Humboldt Threshing Bee

Bril Heritage on RFD-TV is brought to you by Rural Heritage magazine, a bi-monthly magazine featuring articles on animal-powered agriculture and logging, small-scale diversified family farming and bunk studies, and other aspects of our rich rural heritage. Rural Heritage Magazine taken from yesterday to do today's work for subscription information call three one nine three six two three zero two seven or order online at wwlp.com today we will visit Humboldt, South Dakota, where we will see how draft horses are used to harvest wheat. We will push a header on an oat field plow, work the field and compete in an old farmer's horse poll.

We'll take a closer look at some of the horse-drawn machines on display, including a fascinating collection of antique manure spreaders. Also see some old tractors used to operate some belt-driven farm equipment, such as an in-house genetic machine. Be sure to stay tuned. This was originally started for Dean Johnson, who was the partner at Lure Nice. He and I one Sunday afternoon were told we were going to put oatmeal at my house and Thresh Verdean drove the elevator and humbly and when he went to get coffee the gentleman named Henry Heinsohn who at that time on the ground that this is no you're not going to include the naysayers with the horses and you're going to have it at my house and that's what started it and Larney Evens was I think one of the coffee drinkers at the time and he volunteered to help out to make a profit and I'll let Marnie tell you.

From there, I found out what happened and told him how you set things in motion. I wouldn't shop on Highway 19 here to help my brothers on farm 89. We had the anniversary of the Humboldt Thunders and who it had destroyed and all that followed. there and I said we can't let this go away so Verdean Johnson and I talked to Henry Isis and he said absolutely Hugo. I said well, what do you think we should charge? He said if you're going to get paid, you won't go. To achieve this, so as to end the problem, I placed an advertisement in a humble newspaper at that time and put it there.

The humble trash would start in 1990 in Henry Heights and what involvement we had for this, this is how I started this is your first time Cloud, this is fine with me, these two horses outside were on an Amish farm and they were on the left side of six horses in front and back and these on the outside, ten, eleven and two months. They never put a harness on it, no joke, today they were saddle horses, they weren't halters, all they ever had, they had good manners for ground work, they were when I went to see them, it was easy to have grown up, so I thought okay.

I'm going to try it, this is my fourth car, this is Jack Gary's plow and I have a plow like this at home, but I have very little work to do, so I asked Jack if I could use his and he said it was good. It's easy for you to set it up right away, well actually the Amish plowed with this earlier this spring, okay I was close to setting it up now, it was just to get the depth and how the soil moves, it just moves fine , yeah, that rain made it work, yeah. It's nice land, yes, yes, I enjoy your magazine.

I think I have a two-year subscription. I think this was last fall. Thank you so much. I appreciate you stopping by Waverly on your way back. I'll be there, thank you sir. What do you do with them at home? Oh, make a little farm and make some hay at Holloman or nothing, just two strangers, you know, they seem to be pretty good, yeah, yeah, they're theirs, they're easy to look after, yeah, yeah. they worked well on our 35 foot pian seidel in our house and had no problems at all well up there with this one well I like it yeah some like this one here back in 35 were about the size they weren't that big yeah , it would explode in there, they never had it and you would do it with corn, that's an insurance company, what you do with the corn before it recovers, yes, to be half, like today, they want it for sixteen. fifty and sixty voices change in the hour I guess not, I didn't do it when I was a kid, but I was always willing to see it, uh, well, we did this.

I'll write it at my dad's place and then you shovel it out and feed the cattle, mainly a lot of work shoveling, but you go in and then it comes out, that's true, eventually they made a Cylon engine that would go in there and throw it down, which The gamemaster machine is wild, yeah, yeah, I guess. what everyone wants everything is David, did you just tell them what exactly the guide king is? Oh, it's up to you if you want to say it. Six years ago we left it outside, we have a steel shaft there, about how many big ones. the bus and it's bigger around a solid piece of steel tray that was on top, then he cut it at least three times and split this model that I just took to town, yes this is a Tron international horse manure spreader called 100 H, it is a three-wheeled vehicle.

It was made for small farms and around 1946 to 1950. Here is a 100 manure spreader that is basically the same size, but this is a tractor spreader. There is an international 200 tractor spreader that is a little larger, as you can see. here is the 200th large capacity McCormick literature for herds over 15 head here is a 200 horsepower John spreader. I just remade this by a mental stoner, Amish man from Wisconsin and it was garbage. I wanted this to match my reds, but when I told him He was coming to the Hummel beatdown show and he convinced me to put stainless steel sights on the spreader, so you'll see there are new stained stainless steel sides, a new floor made of polyethylene board, I call it, the shields that were bad, he made them out of stainless steel. steel I will never use it, I will restore it and put it in my shed for restoration purposes.

This spreader here belongs to a friend of mine, Paul van der Fleet. It was done by another Amish Minh Irvin Miller. This spreader here. This is something. what they make for a safety railing platform whatever you want to call it nice so your feet are safe if something happens you won't fall on your horses to put the tire lines on and right here like a scraper they put on it and this scraper is made to clean the beaters when you haul manure so they don't rust. Now this gentleman wanted an aluminum horse tongue put on, so this Amish man put on a new Lumina meeee tongue.

This Amish man welded a rod into the side of the steel wheels to make writing smoother, but on terrain like this it still sinks in enough for the lugs to work for traction. This spreader here, as you can see, had a roller chain put in there instead of two lengths of steel, just look at how well it spins and Smooth, this is called 200 F F means fluid. You see it has a sunken floor and there is a hole in the floor that has a rod and a little slide so you can open it to drain it to make sure it doesn't. it freezes in winter, this is also one of my closest horse drawn spreaders.

I know it's called number four. It usually has wooden sides. A friend of mine and I put new polyethylene boards on him. I put a new floor on it because the spreader. For starters, it's in working condition, just the wood was rotted, so that's the collection of International manure spreader kits. It looks naturally, stainless steel spreaders are the most prominent here. How long have you been doing this? That machinery is a push the header to the right yes correct yes how long have you been doing that here? I probably helped in five years and then you've been doing it a lot longer and I've been doing it for eight or ten.

Well, you are children who are not doing it. that's not, we weren't doing no, this is yes, that's right, yes, it's a unique thing for a team of horses to work with that type of equipment properly, yes, there seems to be two things happening, one, they push them, they have to act, they have a feeling like they are being pushed, that's right, yeah, you have to watch how they move from the front, you know, there's something a little bit different for them too, how long does it take to train them to do that well? I think it all starts with a good team screwed up yeah hell they figured it out pretty quick I mean just the first 15 minutes and it seemed like yeah you just walked in on it Porsche yeah you do a round or so and it's as if they had gotten used to it and yes. so they have to trust you, I mean, be a part of it.

I guess so. I guess you could say they have to trust the guy behind the management. That's right. Yeah, when you make the turns, tell me what's going on there. I can tell you right when you make a right turn your left team has to turn out and then they pull the rear in so you don't have to steer it with a steering wheel and the team will do it if you drive your team. Well, the team will direct it and then Paul's right hand has a twist back a little bit, you almost have to go back a little crooked too, right?

It seems like they have the right hand horse back, something oh yes, the laughter has to dodge me a little, that's right, I have to dodge it a little. Do they relearn it every year and then fall into the groove? Well, I don't know if they really have to relearn, they seem to learn it right away. I mean this. It's my fifth year doing it and it's like I told Dan before. I think if I jumped off the header, I think they just go off on their own, basically, I mean, because you know, years ago, when they built this team.

Surely it was run by one person, one team, sir, yes, now I would normally have a car next to me. Yeah, I guess you'd call it a package rack or whatever, with yeah, where it would unload into the grass or the oats or whatever. in it and then take it to the machine, you know, you are farmers, when you are not doing this kind of thing or yes, uh-huh, you kind of do it, you grow wheat conventionally, but in the last few years we haven't done, girl Danielle. good market for that it's all corn and soybeans around here hello, I'm Joe Mishka, manly heritage magazine.

I am on site for one of the many events we cover that celebrates our rural heritage. If you enjoy our program, check out our magazine. Learn more about the people who combine the past with what works today. You can save almost 20% off the kiosk price by subscribing to Rural Heritage Calm or chatting with us at 877 six four seven two four five. It is the toll-free number 877 six four seven. two four five two these are Jack Jerry and him and I hope they bought us this fall at a sale here in Wisconsin that Heyman's shed is today's Bale pick-up truck, he says and if you notice the engine is running It works and we've seen Jack use it, so he claims with his modern age.

I guess today is the end of our parade. We want to thank you all for coming. We will start our auction here in just a few minutes. Stick around and I say turn on the horse humor by joining us today on Rural Heritage and RFD-TV, where we borrow from yesterday to do today's work. This program is available for purchase. To order your copy, call three one nine three six two. three zero two seven or visit www.ajustlock.com for more details, call or write for catalog or subscription information or visit our website at wwlp.com