A Farmer's Daughter

Seeing how I don't really have any home improvement news to report yet this weekend, and we've been talking about farming and all, I thought it might be fun to show all of you city slickers how some folks are making a living out here on the plains.

Then: Remember this? This is Old Mr. Kurtz's corn sheller that still sits in our back yard. They would have picked the corn by hand, brought the corn to this and fed it through. This is a "modernized" version. A large belt with a small steam engine would have operated it. Earlier models were hand cranked.



Now: Whoa Nelly! Wouldn't Mr Kurtz be impressed with this contraption? We've come a long way baby!

It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it. (Notice the wiping of the windshield so I can get some pics.) So who's driving this bad boy anyway? Meet the modern farmwife a.k.a. Mom.


So we're cruising along devouring everything in sight. Throwing the fear of God into any varmints that might be lurking in the field. This is not like mowing your lawn folks, you've got to line it up just right or you end up just smashing everything (which would be uh, bad). And the dust, oy. It might be an air conditioned cab, but it's still dusty as all get out.

As we go, we can monitor how much grain we're picking with this new computerized GPS yield tracking device. Wouldn't this just blow Mr. Kurtz's mind?

Once we've gone a round it's time to unload. This is trickier than it looks. The idea is to make it nice and even and fill the wagon so it looks like the top of a nice fresh loaf of bread without spilling it out all over the ground (which would be uh, really bad). Easier said than done. This thing isn't exactly nimble.
Once the wagons are full, off they go. Either to be sold or stored. Well the grain, not the wagons.


Repeat this process, over and over and over from dawn to dusk. Eat, sleep and do it all again the next day. So there you have it, harvest in a nutshell. Doesn't it make you want to run right out and buy a tractor?