HOWDY, NEIGHBOR

We're James and Janice Hoeft, and we farm corn and soybeans and finish hogs in east-central Iowa, same as James's dad and grandpa did on this ground. James restores old tractors in every spare minute he has, which in August is none, and I keep the books for the Prairie Iron Antique Power Club. Somehow that also makes me the one who keeps the web page. James reads it over and corrects me, which is why you'll see his notes in brackets. [James: Only when she's wrong.]

A word about colors. I grew up on a John Deere farm. James grew up on a Farmall farm. We have been married twenty-four years, and the machine shed has both red and green in it, and the argument has never once been settled. [James: It was settled in 1939, when they built the Farmall H.] Our club has every color there is: red, green, orange, gray, yellow and the Minneapolis-Moline fellows, who call theirs Prairie Gold and get touchy if you call it yellow. We don't care what you drive. We care that it runs.

And to everyone asking if we're worried about Y2K: our 1939 John Deere B has no computer, no clock and no starter. You start it by spinning the flywheel by hand. It will run just fine on January 1, 2000. We can't promise the same about the combine.

THE 1999 SHOW & THRESHING BEE
August 13-15, 1999

Well, we did it again, and what a weekend. 212 tractors registered, 64 gas engines, a steam engine, a sawmill, and something like 3,500 people through the gate over three days. Thank you to every member who mowed, hauled, parked cars, poured coffee and picked up trash. You know who you are, and so do we.

The threshing. This is the heart of the show. Joseph Wagner, who is 84 and fired his first steam engine in his dad's threshing ring when he was fourteen, had his 1920 Case steam traction engine belted up to the old wooden threshing machine all three days. Members cut eleven acres of oats with a binder back in July and shocked them by hand, and a crew of men in their seventies and eighties pitched the bundles into the feeder just like they did as boys, while the younger guys tried to keep up. The straw pile got bigger than the barn. Every time Joe blew the whistle the kids came running.

The parade. Sunday afternoon, after the church service on the grounds, every tractor that would start. Don Norden called them out on the loudspeaker, year and make and owner, and it took the better part of an hour. This year's featured make was Oliver, and 23 Olivers came, which is the most green-and-red-wheeled tractors anybody's ever seen in one place in this county.

Plow day. Saturday afternoon, a dozen tractors pulling two-bottom plows one behind the other across the Kinslers' hayfield next to the grounds. Roland Labrecque's old Waterloo Boy plowed the first furrow.

The engines. Robert Lorusso and the gas engine boys had a whole row of hit-and-miss engines popping away all weekend, pumping water, shelling corn, grinding feed and making ice cream. If you've never heard a field full of hit-and-miss engines, it sounds like a slow, happy popcorn popper the size of a football field.

The pie stand. The ladies from the Lutheran church baked and sold 186 pies, which is a new record, and were sold out of rhubarb by Saturday noon and out of everything by three o'clock Sunday. Mary Isaacson says they'll bake 200 next year. Eunice Kinsler, who is 83, says Mary can bake the extra fourteen herself.

The kids' pedal tractor pull. Saturday afternoon, 47 kids pulling the little sled on pedal tractors, three age classes. Winners are on the results page right under the big tractors, where they belong.

The antique tractor pull was Saturday evening, and the results by weight class are on the pull results page. [James: The B was robbed.]

FALL COLOR TRACTOR DRIVE
Saturday, October 16

Line up at the township hall at 9:00 a.m. We'll leave at 9:30 for about 35 miles on gravel roads down through the river bottoms and back over the hills, when the oaks and maples ought to be at their best. Dinner at noon in the Lutheran church basement (bring $5 for the ladies). Back by 3:00, in time to get the beans out if it's dry.

Any tractor that can hold 12 or 13 miles an hour all day is welcome. You must have a slow-moving vehicle emblem on the back and working flashers or a flag. No riders unless your tractor has a real seat for them. Jerry Westphal will bring up the rear with a pickup and a trailer, for whoever needs him.

MEETINGS & MEMBERSHIP

We meet the second Tuesday of every month at 7:30 p.m. at the township hall, four miles south of town on the county blacktop, then a mile west on the gravel. It's the white building with the flagpole and a lot of pickups. Coffee and bars after the meeting, furnished by whoever's turn it is (check the list on the bulletin board).

Dues are $15 a year per family. You get the club newsletter, The Drawbar, free admission to the show for your whole family, and the right to argue about colors at every meeting. You don't need to own a tractor to join. Some of our best members just like to watch, and some of them run the pie stand. Pay me at a meeting or mail it to the club. [James: She means it.]