Posted: 8/3/04
Old ways work well cutting oats
By David Heiller
Argus News Editor
I was lucky enough to drive up Gopher Road on July 27 to take a little step back in time.
I hung a sharp right near the top, in section 33 of Crooked Creek township, and eased the old Ford up a rutted dirt path to an open field.
And there it was, a bit of old-fashioned heaven.
Alan Wunnecka greeted me. He had called earlier in the day asking if The Argus would like to take some photos of him cutting oats.
I said yes. (Attention readers: It doesnít take much to get a newspaper editor our of his office to a farm field on a gorgeous summer afternoon. And this one was gorgeous, temperature in the mid-70s, nice breeze, low humidity.)
If there is a prettier sight than a fields of oats winding their golden way across a Freeburg ridge, I would like to hear about it.
In the distance, Mike Richards and Larry Breeser were plugging away at stacking bundles of oats into shocks.
They were soon to be joined by the Winnes family: Dave and his sons James, John, and Ben. Itís nice to have a labor pool like the Wennesí when you cut oats with a binder, the old-time way.
John, 16, climbed aboard the the Farmall Super M, Alan sat on the Minnesota binder, and off they went, working the edge of the oats, the binder rotating like a windmill and leaving piles of oat bundles.
John and Ben took off to help the other two men with the stacking. Dave hesitated enough for me to ask him what he thought of the job.
ìWe feel itís a privilege,î he said. When I asked why, he paused for half a minute, then said, ìItís honest hard work in a beautiful setting.î That could sum up farming in a nutshell.
ìThereís a real skill in building those shocks,î he added. The shocks have to dry for two-three weeks, and have to stand up to the
wind and the deer.
I watched him and the others do just that a little later, after I had snapped a few pictures of John and Alan on their machinery. The stackers would lean six bundles against each other in two rows of three. The seventh bundle would go on top, just so, with the goal of having the bundles stay dry.
Were they good oats? I asked. Dave hollered that question to Mike Richards. ìIf the kernels are nice and hard, itís good oats,î Mike shouted back.
ìAre they hard?î Dave asked.
ìYeah they are,î Mike said.
I started asking some more questions, but Dave cut me off and called to his son, James, who has the look of a lifetime of farming packed into the lean body of an 18-year-old.
James gave me the low-down on cutting and shocking oats versus using a combine, and he didnít give the combine a lot of compliments.
Oats dry better this way, James said, and the next step with a threshing machine produces cleaner oats because the work is done on a level surface versus combines working on side hills.
ìAlan always says he likes to keep the old ways alive,î James said, cutting to the quick of the argument.
I walked back to the car, but not before stopping Alan for a few more questions. He repeated some of the things James had told me ñ no doubt Alan was the source of some of Jamesí knowledge. Alan told me he bought the binder used from Dale Omodt of Houston for $50. (Thatís a little cheaper than a combine.)
Putting up oats this way is a chance to get together and talk, Alan said in response to my ever-present why question. ìIts just kind of fun,î he said.
He did work like this as a kid, and he feels he is carrying on an important tradition.
ìA lot of people think Iím stupid for doing it,î he said.
Why did it die out? Times have changed, Alan answered, ìEverybodyís in a hurry now-a-days. This takes time.î
Yet this way of farming makes so much sense that you have to wonder why it ended. Is it one of those things that made too much sense. Cheap equipment, good quality grain stacked in such an ingenuous way that Alan Wuennecke said it could with stand two straight months of rain.
And thereís that beauty and feeling of satisfaction. ìYou look over it and itís all shocked. It looks so pretty,î Alan said.
Maybe it has something to do with the labor pool. Not everyone has a Winnes family down the road, and good neighbors like Larry Breeser and Mike Richards, eager to stack the bundles.
And thereís the next step, the good old threshing bee, that takes a lot of labor too . . .
Speaking of the threshing bee, Alan said he would give The Caledonia Argus a call. Iíll be waiting by the phone.
Caledonia Argus
314 West Lincoln St.
P.O. Box 227
Caledonia, MN 55921-0227
507/724-3475
E-Mail: editor.argus@ecm-inc.com