B.Y.O.P.–Bring your own pitchfork

Paul and Jake Sluder watch the combine run.

When I told my husband I was going to a threshing party, he laughed.
“We’ve been trying to get away from doing things the hard way for 100 years and now you’re going right back to the old way. And you’re doing it for fun?”
Yes. That is exactly what we’re doing. How could we not?  Life in Karmalot is an adventure – and when was the last time you were invited to a threshing party? 
My friend Laura is a sheep producer and farmer. She raises the sheep for meat and milk and then sell the meat, cheese and yogurt at area farmers markets. She works very hard to ensure her farm is sustainable. She uses Belgian horses (Those are giant work horses – similar to the Clydsdales you might see pulling the Budweiser wagon)  to farm whenever possible.
If you ask her way she’ll tell you it’s to lessen her reliance on fossil fuels and I think that’s true. Above all else, she thinks it’s fun. It’s insanely hard work. Physically exhausting. Hot. Dirty. She’s been working for weeks to gather the equipment to get this done and making sure she had a few people that knew how to run it – and those people are few and far between.
All for five acres of barley. That, is terms of today’s farming scene, isn’t much.
The first part of the process is to cut the barley. A “binder” drawn by 3 horses cuts the stalks of barley and then bundles them. Traditionally, the bundles are stacked in groups of 4 or 5 and left to dry for several days. We didn’t do that today.

Cutting and binding the barley

The next part of the process is to remove the barley kernels from the stalks.

Izzy Sluder holds a few grains of barley

The chickens will love this come winter!

A large kerosene and water powered tractor – 1926 Rumley – powers the belt driven combine. The kernels are removed and spit into a container on the back side of the combine. The stalks are shot out the end of the combine and will later be baled
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The threshing machine itself. The barley is spit out to a container on the far side. The stalks come out the back where they will later be baled. The entire operation was driven by at 1926 Rumley–a huge tractor that runs on kerosene and water.

For the baler, the horses walk around in a circle while attached to a mechanism that trips the baler. There is an arm that comes down and folds the stalks into the bale. It snaps. Sounds and looks dangerous. I’ve heard some people call these arms “widow makers”  -- and it’s clear to see why.

On the back end of the baler, crews push wire through the wooden blocks that separate the bales. These wires are tied to hold the bale together. It’s no easy task.
This baler old-- probably a good 75 years old. There was a man helping run the baler who used to own the machine. He said the last time he remembers a bale coming through, he was 15. He’s 90 now.
After a morning of the back breaking labor, the crew took a break for lunch. That’s where my job started. More on that in the next post.
I’ve been sitting here for 2 hours trying to figure what to say about what the day meant. I was touched to see all the neighbors that turned out to help and watch. It was rewarding to be part of a farming tradition.
At lunch, we talked about the fact that very few people these days know what hardship truly means. We all have so much compared to what our grandparents and great-grandparents had. Our lives are so much easier. Events like today’s threshing party honor them while at the same time I’m sure my grandparents are sitting in heaven rolling their eyes. Why work so very hard when you don’t have to?
Laura and the rest of the crew worked hard all day. Very hard. By noon, they had somewhere around 10 bushels of barley and 4 bales of straw. Had modern equipment been used, the entire 5 acres could have been harvested in less than 30 minutes.
The old saying that kept going through my mind today was “If you don’t know your history, you’ll be doomed to repeat it.” For my kids and me, today was about counting our blessings and appreciating what our forbearers had to do to raise their families and the food that feed them.
Without that hard work, and the values  they instilled in my and those I hope my children will have, I wouldn’t be where or who I am today. I’m quite happy with who I am – and I am in a very good place.