real pros at that task.
The shredding machine separates the ears from the stalks, elevating the ears into a waiting wagon or truck, and blows the shredded fodder onto a pile. In an actual farm operation, there is an entire crew with at least four wagons. Two wagons load bundles from the field while two wagons are unloaded into the shredder. There are two trucks; one collecting the corn ears from the shredder while the other is being unloaded into the corncrib. The fodder is blown onto a pile near or directly into the barn and used for livestock bedding. Sometimes it was fed to the dry stock. The barn on our home farm was large enough to hold a year supply of hay plus the fodder for bedding.
As with the threshing crews of old, neighborhood farm wives cooperated in cooking a hearty dinner for the hard working shredders. On the farm, dinner was the noon meal. The evening meal was supper. On this day, Nancy Faith, with her family and friends, fed the attendees a great dinner in the spacious room that once was the cheese factory. After dinner, our Green County Extension agent Mark Mayer presented Nancy with a "Friends of Extension" award for her long service in assisting with UW extension programs.
Later, I chatted with Nancy on how the shredding demonstration got started. She informed me that it was during the Farm Technology Days in 2007 that someone commented on the nostalgia of the older technology, and thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate how corn shredding used to take place. The event proved popular, and has continued.
I returned to the demonstration. Both shredders were in operation and the corn shocks were diminishing in number. Occasionally one of the machines would plug up and would have to be stopped until the blower pipe was unplugged.
It is probably hard for urban dwellers to understand the affection that some of us have for those old tractors and the implements that so many of us grew up with. There is something about those vintage tractors, especially the sounds that trigger memories.
An old two-cylinder John Deere tractor powered one of the shredders. The sound of those two-cylinder John Deere tractors is especially nostalgic. Although on our farm we went more for the International Harvester line, our neighbors had John Deeres and the sound was certainly familiar. There is something almost hypnotizing about the distinctive sound of those old John Deere tractors that were so much a part of Midwestern agricultural production. It is a friendly sound, just sort of comforting to know that you can depend on that machine to do the work.
Just as the two-cylinder John Deere was replaced by larger, more powerful tractors, farm technology in general has changed at a dizzying pace. As with most technology, labor is replaced with capital, and pushes enterprises toward fewer and larger. And as with any technological change, it comes with mixed blessing.
Much of the repetitive drudgery of hand labor is eliminated, and few of us would want to go back to it. But the capital requirements have increased with the scale of operations of modern farming.
In addition to changing economics, the sociology of rural America has changed, Neighborhoods are less cohesive. There no longer is the need for farmers to cooperate in the same way as in the old threshing, silo filling, and shredding rings. Those activities are a piece of rural Midwest Americana - long gone, existing only in our memories.
Events like the demonstration hosted by the Faiths' keep these memories alive. We all thank them for affording us a visit to a past long gone - gone but not forgotten.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears each Friday in The Monroe Times.
