![]() Canvas was attached to the wood slats by copper rivets. The thin hardware laths would wear and break. Canvas was expensive to buy and time consuming to repair. Dad was not a happy farmer for a few hours. Dad would swear, but his boys were not allowed to. We boys heard every ‘Gol’ Darn”, and “Son-Of- A-#*X^#!”. The mice had a very good winter, gnawing away at the canvas and straps. Grain cutting time came around and down came the canvas bundles. One year my Dad did not get that done or done very well. The gunny sacks were suspended from the rafters in mid air with baling wire or binder twine. Most farmers would roll up the canvas, bundle the canvas up with binder twine, and store them in gunny sacks. Mice and rats liked to chew on that canvas. Which meant, of course, that the canvas had to be restrung and tightened the next morning before cutting grain. At the end of the day, the canvas was taken off, especially if there was a threat of rain. Farmers took good care of their grain binder canvas. That canvas was heavy material and expensive. It the gap was the same along all three feet of width, then I suspected the tightness of each buckle was about right. I learned to look at the gap between the two ends of the canvas. It was another way of saying that his three sons were too slow. ![]() Sometimes he was impatient and simply said “I’ll do that”. It was important that the buckles have the same tightness, so that the canvas would run straight. Then the thick straps were threaded through the metal buckles and pulled tight. The metal strap buckles must lead in the direction the canvas turned. Those canvases were a pain to install and they had to be put on correctly. The grain sheaves dropped off the canvas and were collected into a bundle for tying. The grain stalks from the horizontal reel platform were grappled by the two slanted elevator canvases and carried up to the tying deck. They were at a slant and raised above the big bull wheel. The two elevated canvases moved in opposite directions. The reel canvas was the long one and conveyed the cut grain stalks sideways to the end of the platform. Each canvas had three or four canvas straps on one end and metal buckles on the other end. The strong canvas was three feet wide, but varied from 10 feet to 20 feet in length. The canvas was hemmed on all four sides to keep it from tearing or ripping. Narrow hardwood strips were riveted about every ten inches on one side of the canvas. Each canvas was stretched over two wooden rollers. The next step needed to get the binder field-ready was to install the three canvases. This might go around a second time, before Dad in a much louder and sterner voice sent us off to do the task. Lawrence: “Bob, you heard Dad, go get the sledge hammer and wrench set”. We would get things for Dad.ĭad: “Go to the garage, and get the sledge hammer and wrench set”. When we were little boys, Phillip, Bob, and I were “gophers”. Dad had a manual for the McC-D grain binder, but I suspect he did not pay much attention to it. There were zerts to be greased, oil cups filled, and oil squirted in holes made for that purpose. Loose blades were repaired by shearing off the two soft rivets holding it to the bar. The triangular knife sections were sharpened with a file. The 8 ft sickle bar was pulled out of the cutter bar and clamped in a vise. That meant “greasing her up”, unwrapping the canvas that moved the grain through the machine, and sharpening the sickle bar. We had a grain binder and threshing machine. Most of the neighbors were combining oats by the time I was about 10 years old. We could tell that Dad was excited about getting started. The next morning, Dad and his three sons, Phillip, Bob, and I would slowly pull the grain binder out of the shed and start getting it ready. The west wing stored the corn binder, drags, disk, and assorted junk. The east wing held the tractor, grain binder, oats fanning machine and assorted junk. The McCormick-Deering 8 ft grain binder was stored in the east wing of the granary. Dad would announce at the supper table, “Tomorrow, we get the grain binder out.” Then he would shuck the grains in his hand and open up the husks, inspect the fullness of the pods, and shake a handful of oats for heft. ![]() He would reach down and pull a few grains from the stalks. It was a beautiful sight to witness the undulating fields turning golden yellow.ĭad would walk out into the oat fields of the 238 acre farm out on Oak Grove Ridge in the heart of Crawford County, near Seneca in southwestern Wisconsin. We could see it coming, a sea of green oats slowly turning to a duller, lighter green, then toward a yellow hue. No sooner was first crop hay “put up” and it was time to “shock grain”.
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