The direction of the wind determined the orientation of the thresher. Settling inįrank maneuvered the thresher to the spot designated by my dad. My dad walked between the tractor and thresher talking to Frank, who was turned sideways in the tractor seat, alternately looking at my dad and the path ahead. This is one of my earliest memories of life on the farm: The belching Minneapolis-Moline tractor pulled the huge thresher. The feeder apron, where the grain bundles were fed, was hinged and tucked under to shorten its length. Threshing machines had steel wheels and the roadway was gravel. It couldn’t have been moving faster than 5 mph. Phillip, Bob and I watched it come up the road from the Bernier farm. No other machine on the farm was that big.
Threshing machines of that era were about 30 feet long, 8 to 10 feet tall and about 5 feet wide. As little kids, 4 to 6 years old, our main job was to “stay out of the way.” The most exciting day of the whole year, with the possible exception of Christmas Day, was the day the threshing machine and crew came to the Scheckel farm.
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