Nostalgic Old Farm Combines

There are some old farm implements that you want to cherish and preserve...that first tractor, your first pickup, the electric separator that took some of the work out of milking. And many of these are restored to like new, or almost new condition.

The Good Side!

Of course some folks get so tired of seeing and using these old tools that they never want to see them again. My grandparents fit this category. They had a small farm in the Bitterroot Valley several miles from the unincorporated town of Corvallis, Montana and even into the 1940's their horse power was supplied by a team.

I was born in their 2 room farm house and spent some of my summers on their farm. Growing up in a big town (Klamath Falls, OR pop ~12,000 at the time), I looked forward to the summers I could spend on the farm and get back to the country.

What I did not look forward to was hoeing rows of corn by hand under a blistering summer sun. Or following a team picking rocks out of the fresh turned soil onto a drag sled. Then unloading the rocks from the drag again. I look back on that and think of the homestead as something of a rock farm.

I'm sure a similar experience has been shared by many.

We raised corn, peas, potatoes, alfalfa and other crops and ran a few head of milk cows. But the main source of money was the chickens. Both fryers and eggs. A good sized root cellar was used for the usual storage of vegetables and bottled fruit and vegetables. It was also used as a storage and candling area for the eggs. I fondly remember cleaning eggs with a weak vinegar solution, candling them to see if they were okay and sorting them using a small scale.

It was a hard life for my grandparents. The farm was small and like many farmers, they mortgaged the farm several times through the years. It seemed that as soon as the farm was free and clear they needed more money for a new well or other equipment.

They looked forward to retirement and I can understand that. I visited them shortly after they moved into town and asked them what they had done with all of their old equipment. I was surprised to discover they had simply buried it all in the root cellar and collapsed the cellar.

They buried a 1931 Chev coupe with a homemade pickup bed - the first car I ever drove. The stainless cream separators, churns, milking machines, stainless milk cans, old dishes and utensils, tools - everything. They had lived with these things for so long and thought of them as just more old junk that they wanted no part of anymore! That anyone else might think that old junk had any value was beyond their comprehension.

And these were farm tools and implements that had proved their worth over the years and treated them well.

So it is no wonder that some good ol' boys take pleasure in seeing how badly they can beat up on their cantankerous old combines that they fought with over the years and which nearly choked them to death in clouds of dust. Today you can find many Combine Destruction Derbies around the country. They are as fun for the spectators as for the participants.

Take a break from the chores if you get a chance and take in one of these derbies. It wont matter who wins - even most of the losers will be back next year to take out their frustrations again!

Damaged but game to go!