Editor’s note:
In two previous articles Agri News was able to track the life, times and observations of pioneer farmer Forrest Widenmaier who farmed in the Alameda area in the 1920s and 30s and kept a detailed journal, describing some of the conditions that prevailed at the time and the joys, anxiety and challenges of farming in that era.
The journal entries were made available to us through the kind consideration of Virginia Dietze. In Part 3, Widenmaier is commenting on the life around him and his farm during a farmers’ peak season … summer. The following are words from Forrest Widenmaier’s observations.
I remember well one very birght moonlit night in spring one year when we were farming on Ed Neary’s farm. We were just going to bed when some horses (strays from the neighbour’s farm) came in the yard and as the yard fence was not very good, they got at the haystacks. Harry and I got on horseback. Harry on Flo and I on Molly and drove them away. As Flo was faster than Molly, Harry was soon ahead of me, kaing the herd of horses stretch out. Flo stepped in a hole and Harry went over her head and I wasn’t sure if his neck was broken or not because he landed on his head. He got a nasty jolt but when he felt better, we drove the horses again and took them to north end of the north half of Neary’s land. We went along the west side. It was a grand night, water was sparkling, frogs singing and the glick, glick of the large frogs could be heard plainly.
In the summer, the farmer does his summerfallow, fixes pasture, weeds the garden.
We have the Echo bird’s song in the air and we have loons and Jack Snipes and the drrrring sway of the Prairie Snipe (it has to be heard to be appreciated).
It is very hot and still in the morning. Thunderheads will form in the west in the afternoon and about 4 o’clock or a lot of nights, we are kept up late because of thunderstorms.
We have muskrats splash under water from a big stone in the ravine as we ride past on horseback to round up horses or cattle. We have nice moonlight nights and damp mists that float in the low places. On dark nights, the firefly can be seen and the zoom of bugs in the air and the sometime distant flash and rumble of thunder as a storm slowly sweeps down upon us. After a storm, everything seems so fresh and clean and the grain so green the next morning. Usually the weather is cool for a day or so. Sometimes we get a several-day drizzle and everything seems damp and cold so it is a pleasure to get caught up on sleep or the work in the shops, repairing machinery or setting new machinery together. It’s nice to have the wind moving through the open windows of the house and closed doors, all is quiet and restful.
In July, near the end, we make hay from the sloughs in the grain fields. It’s nice to see the waving grain with big heads from top of a big load of hay.
It’s nice to smell the freshly cut grain and hear the distant rattle of binders. It’s very hot on harvest day, but cools off nice near evening. It’s a grand sight to see the fields of golden durum grain with the heavy heads bending over and some slightly lodged over, waiting to be cut. One marquis wheat field is standing upright so stiffly. The yllow gold field of barley and silvery fields of oats and the fields of brown flax that earlier in the summer are like a blue mist with its blossoms.
On windy days the crickets keep singing and chirping. It’s quite cheery to hear them. It wouldn’t be harvest without them.
Grain cutting and stoking and threshing make harvest the grandest season. Harvesting grain has its dark points too. Pitmans wearing out, knives breaking, reel arms and bats breaking from being too low or hitting against a pile of grain laying still on the front of the table. Horses crazy with flies, ants and dust getting all tangled up over their traces when we stop to fix something or we get them to have a drink or oil up equipment.
High winds flail the grain out of oats and barley and ruins it sometimes. Sometimes hail, rust, hoppers or drought, swa fly, cutworms, root rot, smut take their toll … or all of that.
Binders won’t tie, canvas slips, gears and bearing wear out. Can’t get the sheaves out and we get repairs until we are nearly gray worrying about how we are going to pay for them. But we finish and taken the binder to the yard to be put away. We finish stoking, repair granaries (some portable with no roof). Some are old, it is no small job believe me.
Threshing time is a season of long hours and hard work but I think most farmers would hate to miss it. Machines all over the country are busy, stooks are being hauled in and golden straw piles show up everywhere with a granary standing alongside. In the evening we see the flash of sun on the drive belts and the dust of straw floating away from machines. In the morning it’s the purr of the gas engines and puffing of the steam engines and drone and hum of the blower fans on the threshing machine. The Case machines particularly have a very musical hum to their blowers that can be heard for miles.
Firemen on the steam rigs get up about 4 a.m. to get up steam. He blows the whistle about 5 a.m. Teamsters and other men are coughing and dressing and talking in sleepy tones. They go to the barns and feed their horses, clean harness and barns, go to the house, have breakfast. Short toots from the engine, hurry them up.
After breakfast they go back to the barn, bridal up, water the horses and away they go in a clatter and lines dragging. Horses trotting and bumping away, shackling the devil out of the racks, but noone minds because it’s fun working in gangs. Soon the golden straw is flying. By noon the water jug is well patronized. The first day with steamer and gas outfits is scary for the horses with the whistles and pop-off valves making the noise. They soon get used to the moving belts and hum and roar. Whistle toots direct the action.
Some teamsters put on small pointed loads, others a good sensible load while some, you would wonder which would break first, the axle or traces. A load like a house on windy days are bad for loading and messty at the feeder and with steam, dangerous (fire). Gas rigs are safer for fire and more economical to run and you have to work harder.
I like the odour of chaff, dust and fumes from the engines mingled together.
The crows are bunching up and flying southeast to their winter home at threshing time.
