Harvest; The Threshing Story 

I am 31 years old and I proud to say I grew up with a threshing ring. Being Amish had its perks!

I'm 73 years old and a few of my earliest memories revolve around the threshing machine, sitting on the barn floor of my grandparents farm. It was run by a long, wide belt that was powered by a large pulley on the tractor. I remember Dad feeding the sheaves into the front of it and my grandfather and uncle bagging the grain from a side chute. The threshing machine was set up right beside the granary and the bags were emptied into the grain bins. The straw was blown out the back by a large, round chute that blew the straw into the straw mall. When they took a break and shut off the machine us kids would be sent to the top of the straw pile to stamp it down. It was more fun than work for us! This was all back in the late 50's as my grandfather passed away in 1957 and my uncle took over the farm and things were never quite the same after that. One of my earliest memories was my older brother and I carrying the water pail from the hand dug well to the fields for the thirsty adults who were cutting corn and stacking it into shocks.

I don´t know why, but that high quality historical document brings me a different way of looking a slice of bread. Making me hungry, i take a pause and go pick up a bowl of Corn Flakes. So easy today. From the grocery store to my bowl. Can you imagine what those pioneers would say about our easy life ? They cut their hands with those straws, broke their back, baked in the sun, cryied like baby when rain destroyed grain. No harvest insurance in those days. Yep, we´re so lucky. Thanks to all these hard workers. Maybe we should work with Amish for a week (if we survive) to know what the word work really means.

This video is absolutely fantastic. I remember one year, must have been is first or second grade, we planted spring wheat in a small test plot near our house. Hand broadcasted and raked in. I cut a good amount of it with a sickle hook, loaded it into the Radio Flyer wagon, and brought to to the slab out front of our shop. In our shop, I found a wooden box with a fairly large mesh screen on the bottom of it - it must have been for classifying rock by size in a gradation, but the holes looked about the right size for grains of wheat. I clapped and rubbed the heads of a few stalks of wheat at a time between my hands over that box, and then picked it up and shook it to make the grain and some chaff fall through onto the concrete slab. I picked up the grain and chaff, and each time I felt the wind blow, I chucked a handful of it up over a cardboard box, and used the wind to winnow it. I didn't get the cleanest sample in the world, or a large quantity, but looking back, it was a great learning experience. To think that I now own my very own combine, and that experience helped me to understand some of the principles behind the operation of that combine. One of my first dates with my girlfriend was when I took her to our local threshing show about an decade ago, and scooped some freshly threshed wheat as it came out of the thresher, and we snacked on it together. We've gotten to where we go to somewhere between 6 and 10 threshing shows per year, and make it a tradition to do that same thing. Rough and Tumble hasn't been crossed off our list yet, but someday we'll make it there. I've been very blessed the past few years, having been able to attend a couple different steam schools, volunteer at our local show, and last year, brought some of my family's equipment to a threshing show for the first time. I am very blessed to have the passion but not need to depend on it for my whole income. Thank you for posting this video. I could watch it a dozen times and not get tired of it. A great watch with the family, especially for kids who are coming of enough age to grasp the concepts demonstrated through the technological advancements shown in this video. Thank you so much for posting it!

In 1978 bought a Allis Chalmers AC-66 combine for $300 at auction. Used it for five years for oats and alfalfa seed. AC-45 tractor powered the operation. I was thrilled. The old man at the elevator where I sold my oats asked me if i had an old AC? Asked him how he knew, and he said the new combines weren't as clean. Gave me $.25 more a bushel as he didn't have to clean them. I was a young sprout of thirty. Great memories.

Great video. Watched it with wet eyes. I remember the horse drawn binder and the steam engine powering the threshing machine. Next, the binder was was converted to a swather by disabling the bundle tie system and it was pulled by our MD H with Dad driving from the binder seat. That swathing was for the first combine which was a MD 122C pull type. Not long after that, when I was age 13, Dad was seriously injured and I started running the Massey 27 combine. Ran combines for the next eight years. It's those memories that caused the wet eyes as I watched this video. Thanks.

Thanks for the show. Man and machine.

Wonderful documentary. My husband actually operated that last combine while employed on a grain property on the darling Downs Queensland Australia in the early 70s

How different to what I remember as a child of the fifties. 1 neighbour had a threshing machine and an old MDeering on steel tractor and would haul the thrasher from farm to farm at about 2 or 3 mph. At our neighbour"s barn they would set up so the grain was augered straight up to the grain bin and the straw was blown straight into the straw mow. It was hell on earth up in the straw mow forking the loose straw into the corners and edges of the mow so you could get all the straw in the barn ! Thank you for this vid, brings back a lot of memories although slightly different to what I knew !

I have been to Rough and Tumble's August event a number of times and have loved it every time. All of the things they show in this video that are from Rough and Tumble can be seen every year. There are threshing demonstrations where they step through time just like this video did, and someone explains to the crowd what is happening. If you are in any way close to Kinzers, PA (east of Lancaster) make an effort to get there. In addition to all this threshing and farming equipment, there are hundreds of small (hit and miss) engines, many operating, an enormous engine once used to pressurize a gas line, a working machine shop from the early 1900s, a small, real, steam train ride, an outdoor area with operating antique construction equipment, an operating sawmill, a big flea market, a great food court run by Amish, local food vendors, You can easily spend a whole day there, and I often do.

Good day from Ontario. I remember when bindering , we would have some shieves loose My great uncle took some stems of grain twisted it together & used it to tie shieves with it Y dad said in late 20'-30's they barn thresh. Brought grain & stored it in barn & thrash it in winter Boy it is too bad that they did not have a scour kleen, that would have cleaned small seeds Thanks very interesting.

well pruduced video and thanks to the guys who did the work

Excellent program. One can see why farming was so dangerous 100 years ago.

My gg grandfather died on top of a hay wagon stacking hay. His son got stabbed by a barn hay hook and died. My grandfather sold more Allis Chalmers combines starting in the 1930s at Lennon, Michigan than anyone. The goal was to get rid of horses and old steam harvesters. I harvested wheat and corn with a cab on a John Deere 95 combine. Wow, farming evolved within 50 years.

In Ireland we have the innishannon steam rally before it changed location it was the Upton steam rally, the best steam rally in Europe is the great Dorset steam rally.

My father bought a pull type combine back in 1975 for the harvesting of clover seeds.

This is fascinating as I knew nothing about harvesting hay

Excellent video, well explained

Amazing documentary. Thank you for sharing. I love this stuff.

Ross I was told the corn special combine was a heavier built machine. In 1959 the Hercules engine blew on dad's pull type Baldwin. The next spring dad bought a new 1959 45 combine. In 1969 dad bought a 1959 95. For several yrs we run both combines. In 1979 dad bought a 1969 95. All 3 were good combines. Mike's Buhler, Kansas mite have some of your combine parts.

She 's a good chef and great sister , she care for everyone in her family , Hao's friends are lucky to try her food the first time :)

Really interesting to watch!

Interesting/informative/entertaining. Excellent photography job enabling viewers to better understand what the orator is describing. Very enjoyable seeing 👀those work horses pulling the loaded wheat wagon/harvesting devices. 😉.. Far as manual hand sickles go-??? OH my aching back-!!! 😵. Viewing this presentation from the comfort of my computer room. Along the " Space Coast " 🚀of Florida 🐊🐊. Nothing quite like a juicy Florida navel orange 🍊🍊-!!!😋😋. Wishing viewers/farmers a safe/healthy/prosperous ( 2024 )🌈🎉😉..

Nice video

The usurers took over at about 30minutes into this nice video. And now, mampower is displaced from industry and now retail. Hence our plan.

And, in New Zealand, we used jute wheat bags. Now there are a lot of plastic ones used, I guess.

Hay balers in New Zealand use sisal, or plastic twine to tie the bales.

Unfortunately I just missed the threshing as I was born too late but I’ve been told that the stack when it was threshed that rats would be flying everywhere when they got to the bottom of the stack.

Is there any question why farming was the most dangerous occupation?

Gotta love Henry Ford. Of Course he would come up with the implement attachment to a Model T, being a farmer in the beginning and of the old school mindset waste nothing.

Well done. I'm from the age of pull combines. Being young and bulletproof I would be all around all that that now in my old age something that can catch loose clothes and kill you.

The Jerusalem temple was set on the threshing floor of the Jebusite, who was a pre-Israli or Palastinian precursor. So even before Solomon's temple, the ancient one the moon worshipers were present.

at 11:27 the two white horse that is my grandfather with his team if percherons ike and ezzy years ago

👍

So thankful you didn't spell it "thrashing".

LoL,,,,,, Im done farming,,,,,,,

Please make a playlist of all of these videos please. This is just amazing

Had enough banjo/bluegrass picking by a minute and a half into the program. Consider limiting presentations to Video, Sound, and Narration. Adding background music breaks the rule of three by adding an additional, or fourth, distracting component. If video is replaced with stills underscore with appropriate sound from video you have. Video, Natural Sound and Narrative is enough. Remember that some people may not share your personal taste in music.

I did this in England when I was a kid growing up the local Thatcher in our village had to get his thatching straw for roofing with a thrash and tackle so the straw wasn’t damaged my dad and two brothers helped him out every year it was hard but satisfying work and you should have seen the people from the city stop for pictures made feel like we were in a zoo lol then the news cameras would show up my dad farmed and owned a pub in Gt Ashfield in Suffolk I would not give up my up bringing at all we farmed the old fashioned way I remember chopping sugar beet with a hoe by hand when they were ready we pulled them up by hand and knocked them together week later we topped them with a hook and pitched them in the old tumble I will never forget them days my dad was 2nd world war navy tuff as nails and just as mean we had the farm and pub and dad worked as a lineman for the electric company and he did that till he retired those where the days ❤

We dont neeed no stinking OSHA around here. ROFL, I remember my grand dad having the summer crew come over to thresh the straw and then do the same with the corn sheller crew.

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