Tying the past, present

WATKINS, Minn. — Though Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word retire is to “conclude one’s working or professional career,” for Art Kuechle, retirement means collecting threshing machinery.

Kuechle, who retired at 67, is now the owner of a threshing machine, a reaper, a cradle scythe and a binder. He has hosted four threshing shows with the help of his family, the latest of which was held Aug. 8.

“I’m going to be 83 now (and) this will probably be my last time,” Kuechle said. “I enjoy it, but it takes a lot of help. It really takes a lot just to make all the shocks out there (in the field).”

Even though he is technically retired, Kuechle still helps with the crops on his children’s farm — Kuechle Dairy. Kuechle Dairy is operated by siblings Perry Kuechle, Becky Haag, Rhonda Kuechle and Brenda Kuechle. They milk 240 cows in a double-12 herringbone parlor.

Kuechle said there was not a lot of preparation for the show until a week before, other than setting the date, which they did in April.

Roughly a week before the show, the Kuechles cut sections of the oats field with an old-style binder which tied the oats into bundles.

“I picked out certain areas in the field for the old-style binder,” Kuechle said. “Those old binders, you’ve got to give them some tender loving care. They’re going to give you fits.”

Ensuring the threshing equipment is running can be a challenge, Kuechle said.

“Sometimes you go to a machine shop and have somebody make something,” Kuechle said. “If you have the old part, they will make it for you. … So far, we’ve been pretty fortunate. It’s been a little bit of a problem finding belts. Nobody makes these wide belts anymore.”

From there, the oats were hand shocked. A shock is a stack of bundles with the butt ends of the stalk on the ground and the heads leaning on each other, which allows the oats to dry out. Kuechle said they usually put six bundles on a shock. Due to the wet weather this year, the oats were still green when they were cut. The Kuechles decided to only put three bundles in a shock to help ensure they would be dry on time. It took the family about three days to get all the bundles stacked into shocks, Kuechle said.

“There’s a lot of teamwork in threshing oats,” Kuechle said.

The day of the threshing show, Kuechle said they had workers ranging from 14-80 years old. They used six wagons to bring the shocks to the threshing machine; from there, they are individually forked into the threshing machine — a stationary combine — to separate the oat seed from the stalk.

“(Growing up) there would be a team of horses here pulling (each) wagon,’ Kuechle said. “I grew up with horses at first.”

When the threshing was done, guests feasted on 150 pounds of chicken the Kuechles had prepared for dinner and listened to live music for the evening.

“They think it’s fun,” Kuechle said. “They don’t realize that (threshing oats) was part of your life years ago, and it had to be successful.”

Kuechle said he wanted to bring a threshing show to the farm to bring back the past from his childhood.

“It’s happy memories from when I was a boy,” Kuechle said. “We threshed up until I was a sophomore in high school. Up until 1958, we threshed oats the old-fashioned way. (There were) a lot of good memories (and) neighbors working together.”

Although threshing brings back memories for Kuechle, connecting with others is another reason he puts the show together.

“I love getting together with people,” Kuechle said.

While Kuechle may not host another threshing show, he said the goal is to pass the tradition to his family.

Being able to host a threshing show has allowed Kuechle to reminisce about being a kid, working alongside his father, siblings and neighbors to get all the oats threshed.

“It’s got the most memories of working together,” Kuechle said. “Thrashing, that was pretty much a neighborhood affair. Somebody in the neighborhood owned the machine, and then probably six farmers all work together to get their harvesting done.”