Do you know how you can tell a fake farmer from a real one? Now I’m not saying there are lots of fake farmers around or people pretending to be a farmer. Farming isn’t a glamorous occupation. One good way is to see how guys handle a hayfork, a shovel or a bale of hay. Pretend farmers tend to throw loose hay. Real ones will place it in one spot –intact. It’s the same when digging a hole. An experienced worker puts the soil in a neat pile beside the hole. Someone who doesn’t know how to dig will throw the ground away. You see that in the movies a lot. I grimace when I see a hole being dug and the dirt is tossed away instead of piling it up neatly. If you see lads with huge gloves that come up half way to their elbows when handling bales, they are new to the trade.
You can tell who isn’t a farmer by the way small bales are piled onto a half-ton truck or on a trailer. Farmers place the bales so they don’t shift. The load doesn’t need straps or ropes to keep it in place. I chuckle when I see bales jutting out everywhere and the entire load is strapped down with many lengths of rope.
A few weeks ago I watched a documentary program on television about agriculture in the U.S. after WW2. I could tell that the men forking hay onto a hay wagon and the one on the load were experienced farmers. They didn’t throw forkfuls of hay scattering the hay and making it look like a huge mop; they placed the forkfuls.
The antique machinery section at an International Plowing Match (IPM) is always incredibly good. You can see steam-powered engines –big or small – chugging away. They are on display sawing logs, making cedar shingles, threshing grain –whatever farmers did in the steam era. Real farmers run it.
I always enjoy watching a threshing mill at work. It brings back memories of chaff floating in the air and itchy backs. A tractor equipped with a pulley running a long belt powers a threshing mill. Two men would be on a wagon forking sheaves into the jaws of the mill. A steady stream of straw blows out of the straw pipe.
I remember neat sheaves and stooks of grain when I was a boy. The first few rows of sheaves were forked onto a wagon — bottoms to the outside. As the load was built higher, it would come in a bit each time. The sheaves were placed so the load wouldn’t fall apart. When it was time to unload, the men could see each sheaf. It wasn’t a tangled mess.
An elderly man standing in front of me at one IPM had a skeptical look on his face as he watched a half wagon load of sheaves at the threshing mill area. He probably had the same thoughts as I did. If the load was any bigger, some of the sheaves would most likely slide off. I asked him if he had ever seen such sloppy sheaves.
He shook his head. “Pretty sloppy is right. The stuffs too long. Can’t tie it right. They should have cut a field of barley,” he said.
The Old Order Mennonites, who moved into the Douglas area these past few years, are professionals when it comes to old-time farming. They know how to make good stooks of grain and well-built loads of hay and grain.
