Farming the old way.
That’s me enjoying an antique tractor.  The picture suggests one should not tell a joke to someone driving a tractor.  It could be dangerous.  I remember the sound of old "two-cylinder" John Deere tractors similar to the one in the picture as they idled and the fly wheel kept momentum going between somewhat widely spaced firings of the pistons, "chickit, boom, boom, boom, chickit, chickit, boom, boom, chickit, chickit, boom, boom."   I also remember the sound of it working hard out in the field, "clack, clack, clack, chick, clack, chick, clack, clack, clack, chick."
    My Mom and Dad used to take me to the Kutztown Pennsylvania Dutch Folk Festival and various Thresherman's reunions in the Berks County area and explain how the antique farm equipment and tools worked.  They remembered when Pennsylvania Dutch farmers were adapting horse drawn equipment such as "sickle bar mowers" so that they could be hooked to an antique tractor like the one in the picture instead of to a horse.
    Also, I had firsthand experience with antique farm equipment and tools around the Oley Valley, equipment made by companies like Dearborn, Farmall, and International Harvester.  You see, the Pennsylvania Dutch farmers that I knew tended to keep using old equipment until it was totally "used up," and that old stuff was well-made and didn't get "used up" for a very long time.  I remember "single and double row, spring tooth and spike tooth cutivators," and a "potatoe hiller" that was used to build mounds of dirt around planted potatoes, and a "potatoe digger" that was used to harvest them.  And threshing machines and corn shellers that were mechanical marvels. 
    I remember when hay was stored loose as well as in square bales, up in the gigantic hay lofts of classic Pennsylvania Dutch barns.  The farmer might use a "grapple" to lift hay in big clumps with a system of pulleys and a boom that would swing it into place on the floor of the loft.  I remember what a pain it was when it rained on a cut hay field before you had time to get it in the barn, and you had to run a contraption called a "tedder" across it (my family called it a "kicker") to stir it up so that it would dry out on both sides before being raked and hauled to the barn.
    In my youth, Pennsylvania Dutch agriculture and farming practices were carried out "the old way," the sustainable way.  Here's a quote illustrating sustainability:
"In the barn, Randy was forking the day’s manure and some spots of urine-soaked straw into a wooden wheel barrow so that it could be rolled out to the manure spreader parked at all times next to the big stone wall that demarcated the front of the scheierhof, or barn yard.  When the spreader was full, a tractor would be hooked to it, and the manure spread across the green pastures on the hills behind and in front of the barn. ... The spreader had a conveyor in it’s floor which moved the manure toward the rear as it was pulled, and at the end of the floor a spinning drum with spikes tossed or spread it randomly behind."  Simple, antique, sustainable, organic, farming and agriculture, right?  If a horse was drawing the spreader, I guess it dropped some of its own manure along with that from the barn.  They didn't need much chemical fertilizer.    Excerpted from: The Other Side of the Middle: A Pennsylvania Dutch Story of Family Love ©2005.
    Here's an excerpt from my newest novel, the sequel to "The Other Side of the Middle," titled "Further From the Middle"--------
    Regan had been hunting ground hogs in the woods on top of the hill behind his farm.  He decided to quit and walk down the southeast side of the hill through Arsenic’s place on his way home.  He had something important to tell his father-in-law, and he couldn’t decide how, and he finally decided to just do it.  He could see and hear Randy replanting a pasture in a grazing section down below the barn.  So that meant Arsenic would be alone, with Ricky still in school.  Good!
    As Regan started to hike down the hill, Randy stopped the old two-cylinder John Deere tractor to adjust something on the planter.  Arsenic kept the old tractor to use “chust foah fun.”  As the tractor idled and the fly wheel kept momentum going between somewhat widely spaced firings of the pistons, the sound was "chickit, boom, boom, boom, chickit, chickit, boom, boom, chickit, chickit, boom, boom."
    When Regan was about half way down to where Arsenic was working, Randy finished the adjustment on the planter and was again drilling grass seed in the field.  The sound of the tractor working hard changed to "clack, clack, clack, chick, clack, chick, clack, clack, clack, chick."
    Randy had to replant the pasture with alfalfa and clover,  because it was being overun by tall fescue.  Two of their cattle had developed fescue foot, a debilitating condition.  Randy wanted to get rid of the tall fescue.  Excepted from: Further From the Middle:  A Pennsylvania Dutch Story of Life ©2007 ol

The tools pictured below are either primitve manufactured or handmade.  The Pennsylvania Dutch, whether Lutheran or Amish, value their tools and their skill in using them.  They often decorate them.  For example, the small casket in the upper left is a box for holding a whet stone to sharpen tools.  That casket is so beautiful that the pictures don't do it justice.  Look at the similar picture to the right where the casket is tipped a bit to show the scalloped base also check out the enlargements of the casket image at the bottom.  There are also lines carved above the scalloped base and feet.  It is elegant and all it does is hold a whet stone.  The plane in the lower right picture is similarly decorated.  The metal circular object is worth mentioning.  It is a very old style level.  If the circles are concentric when looked at from above, then the surface under the metal cone is level.





Hey, if you want to see a tribute to the John Deere Company which I have in my collection click here--A Tribute to John Deere

Sustainable Pennsylvania Dutch Agriculture

Growing Pennsylvania Dutch Tobacco

Bringing in the Cows

Pennsylvania Dutch Bank Barn

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