Old Style

We’ve received one rain shower since the first week of May and of course it came between harvesting our wheat and baling the wheat straw.

The rain packs down the wheat straw so it won’t dry, so we have to rake it to flip it over so it will air out and get dry.

Now, we don’t do much baling, so we don’t have fancy baling equipment. The rake we have is a Case F170 side delivery rake that belonged to Lana’s dad, Merlin Hively. Case built this model of rake from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. Lana says she remembers when this rake was new; even though Lana is older than me, I’m not convinced that she’s that old!

Here’s Tom raking old style using his Granddad’s rake.

Look at Tom’s laser-like focus! Look at the perfect positioning of the left tractor wheel on the edge of the windrow! We’re talking precision agriculture here!

We greased up old F170 before starting and tweaked the tine pitch and height and offset and it raked like a new one. Tom and I are going to sand it down this winter and restore it to its new glory so it looks like a new one again.

That was one fancy piece of equipment when it was new, wasn’t it?

I’ve been a bit mocking in this post, but seriously nothing gives me a deeper feeling of joy and belonging than to be working on the land my ancestors worked, using the tools they used.

Mert, this one’s for you.