I'm sure there are many of you out there that know about this or even more.
The day for threshing oats or barley or other grains was started by the man who owned the threshing machine. He pulled his machine onto the property and started oiling and greasing all the moving parts and attached many belts to the machine's pulleys to run various parts. Last, but not least, he attached a long belt from the machine to a pulley on his tractor.
He would start the machine slow and speed it up till it was ready to have oat bundles put in by men who had brought a hayrack full of bundles from the oat field. Each bundle was placed on a conveyor that fed them into the machine. Each bundle had to be placed oat heads first so they would be threshed out properly. As the bundles passed through the machine, oat seeds were moved out to a wagon. The rest was straw and that was blown out a large long part of the machine and formed a straw stack to be used as bedding for farm animals later.
The "threshing ring," as it was called, consisted of local farmers who pitched the bundles onto a hayrack and then to the treshing machine. It was hard hot work, but it was also a day that saw a group of men work together to help each other out.
Funny Stuff:
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Butcher.
Butcher who?
"Butcher arms around me baby, hold me tight."