At old-time threshermen show, it’s all about the farming
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THE LAND, SEPTEMBER 27, 2013
It’s an event that only 43 powered up. I thought about years and a dream could all the men it took to keep produce. But what an event those machines going and It’s an event of the senses — seeing the old machinery it is. finish the oat harvest back in and horses, smelling the gas engines, hot blacksmith the day. It was a time when My husband and I recently shop and trees being sawed into lumber; tasting the neighbors were as important attended the Albert City as family, and when that job homemade ice cream, feeling the hand-made craft items Threshermen and Collector’s took the help of the entire and old tractors, imagining how they were once used. Show. This community — family — from the actual with a population of just threshing job, to feeding all over 700 — sits quietly in of those sweaty, hungry men TABLE TALK eastern Buena Vista County, change more evident than at see and experience a day in the life of a and boys — and without the luxury of Iowa, hardly qualifying by this tremendous show, farmer before advanced technology By Karen Schwaller microwave ovens, frozen pies or even today’s standards of what which puts Albert City on changed the way it was all done. air conditioning. makes a “happenin’ town.” the map. Walking around the grounds I am I saw people of literally every age But in early August every year it Karl Lind and Keith Sundblad always struck by so many aspects of offer undivided attention to the becomes a boom town — with more shared a common dream all those the event. It’s an event of the senses — threshing process. They stood quietly, than 14,000 people seeking it out like a years ago. They wished their grandchil- seeing the old machinery and horses, eyes fixed on the machines. It’s beyond mecca. Choosing to spend time there dren could understand the way farmsmelling the gas engines, hot blackwith their families, often in the blazing ing was when they were growing up. So smith shop and trees being sawed into words to generations who never experienced it, and it showed on their sun. Choosing to find out, or remember, instead of wishing it away, they decided lumber; tasting the homemade ice faces. the way farming used to be when to act on their dream. They put cream, feeling the hand-made craft horses were the actual horsepower, and together a few machines and invited a items and old tractors, imagining how The old timers were sweating just mechanized farming was finding its watching the process, and rememberhandful of neighbors — all in an effort they were once used. way into agriculture. Choosing to ing the choking heat and chaff that to help people understand how much I heard the whistle from the giant understand and participate in the more physically difficult farming used steam engine just before it turned the combined to make that necessary job tremendous changes that have taken so miserable. to be. long belt that powered the threshing farmers and farm families from horseNow, 43 years later, it’s grown into 70 machine, and I saw the thick, black driven plows to the mighty four-wheelacres of farming machines and memo- smoke billow from its smoke stack as it See TABLE TALK, pg. 38A drive beasts with which they farm rabilia, taking between 300 and 400 today. volunteers to make it all happen, and Farming has evolved from four legs to beckoning people — locals and those four-wheel-drive, and nowhere is the who drive from across the nation — to
37 A
BEFORE YOU BUY A WESTFIELD AUGER ANYWHERE ELSE,
MK10-61, good shape ..............$4,500 MK10-36, like new ....................$5,150 WR13-41, like new w/motor ....$5,750 WR8-71, PTO drive w/hyd. lift ..$2,600 Feterl 10-62, good shape ..........$4,500
Hwy. 4 S., Trimont, MN
507-639-6681
www.ritteragriculture.com
“Where Farm and Family Meet”
USED AUGERS
MK13-81, good shape ..............$9,500 MK13-71, like new ..................$12,500 MK10-71, like new ....................$6,925 MK10-71, good shape ..............$5,925 MK10-61, like new ....................$7,350