Oakie's Heartland Clippings

Vol. 75, No. 26, Thursday, June 3, 1999.

Harvesters & Prairie Skyscrapers
(The Man with the whiskers Got the Job)

"What Are Prairie Skyscrapers? Up in Kansas they are referred to as Prairie Skyscrapers (a.k.a. grain elevators). In most areas of the Heartland, you can see at least one elevator off in the distance. Every town has at least one and, in some cases, the elevator is still standing (and may even still be used) even if the town has bee abandoned."

You won't find Godzilla perched on the top of these skyscrapers swatting off airplanes. You might see a few flying farmers and harvesters flying low to the ground scouting out the golden, ripe, waving wheat fields from south to north all through the heartland region.

This is the hectic time of the year for a lot of farmers. They are looking toward the skies and praying for Mother Nature's cooperation with sunshine instead of rain, hail and storm.

Within a couple of weeks you will notice more activity springing up around all the prairie skyscrapers in the smalll, rural farming communities. Small towns will become alive again with harvesters buying necessities, supplies and groceries. Wheat trucks will be lined up to unload their grains into the elevators in each of the rural towns.

The harvesters will have gathered their combines, grain carts, wheat trucks and crews. They will working from south Texas and moving toward Canada. Harvesters will be hitting all the Heartland and Wheatland regions in between.

I overheard a farmer say just this morning, "I'll be glad when they start, and I'll sure be glad when they leave."

A local paper mentioned that because of the mild winter and the rain we've been having this year that everything in the wheat field is germinating along with the wheat, even the Cheat and Rye. It even mentioned that the harvest looked to be 80% less than last year's dcrop. In the NW part of the state the wheat heads were just beginning to turn last weekend. The further south you travel the riper it became. There were a lot of farmers that have been baling and putting up their wheat as hay.

My dad made what living was possible in the 1940s by "wheat harvesting" for other farmers with his three (3) Baldwin combines outfits and an airplane. He was known as the whiskers "flying farmer." He would start his crop of whiskers about the time it came to wheat harvesting for the other farmers.

As he went northward with is three combines outfits his beard grew more luxurious. He had a picture taken during one of those trips when he found a "farmer look-alike." He and the farmer are dressed in similar clothing; same expression and both have full whiskers.

My father would use his airplane to spot wheat fields which need cutting even far off the beaten roads followed by other outfits - "And the man with the shikers and the airplane got the job."

On the Internet see: http://paristimes.com/image/harvest9.jpg.

Here is an "Old Time Harvesting Wheat Binder." One of my farmers told me this was a picture of a "wheat binder" pulled by four horses. I'm told it was the next step up from the hand scythes and hand binding days. I suspect it was in the early 1920s before the first tractor. The first tractor, I'm told, came out around the 1929 era sometime. If anyone out here knows for sure and has more information, please contact me at oakie@paristimes.com - OR - Sanil-mail c/o LK Wagner, 1027 Maple, alva, OK 73717.

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