contents ©2016 by Harold Pfohl
THRESHING AT LUEDER’S BARN,
AUGUST 30, 1927
Little that we do is more important than growing and harvesting grain, and few sights in nature are more beautiful than a bountiful ripe, golden, grain field. Threshing was a time of excitement and tension. Neighbors gathered to speed the harvest before bad weather might ruin it. The work was intense, hard, and dusty, but it was shared by willing comrades and, therefore, was also fun. The excitement began with Tim Dobberpuhl blowing his steamer’s whistle a quarter mile away at Granville Rd as he approached the farm with his chuffing iron monster, towing the threshing machine behind.
Fire was a great danger to the barn. The coal-fired steam engine was parked a good distance from the barn, the threshing machine was in the barn, and power was transferred by means of a long, wide, flat belt. The team of horses and the tank wagon brought water to replenish the boiler of the steam engine. It was very effective and an enormous improvement over their grandparents harvesting tools, which were hand and horse-powered. Their great grandfathers’ generation used a hand-held scythe to cut grain and flails to separate the kernels.