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Showing posts with label Hart Parr tractor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hart Parr tractor. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Threshing at Motherwell Farm


A new year of ramblings begins.
I shot this video on vhs back in August of 92 at the Motherwell Farm's annual threshing demonstration. They re-enact the process of threshing grain just as it was done when the farm was a working farm circa 1911. Of course they can't push the old Hart Parr tractor too hard and with a limited amount of grain sheaves to work with , they have to make it last for a couple of days worth of demos anyway. This time they got perfect harvest weather. The kind my Dad used to talk about with the blazing hot sun, grain dust, and a seemingly endless supply of stooks to be hauled in from the field to the thresher.
No slackers allowed here as the hungry thresher had to be kept running to capacity blowing a steady stream of separated straw out the blower and a stream of clean grain into the bin. When it was all done, Dad's wages went towards paying the threshing bill. After a few years of this I guess the army looked pretty good with 3 meals and a dollar a day when he joined up in 1941.