Each season brought with it special activities on the Nolan farm.  I've mentioned the potato digging but the excitement created by picking up potatoes couldn't begin to compare to the thrill of the day the steam engine, pulling the threshing machine came puffing up the lane!  Weeks before this my father and a hired man had cut the oats and wheat.  The oats were usually ripe by the 4th of July.  They were grown every year.  Not many neighbors grew wheat but my father had a 10-acre field where it was grown some years.  I believe both grains ripened at the same time.  Some wheat, called winter wheat, was sown in the fall but I don't remember much about it.  I thought of my family as a pioneer family but we were a generation removed from real pioneers.  Generations before us would have had to cut the grains with a cradle.  I expect my grandfather did.  A cradle is a large sharp scythe, swung with a rhythmic motion laying the grain in rows.  My father had a McCormick binder! It was quite a wonderful machine.  Cyrus McCormick had patented it in 1834 so by the time my father was born in 1871 they were becoming quite common.  A binder was a large machine requiring 4 or 6 horses to pull it.  A sickle cut the grain, it fall onto a canvas which moved like an escalator carrying the grain to another part of the machine where it was shaped into bundles.  A container held a large spool of binder twine and at a certain point in the process; a length of this twine wrapped around the bundle and tied it with a knot.  The tied bundle then was kicked onto a carrier and when several bundles were ready, they automatically were deposited in a pile on the ground.  These bundles had to be put into shocks.  I used to think a field of shocked grain looked like I imagined an Indian encampment might look.  Each shock was shaped like a teepee, one bundle was always put on the top to help shed the rain.  Shocking was hard, tedious work as each bundle had to be picked up by the twine holding it together and several of the bundles stood up supporting each other.  Sometimes my father would drive through the field with a team and hayrack and load the bundles on and stack them in great round stacks to await the threshing crew but more often the shocks were left in the field.  An old rusting binder still sets just across the creek in the west field on our farm- a relic of long lost days.

Now came the really exciting chapter of the harvest season!  This usually started in late summer.  The steam engine and the separator had pulled into the farm yard and set up in the designated place chosen by my father.  If there was space left in the barn loft he sometimes had the straw blown into there so it would be kept dry.  He used it for bedding for the horses, cows and pigs.  This was no longer only a family project but it involved the entire neighborhood.  The threshing equipment was owned by men who served all the neighbors for a fee.  These men were boarded and fed by the family at which they were working - until they moved to the next farm.  I thought it great to have extra people to feed and stay overnight.  My mother didn't seem to mind.  She was a realist; whatever had to be done she did without complaining.  Beside that she loved to cook and gloried in the praises of her groaning table!

If the straw was not to be blown into the barn, the machine was placed where the tube belching out great volumes of straw was placed behind the barn.  The most disagreeable job of the whole operation must have been standing where the straw was being blown and shaping it into a stack.  Worse yet was mowing it back when it was blown into the barn loft.  I still bear a two-inch scar on my right knee, which I received while playing on the straw stack.  Blanche and I were sliding down the side of a stack, which was over a barbed wire fence.  From the size of the scar it must have been a wide and deep cut.  Of course I wasn't taken to a doctor.  In fact I don't remember ever being in a doctors office until after I was married!

I speak of this as a neighborhood project and truly it was.  The farmer whose turn it was to thresh called each neighbor telling which kind of equipment he needed.  Several teams with hayracks were needed to gather up the shocks in the field.  Two or three wagons were needed to catch the grain.  Some extra men were needed to stay in the field and help load the hayracks.  Also extra hands were needed to scoop the grain into the granary.  A loaded hayrack was pulled up to each side of the separator.  There with a rhythmic movement the man on each wagon pitched the bundles into the separator.  It was tragic if one of them lost his footing and fell into the mechanism, which chewed up the bundles.  The separated grain tunnelled into the wagons, the straw was blown out through a huge tube.  The only job the younger members of the family had was taking a jug of cold water to the workers.  The jug was always a glass container that probably had held vinegar.  A burlap sack was wrapped around the jug and then soaked in cold water to keep it cool.  I never got big enough or brave enough to get on the gray pony and be the water carrier!  Each man in the neighborhood helped the other families.  No thought was given that it might take days at one farm and hours at another.  One of the most pleasant sounds I remember was in late evening when the air was clear and sound carried far, was hearing the wagons and teams clopping along the road, going home from the farm where threshing was done that day.  We always tried to get the chores done before my father got home.  We knew how tired he would be.

The grain my father had stacked did not require so many workers, just grain wagons and man to pitch bundles from the stack.  But as I said, no attempt was made to divide work evenly, so my father worked with neighbors all through the threshing season.

Meanwhile back in the kitchen.  If you believe that all the excitement and work was in the barnyard you should just come to the kitchen door and see the activity going on around the stove and table.  My mother, calm and collected, was in her glory!  There would be at least 15 hungry men.  Often small boys in the neighborhood wandered in about noon to see the big engine at work but their main interest was the good smells coming from the kitchen.  My mother and older sisters had been preparing the food since early morning.  It was the only time of the year that I remember having roast beef.  A huge roast was in the oven. I never knew if the smell of it being roasted or the taste when it was done was more delicious!  Then of course there were mashed potatoes and brown gravy and all kind of vegetables, several different kinds of pies and cakes.  My mother seldom made cookies but she was an expert with pies and cakes.  Bread was a specialty of hers and loaves of fresh bread, along with freshly churned butter were consumed at this table loaded for the hungry threshers.  Before they came to eat, a bench with water, soap, and towels had been placed outside the door.  This is where they washed up - there was a sink in the kitchen with a small pump - I believe they were called pitcher pumps - which pumped water from a cistern.  Water was tunnelled into the cistern from eaves spouts on the edge of the roof when it rained.  But workmen always washed at this bench outside.  All cooking water was brought from the deep well I have mentioned

None of the kids could eat until the men had all been fed but there never was a scarcity of food although as I watched the men fill their plates several times I'm sure I must have been apprehensive!  When the last hungry man had been fed and returned to the threshing job, and the kids had eaten and were shooed out of the kitchen, Mamma and her helpers ate and rested a few minutes before beginning the monumental job of washing the dishes.  It was the custom for neighbor ladies to come help prepare the meal but if any of them came I have forgotten.  Angie, Lelia, and Madge were old enough to help and perhaps they were all the help Mamma wanted.

When the meal was over and dishes washed the job was not finished.  Many of the men stayed for supper.  Papa never did - when he helped a neighbor.  When the threshing stopped for the day, he came home.  Of course the men owning the machine stayed all night so they ate supper and breakfast.  It also was customary to take a lunch out about 2 o'clock to the workers.  How my mother and the other women in the neighborhood did all this preparing food, I'll never know.  Getting a meal for company, with modern conveniences is about all I can handle!  The practice of getting supper was abolished later but afternoon lunch was still expected.  It usually was sandwiches, pie, cake and lemonade.

I'm sure when the last bundle went through the separator, the last shovel of grain safely in the granary, the helpers gone and the steam engine pulling the separator went down the lane, my father heaved a sigh of relief.  Now there was a supply of oats for his horses and pigs, straw for bedding so the animals would be comfortable during the coming winter and wheat to sell, if he had raised wheat this season.  My mother must have felt happy that her share in the activity had been well done and she could return to the daily chores and perhaps have time to do some sewing for the family to get ready for school and cold weather.  Organization was the name of the game that kept this family running smoothly.

Now that the grain was safely in the bin, thoughts turned to completing the cycle of another crop that has been in the making since early spring - harvesting the corn.  As early as the weather permitted, sometimes in late March, my father began preparing the soil for planting the corn.  With four horses hitched to a plow - called a gang plow - he began the slow process of turning over the soil.  I never did understand why they were called gang -plows.  Gang to me meant an unruly crowd!  Day after day, the horses plodded back and forth across the field.  The gang plow was a big improvement over the walking plow which turned over one furrow at a time with the farmer as well as the horses walking the furrows.  My father had a walking plow also which he used on smaller jobs such as preparing the space for potatoes.  After the plowing was completed each field had to be gone over with a disc.  The disc cut up the clods. Now it was time for the harrow - we called it a drag.  It worked the soil even finer, going first one way across the field and then the opposite way.  This was done several times until my father felt the seed bed was just right for the seed.  Going to the corn crib my father selected the ears he felt would produce the finest seed.  Taking these ears to the alley of the combined corn crib and granary, where the hand sheller was kept, he ran the ears through the sheller one at a time, and he had his seed corn!

The corn planter had been made ready - a rainy day job - and he was all ready to plant.  It would now be about the 10th of May if the season was normal.  On each side of the planter was a container in which he put the seed corn to be dispensed as he drove down the row.  Hitching Mount and Dobbin, or some other team, to the planter he again began going back and forth across each field.  There were two methods of planting the corn - drill and check.  I don't know much about planting but one method put the seed a measured distance in each row so when it was time to cultivate, it could be cultivated the first time lengthwise of the field and next time crosswise.  I believe this was checking.  Drilling meant going down the row dropping a kernel every few inches making crisscross cultivating impossible.  Lelia, my second born sister, had an argument about this with one of her high school teacher who apparently knew nothing about farming.  He said drilled corn could be cultivated both ways.  Lelia may have lost the argument but I'm sure that teacher knew he had almost lost an argument to a red headed girl from the country! Actually she was right. 

Cultivating was another family activity - all except for Mamma and me!  The purpose of the cultivator was to remove the weeds.  Chemicals for that purpose were unknown; the soil was not saturated with harmful substances!  Every field was cultivated three times, the third time was called laying the corn by.  Now the corn had all summer to grow and mature.  We literally held our breath when a storm blew in, especially if the clouds had a purple hue - that meant hail.  Sometimes in a few seconds a violent hail storm could wipe out a beautiful field of corn.

If nature allowed the corn to grow and develop it was ready to be picked in the fall.  My father fixed bang boards to each lumber wagon and he was ready to begin the harvesting.  A bang board is just that. It is higher boards attached to the side of the wagon and the ears bang on them when the ear is picked and thrown.  The team, which always had to be driven on other jobs, knew when it was hitched to a wagon and started down a row of corn with no one holding the reins that it was expected to move a short distance and stop!  Ear by ear the corn was torn from the stalk, the husks ripped off with a husking peg fastened to the wrist and the ear thrown to the wagon.  From early in the frosty mornings until late in the afternoon the sound of ears hitting the bang board could he heard.  Grab an ear, jerk it from the stalk, remove the husk, and throw!  How tedious and time consuming that job was.  At noon the morning's load was brought in and scoop-by-scoop full it was thrown into the crib, at evening the same procedure.  My father always bought a barrel of apples before starting the corn gathering and he filled his pockets before starting out in the morning.  Until Floyd was big enough to help, Papa hired neighbor boys to help.  My first remembrance of Emery was when he helped pick corn.  He was not a neighbor boy.  He had come from Ohio, looking for work and my father hired him.  Pickers were paid by the bushel and a good picker could pick over a hundred bushels a day.

One day when I was not old enough to go to school I wanted to go and watch Emery pick corn.  He let me get up on the wagon but no matter how careful he was, I was in the line of fire - the ears just came too fast for me to keep out of the way! I didn't stay long.

Papa always wanted to be finished with the corn harvest by Thanksgiving and usually he was.  The days were usually very cold before he finished.  The gloves he wore would be soaked from the frost and had to be changed several times a day.  At night they were laid on the oven door of the cook stove to be dried and ready for morning.  Besides the cold and wet gloves another disagreeable hazard was sandburs.  They were tiny burs with wicked spines that embedded themselves in the gloves as he picked corn.  I've never seen them anywhere except in that part of Iowa. Many times I've had them get in my feet when I went barefoot- as all kids did in those days.

Now the threshing is done, the corn in the crib and all is ready for the long, cold winter.  The barn is filled with hay! That is another crop involving most of the family.  It had been a hot weather job but now with winter approaching the work involved in it seemed to be forgotten.  The cattle and horses will be well fed!  That is what its all about.  Looking back on haying, it too was not an easy job.  Depending on the weather, usually 3 crops were harvested.  Most of the forage grown on my father's farm was alfalfa.  It will produce 3 cuttings if nature cooperates.  The first cutting is in late May.  The second in June or July and the last early September.  The mower was made ready on rainy days when other work came to a standstill.  The sickle, about 6 feet long, lined with individual teeth had to be sharpened.  My father had a large emery wheel mounted on a platform and turned by pedals similar to a bicycle.  As he pumped the pedals some of us would pour a small stream of water on the emery as each tooth had to be sharpened individually.  Now if prospects were right were right for a day or two of clear weather he was ready to mow down the alfalfa. After it was somewhat cured - dried - the next step was started, raking it into windrows with a sulky rake. A rake was an implement with two wheels several feet apart with teeth that caught up the hay in between.  If the mechanism worked properly, when the teeth were filled with hay, a touch of a piece of metal with a foot tripped the teeth carrying the hay and the field was covered with windrows of sweet smelling hay.  If the tripping mechanism didn't work it had to be dumped manually with a lever, a back breaking, hand blistering procedure.

The exciting time for me when I was small was bringing the hay from the field and putting it in the large hay loft.  My father had what he called slings.  They were ropes with clamps at each end.  He laid one set on the bed of the hayrack.  In the field, workers pitched hay from the windrows and one man arranged it evenly on the rack.  When the hay on the rack reached a certain depth another sling was laid on top.  Getting to the barn the ends of the top sling were brought together and fastened to a rope leading up to the large door.  Old Dobbin was hitched to a joining rope, which ran through a pulley over the door.  Then he was led in a straight line until there was a click, the load was pulled on a track back into the loft.  Someone pulled a trip rope and the large amount of hay fell.  This was repeated until all the slings had taken a trip up to the door and into the loft.  This was much easier than pitching it, a fork full at a time into the loft.  Uncle Jud had put in the system when he built the barn.