Wheat cut, bound old-fashioned way

GENTRY - On a hot and steamy Thursday afternoon, members of the Tired Iron of the Ozarks met at the Charlie Lacy Farm in the Logan Community to cut wheat, not with an air conditioned combine, but the old-fashioned way, with a binder.

Lacy pulled the old binder behind a small tractor, with a club member riding on the antique harvesting machine and with a foot pedal and lever controlling the binding of the bundles of cut wheat and ejecting them where they could be manually picked up and stacked to dry.

Even for club members, it was a first for some to sit on the binder as the wheat was harvested.

“This is what it’s all about,” club president Glenn Smith said as children and youth not only watched but helped in the wheat binding on Thursday.

Those who didn’t get to help with the binding went out and stacked the sheaves in the field to dry.

One of the club’s primary objectives is to show younger generations how farm and household work was carried out in the early 20th century with old tractors, engines and farm machinery.

Lacy said he’d not leave the sheaves in the field as long this summer because the deer ate much of the wheat.

“I’ll leave the deer a shock or two,” Lacy said, planning to load the rest on a wagon and cover it until the fall show of the Tired Iron of the Ozarks - Sept. 6-8 - when it will be used for the club’s threshing machine demonstration.

Lacy owns the binder and threshing machine used for the demonstrations.

The fall antique engine and tractor show will be held at the club’s show grounds on Taylor Orchard Road, just southwest of Gentry. The shows are open to the public and admission is free.