South Messenger - August 21st, 2022
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www.columbusmessenger.com<br />
<strong>August</strong> 21, <strong>2022</strong> - SOUTH MESSENGER - PAGE 7<br />
Down on the farm<br />
reshing time<br />
<strong>Messenger</strong> photos by Rick Palsgrove<br />
A golden wheat field is a beautiful sight and its appearance in July means it is grain<br />
threshing season at Metro Parks’ Slate Run Living Historical Farm, 1375 State Route<br />
674 N., near Canal Winchester. On July 13-14, the farm workers use a 19th century era<br />
horse powered threshing machine (at left) to separate the seed heads of wheat, oats,<br />
barley and rye from straw stalks. Our 19th and early 20th century Central Ohio farming<br />
ancestors used a machine similar to this. The wheat is planted in October, lies<br />
dormant in the winter, grows again in the spring, and ripens in July when it is harvested.<br />
After threshing, the wheat is sold for profit, fed to livestock, and some is saved for<br />
seed. Pictured here, wheat stalks are tossed into the thresher from the farm wagon.<br />
Threshing is hot, dusty work. One worker stands atop a wagon piled high with wheat<br />
and uses a pitchfork to toss the wheat to another who runs it through the thresher.<br />
After the wheat is separated the straw flies out a chute where another worker piles it<br />
up. A Slate Run Living Historical Farm worker (above) drives the horses in a circle to<br />
to drive an apparatus of belts and gears to power the threshing machine.
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