Barney and Birdie, part 4 of 5

Horses typically sleep standing up — at least the farm animals I observed did. Barney and Birdie did lie down occasion however, especially Barney. When they had been working and sweaty, as during threshing, and were turned out into the barnyard they would lie down and roll their backs in the dust of the barnyard to ease their itching on backs and haunches. When they had done this for some time they would stand up and vigorously shake themselves to rid themselves of the dust and debris clinging to them.

Although bits and pieces of the times when I was driving Birdie and Barney or when I was involved in an activity in which they were being used (as, for example, during potato digging when they pulled the wagon into which the potatoes were dumped after being picked up from where the potato digger had deposited them on the ground, or in the rare times when corn was being picked by hand and they were pulling the wagon with its “bangboard” alongside the pickers, or when we were gleaning the ears left by the mechanical cornpicker) remain in my memory, my most detailed recollection is probably about the times when I was involved with them in the threshing operation.














Wagon with bangboard

Most of the time this was oats threshing, but Uncle Carl’s various farming ventures included such this as the growing of flax, or the recovery of hay seed, either from the tall-growing rank sweet clover to such lower growing varieties as alsike or red clover.



















Sweet clover















Alsike

These then involved threshing, with of course suitable change of scrums etc. in the threshing machine. I don’t recollect every threshing soybeans, although there may have been cases of this soon after they were introduced but before combines became more generally used. When we were first on the farm my father worked for Uncle Carl and one of the things he did was haul the oat bundles to the threshing machine. When he did this I was along to drive the wagon in the field, and of course in pulling the bundle rack up alongside the threshing machine. Later on after my father was working in the county treasurer’s office, a neighbor boy, Harlan Anderson, and I operated as a team on the bundle rack. Harlan was not a very vigorous worker on such tasks and I recall my uncle being displeased because we hadn’t loaded the bundle back sufficiently full. The hay/bundle rack that Uncle Carl had, had a greater carrying capacity than the racks used by some of the other farmers and I can remember feeling somewhat aggrieved that in effect I had to meet a high work standard than they did. A normal load on these smaller racks might by 400 oat bundles; I dimly recall counting over 500 on some of the loads I brought in from the field. During my later high school years I operated the bundle rack all by myself, or later still I was a “pitcher” in the field. A “pitcher” would stay out in the field all the time, going from one bundle rack to the next, helping the bundle hauler as he was finishing up his load. When I was working as a bundle-hauler the day would be a long one — up early to get the horses in, harnessed and over to the neighboring farms by about 8 a.m. At that I had an easier time of it than some farmers who had the other chores, such as milking, in addition. In my case, my father would take care of the milking while I was on the threshing crew. So the work day would start with the ride, of varying length, to the threshing location; the morning might be relatively cool but the mid and afternoon sun might be warm indeed.

In a normal threshing day there would be 4 loads for each hauler in the morning and a similar number in the afternoon. At noon, and again in late afternoon the horses would be unhitched from the wagon and haltered at the back of it (after having been led to the stock tank for water). There they would either eat of the oat bundles in the wagon or on some bundles saved for this purpose. While the horses were eating, the hauler too would be partaking of food, either the noon or supper meal — always a bountiful one. Before eating the men would wash up on washstands set up in the shade of the farmyard; threshing was dusty, hot, sweaty work and washing up in the cool cistern water was always a relief. After the noon meal the horses would have another drink of water and would then be reharness to the bundle rack for the afternoon’s work. In the evening they would also be similarly reharnessed for the leisurely drive home. Then it would be time to unharness the horses and turn them out for the night.













Bundle rack