Holding the spirit alive | Information, Sports activities, Jobs

For Lussman, of Fort Dodge, it’s a bit of his coronary heart.

The machine was his dad’s.

“We misplaced dad seven years in the past,” Lussman mentioned. “That is my manner of retaining his spirit alive. I simply hope I’m doing him proud. My dad was an excellent good friend. My dad was my greatest man at my wedding ceremony. That is for him.”

The 1 1/2 horsepower engine was offered by means of Montgomery Ward. It might have set the client again $43 again within the day.

-Messenger photograph by Hans Madsen

Wayne Lussman, of Fort Dodge, works on beginning certainly one of his outdated engines Saturday throughout the West Central Area Cockshutt & Co-Op Membership Threshing Bee in Homer. The 1 1/2 horsepower engine value $43 new in 1917.

“Forty-three {dollars} within the mid-teens — that was some huge cash,” he mentioned.

Lussman isn’t positive precisely what yr it was made.

“The manufacturing unit burned down; they misplaced all of the information,” he mentioned.

His father, Willis Lussman, collected Oliver and Hart Parr tractors. He discovered the engine whereas making his rounds as a seed corn salesman.

“My dad noticed it in a junk pile,” he mentioned. “It was wore out. Dad mentioned it wasn’t something that couldn’t be mounted.”

-Messenger photograph by Hans Madsen

John Bonner, of Vincent, pours black powder right into a log splitter Saturday afternoon throughout the West Central Area Cockshutt & Co-Op Membership Threshing Bee in Homer. The system is pushed into the tip of the log to be break up.

The stationary engines had been a fixture on most farms earlier than rural electrification. They had been used to pump water, run equipment, cost batteries and grind feed.

“I heard of 1 man that hooked a generator as much as his to cost a few batteries to run his radio at night time,” Lussman mentioned.

It’s only a truth of life.

Typically vintage tools, like a Wooden Brothers Thresher Co. threshing machine, breaks down whilst you’re attempting to make use of it throughout the Threshing Bee.

The membership members don’t have an implement seller to name for service on the late Nineteen Thirties Des Moines-built machine. They repair it themselves.

Don Lamb, who owns the machine, received some assist from Dan Hodgson to splice an outdated leather-based belt that determined it didn’t wish to keep in a single piece.

They used an vintage fixture to chop the belt, then one other vintage machine to put in the metallic splice.

With the belt put in, they fired the machine up. It’s powered by the flywheel on a parked tractor.

“Let’s see what breaks subsequent,” Hodgson joked.

Previously, there was quite a lot of handwork on the farm.

Tim Berven, of Stanhope, took a activate the crank of a corn sheller.

“I’d hate to should do 120 acres price,” Berven mentioned.

The machine is owned by Don Lamb.

“It’s my corn although,” Berven mentioned. “After the mix goes by means of, I seize a few buckets full and preserve it only for this.”

Berven mentioned the shelled corn would often have been used for animal feed. Bigger machines would have been used for corn going to market.

“It takes eternally to do a bucketful,” he mentioned.

There’s no actual restrict on the equipment a customer to the Threshing Bee would possibly see.

Dan Stevens, of Boone, was spending a part of the day zipping across the grounds on a Lennox Grader.

The little machine has metallic treads, steers with levers and has a three-foot huge blade on the entrance. It’s powered by an air-cooled engine much like a garden mower. It’s owned by his brother.

“I get pleasure from it,” Stevens mentioned.

So what kind of sensible work will be completed with a tiny bulldozer that might most likely slot in a automobile trunk?

“I used to be pushing hay with it,” he mentioned. “My brother tries pushing snow with it often.”