Old Photograph Wednesday Part IV

Well I guess I am going to call Wednesdays, Old Photograph Wednesday, since it seems to be my theme on Wednesdays. Perhaps it could have a more glamorous title..but for the moment ..what that would be escapes me. Leave a comment if you have a catchy opinion! A reader left me a comment, asking if I remember the shocks of grain standing in the fields?
Yes, I do remember, all looking like little tee pees. This picture I have shared with you shows my Grandpa Y. with a pitchfork, out in a grain field, his work is behind him. He was a wonderful, dear man who I still miss to this day. My Mother took this picture in 1952, it was their first harvest of grain on their "own" farm, the farm where I grew up.



This picture is of my Grandpa and his son, my Uncle Adolf having lunch in the field. You can see the lunch bucket between them, my Mother used to make lunch..homemade bread and meat, some pickles, and cookies or cake that were all put inside a big cooking pot, covered with a dish towel and taken to the field. Coffee and milk went into glass jars and were wrapped in heavy towels. I loved lunching in the field as a small child it was the highlight of my day!


Grain was harvested with a Binder that cut and bound it into sheaves, many sheaves were then set on end to form a shock of grain. The grain shocks were left in the field to dry. Then the Threshing Crew or the as I like to call them the Thrashing Crew would come. There was lots of baking and cooking the day before, such excitement, then they would come one by one, all the farmers to help each other thrash the grain. It was a cooperative effort, farmers helping farmers. It was dirty hard work, the men would wash up outside and then come into the house for "Lunch" ... and what a lunch it was.. Mountains of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, garden vegetables, beans and carrots and of course fresh bread, and deserts the likes that only appeared once a year..pies, and cakes that a child with a sweet tooth would stare at in awe.

My Uncle Adolf was a frequent visitor at our home before he was married. He was a big guy, tall and strong. I was a very stubborn child and was prone to temper tantrums, I was into the stomping my feet as fast as they would go, alternating between screaming and holding my breath to get my way tantrums. Apparently it had been working, until the day my Uncle Adolf had his own tantrum, my Mother told me "He came into the kitchen while you were stomping your feet and screaming, and proceeded to stomp his feet so much that the whole floor shook, and that was the last of your temper tantrums." :)