Editorís note: The following article was written by Glenn Heiller, 62, of Louisville, Ohio. Glenn grew up in Brownsville, and worked on his uncle Donald Heillerís farms for several summers. This is a two-part description of a threshing operation. Part two will appear next week. Thanks, Glenn, for your contribution.
Threshing bee, part one:
getting ready and getting started
There were two parts to the threshing (or ëtrashingí, as Rudy Pieper called it): the preparation and the threshing day. The preparation would be first to clean out the grain bin to get ready for the grain. This would be moving junk out of the way that was being stored there since the grain ran out in the spring. Then it would have to be swept and any holes plugged up.
On Donnyís farm there were two grain bins with an aisle between them. They had a nice wood floor and a wall on three sides with a half wall on one side so you could sling grain sacks over the wall to dump.
The other preparation was in the field. Donny would cut the grain with a binder that would bind a bundle of grain of about six inches in diameter and drop it in the field. Then after about a day it would be stacked.
There was an exact procedure to stack the bundles. You would grab two bundles by the middle and slam them together hard enough so that they would become attached to each other. You could then stand this up and immediately slam two more bundles in from the side. Now you have four bundles standing on end sort of braced together. Then you would add four more bundles in two pairs of two and finally you would grab the 9th bundle, fan the head out, and cap it over the stack.
You now have a nice shock of nine nine bundles with all the heads pointing up and the top fanned out holding them together. Then you would move down the field to make more shocks. This was usually done two or three days before the threshing depending on the weather and was usually the end of July or early August. That always looked like such a nice sight...to see a clean cut field with stacks of golden grain shocks.
On the day of threshing, somebody would come pulling the threshing machine down the road. I never knew who owned them or how the arrangements were made to get the machine at the right farm at the right day. It would be set up at a place where the farmer wanted the straw stack and then levelled and braced and a tractor would be set up facing it. Then a wide leather belt was placed between a pulley on the tractor and a pulley on the threshing machine. The belt was always looped in a figure eight. This caused the belt to continuously slide against itself and keep it clean, dry, and fresh so it didnít slip. As a side note, there were no sides to the pulleys, but the pulleys had a slight crown so that the belt would always climb to the middle and never slide off. I never heard of a belt breaking, but could have caused a lot of damage, I imagine.
You had one or two drivers, who would drive a tractor with an empty wagon out to the field, stop at each shock while other workers would pitch fork the bundles onto the wagon, and then drive the full wagon back to the thrashing machine. You had the field workers (usually this is what I did) who would stay out in the field with a pitchfork and a pair of yellow gloves, and wait for a wagon and then pitch all the bundles from one shock, walk to the next and pitch those. If it was timed right and there were enough wagons, you would just finish one wagon when the next would be driving into the field, so you really didnít stop except to get a drink of water.
Usually the wagon driver brought water with him for the field hands. If you wanted a break or something from the house, you could either catch a ride on the tractor or, more likely, trade places with the driver. Lots of times the driver would volunteer to pitch for awhile and offer you the tractor to drive. I think sometimes they felt sorry for me or maybe they wanted to pitch for awhile. Of course when it was lunch time, they would ask us to come in for lunch.
Back at the thrashing machine there were two people who would pitch the grain from the wagon onto the threshing machine. The wagon would drive up, parallel to a long conveyor belt at the end of the threshing machine and be parked. The two on the wagon would work in sync to pitch bundles onto the belt. The tractor driver usually stayed on the tractor, but could step off for a drink or whatever. When the wagon was empty though, you better be there. The unloaders would sometimes trade places with other workers too, so that you didnít spend all day doing the same thing.
Next week: making the straw pile, eating a meal, and the wonderful taste of a cold beer.

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