On the Moraine, Part XLIII

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

I always liked wheat harvesting season. It was summer. Even the straw bales were about half the weight of hay bales.

For the first few years, we had an Allis Chalmers pull-behind combine of a whopping 60-inch width. Then, we found an Allis Chalmers SP-100, which was 100 inches wide and self-propelled. We thought we were sitting pretty then.

I particularly liked the morning routine. We would get up about 6 a.m., and Dad would do the feeding chores. John’s job was to grease the combine. He knew where every one of those 100-plus grease fittings were (this is before the days when manufacturers grouped grease fittings together and made them easy to find). When he came out of that machine, he looked like he had been tarred and feathered.

I really liked my job. We would finish up the night before with the truck loaded with wheat (a whopping 200 bushels – the big combines today carry 400 bushels on the machine).  

My job was to drive it to Landmark in Hillsboro and be the first on the scales. That way I could get unloaded quickly and be home by the time the dew was off, and we could start combining for the day.  

We would have another load just after lunch, and I would head to town again, but I would have to wait in line this time. While they were waiting for me back in the wheat fields, they could take a rest or do some other chores. Then, we would cut the second load for the day, put the truck in the barn and do it all over again the next day.

The old GMC truck had a four-speed transmission and a two-speed axle, so you had eight forward speeds. Our lane came out onto Route 506 in a valley, and I had to immediately turn right and go up the hill. This had to be started in low axle, low gear (creeper gear). To ascend that first hill was three or four minutes. Once it was crested, I could get rolling pretty good. Of course, the speedometer was broken in the old truck, so I never knew how fast I was going, but I would be surprised if I ever got over 50 mph.

Baling straw was a good break between first and second cuttings of hay. It kept your arms in shape, but the bales, again, were half weight.

A dozen years later, I lived in Cape Girardeau, Missouri and would have occasion in late spring to drive up I-55 from Memphis to Cape Girardeau in wheat harvest season, which was late May, early June. The idea there was to get the wheat out and plant soybeans, getting two crops in one year.  

Of course, these farmers were anxious to get the straw off and out of the way. Before the EPA stopped it, they would burn it right after the harvest. There were evenings one could drive up from Memphis, and it would look like all of Arkansas was on fire.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.