Heartland Safari

More archaeology behind the house. The winnowing body of a threshing machine lies on its side, discarded but not forgotten, in the woods on Owl Acres. At its most basic, the threshing machine is a wind box. It blows air upward though an agitated mass of plant materials: straw, chaff, and grain. The grain falls to the bottom and the lighter materials are carried up and away, to be blown into a straw stack on the ground. Moving arms called straw walkers, visible in the photo, work the stems toward the back where they’re blown out. The “shoe,” a shaking frame which carries the sieves, is also visible below the straw walkers. Barely visible through the tangle of brush is the drum-shaped blower housing, source of the wind that makes it all happen. The grain is collected at the bottom of the machine and fed into an elevator for loading to a wagon.

Labor Saver: Threshing Machine

Updated February 17, 2025

Out in the woods on Owl Acres, along with several other pieces of once-valuable farm equipment, lies part of a threshing machine. The inhabitants of Owl Acres most likely used it to thresh oats which were then fed to the cattle and horses. The first step in harvesting the grain—oats or wheat or barley—was to […]

History

Steel cut oats in a white glass dish shine in the afternoon sun. Cook ‘em. Yum.

Food for All: Oats

Updated February 10, 2025

Just about my favorite breakfast is oatmeal. Steel-cut oats cooked on the stove with sorghum, raisins, black walnuts and maybe an apple mixed in. Add a pat of butter and a few sprinkles of salt for that little extra. I make up a batch on the weekend and then warm up servings throughout the week. […]

Unlovely photo of a derelict piece of farm machinery, discarded into the woods. A tree limb fell across it years ago and is there today. It emerges from the dense understory each fall. Called a “section of harrow” by old timers, it’s a frame holding four parallel bars, each studded with 5-inch-long teeth, spaced every 8 inches along its length and staggered. Bars are pivoted like axles to bring their teeth into more or less aggressive contact with the soil following primary and secondary tillage (plowing and disking). Pulled behind a team or a tractor to break up clods and prepare a smooth seedbed for planting.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Harrows

Updated February 3, 2025

What do you do with a piece of farm equipment when you have no more use for it? The ideal answer is probably to load it up and take it to a disposal site such as a landfill or a recycling center. That’s not what farmers have done for generations though. The standard practice, carried […]

History

A discarded, ground-driven manure spreader emerges from the tangle of forest floor vegetation every fall. The implement is a horse- or tractor-drawn wagon with a moving floor and whirling beaters attached at the rear. When operating, chains and bars scrape along the bottom of the wagon box and deliver material to the spinning spreaders, which pulverize the manure and fling it wide and far onto the ground behind. Power comes from the team (or tractor) through gears driven by the rear wheels. Angled lugs stud the wheel rims. The lugs grip the soil and transfer power to run the machinery.

Innovation in the Heartland: Manure spreader

Updated January 27, 2025

When I was about ten years old, I had a vacation from school that my sisters didn’t have. So I was home with Mom and Dad without competition for attention. I wanted to help Dad outside instead of practicing my ironing, which I hated. It was spring, and Dad’s job for the day was cleaning […]

History

Another insect on the screen on the south side of the house on a cool fall day. It looks like a honeybee (a drone honeybee at that), but is a Common Drone Fly. It has a rotund body with circling tan bands, hair all over, large compound eyes covering most its head. It’s a fly, with only one pair of membranous flight wings, unlike the bee’s two pairs.

Master Mimic: Common Drone Fly

Updated January 20, 2025

On a late fall day, another type of insect clings to the screen. It reminds us of a bee with its fuzzy black and yellow stripes, but it has two translucent, membranous wings instead of four and bristles sticking out of its antennae. Also, unlike a bee, this critter has no waist and no stinger. […]

Insects and Spiders

A skeleton of a bat against a black background. The wings and legs are spread, showing the same set of bones that make up a human’s arms and legs with five fingers and toes at the end of each limb.

Bones: Comparative Anatomy

Updated March 24, 2025

By Dr. Jessica LaPrice Dr. LaPrice teaches biology at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. Recently I visited her at her university where she showed me a goat skeleton once used in a comparative anatomy class. It reminded me just how similar our skeletons are to Dave’s and Clancy’s, and even to that goat. […]

Karen sits by the fireplace in a domestic moment with her dogs. Dave, the Yellow Lab working dog, sits at her feet in his usual, supplicant “pleeez feed me!” pose. Clancy, the Golden Retriever pet, assumes a somewhat undignified, submissive attitude under her bare feet.

The Canine Component: Dave and Clancy

Updated January 6, 2025

There’s a lot of living going on outside on Owl Acres, but there’s also a lot of living going on inside the house. The principal actors, besides the humans, are two beautiful canines—Dave and Clancy. These two beings bring a verve and energy to our world that wouldn’t be here if we didn’t invite them […]

Fraser Fir that drew the honor (misfortune?) of being our Christmas Tree this year, in its place in the living room. Tall and cone-shaped, it’s hung with baubles accumulated over years. The antique, incandescent lights connect today into the flow of yesterdays and tomorrows.

Christmas Tree: Fraser Fir

Updated December 30, 2024

Author’s note: I’m taking an unusual step to anchor today’s post in a moment. A reader has offered a comment, which I heartily endorse. Here it is: “Jimmy was probably the only kind and good hearted politician in history… Have a good 2025. It will likely be an interesting year.” One year when I was […]

The morning after an ice storm on Owl Acres. The trees are coated in glass, turned crystal by the rising sun. A ghost image of the barn is visible through the tangle of defoliated trees in the foreground.

It’s About Layers: Ice Storm

Updated December 23, 2024

The world is covered in ice. Ice on the porch; ice on the railing; ice on the sidewalk; ice on the power lines. Ice-covered branches tick against each other, filling the soundscape with confetti. The wind chimes, usually authoritative in their announcement of wind from the southeast, are coated with ice. Instead of their bright, […]

Weather

The mud and grass nest of a barn swallow sticks to the side of a joist in the shed

Grace and Beauty: Barn Swallow

Updated December 16, 2024

We have an old shed on Owl Acres where we keep firewood and the Farmall “A” tractor that Bryan uses for mowing. Inside the shed, up against one of the beams, is a carefully constructed nest. It’s made of mud and straw and has one side plastered against the beam. The nest was built in […]

Birds