He got his fill of combines and tractors when he saw the John Deere dealers along the highways and the endless fields of corn and wheat between towns.
My grandson, Jonah, has his own love for farm machinery. When he was only two years old he could tell us the colors of each make of farm equipment. Most people know that John Deeres are always green but did you know that Fords are blue, Molines are yellow and International Harvesters are red? I did not know that until my two year old grandson taught me.What a treat it was for Peter to have his brother-in-law take him and the other boys out to where a real life-size grain harvest was happening!
Watching farm machinery at work...what could be better?
The stuff little boy's dreams are made of.
But to walk down the road from the modern day harvest is to step back in time to another era.
I had read about these types of shocks of grain in the Little House on the Prairie books. Mr. Dirtywrench had seen them decades ago in the farm country where he grew up.
The Amish still harvest their grain without modern equipment. No tractors or combines, only horses and wagons and lots of muscle and sweat.
Their concession to modern advances was this antique grain separator. It was powered by a diesel engine and a long belt.
The men forked the shocks into the machine...
And the straw was sent up the chute into the mow of the barn while the grain poured out another chute into a wagon.
Peter and Sam got to help the barefoot Amish boys spread the grain in the wagon.
I think this week in America's farm country will be one that Peter will always remember.