German-Russian Stories Continued....

(C) Copyright by

Marvin C. Hoffer

January 21, 1991

Lewistown, MT.

SHOCKING OATS WITH A THREE-TINED FORK,

AND

A JUG OF WARM WATER

by

Marvin C. Hoffer

Mid-August, no breeze, sun at it's peak, and the Dakota Plains baked in shimmering heat. Flying ants with their intensely burning bites attack my "eyes, ears, nose and pester for hours. Sweat seems to be the prime attraction for these hordes which cloud above as I work. The old grain binder was just finishing clattering about half- mile west of me and spewed the last bundles of oats onto the golden stubble. The green and yellow John Deere A, that pulled it, was faster and easier to get going in the morning than the old team of Jake and Mollie. They are back at the farm in the barn munching on a bucket of oats from last year's harvest. Both are permanently "out to pasture" in their waning years, having earned it after bout 22 years pulling a two- bottom sulky plow, a two-row corn cultivator, the old hayrack at threshing time, a McCormick grain binder, and the stone boat for long days of hauling field rocks to the piles that sit like igloos on the glaciated prairie.

By now I could only hear the distant pop-pop-m-pop-pop as Uncle Jacob headed his green machine to the first field of ripening wheat 1.5 miles south of the Home Place. A golden sea of stubble lay before as far as I can see. The little lumps of oat bundles are laid out in neat rows across the field, each with a head full of ripe grain. It looked like at least 66 million bundles, give or take a hundred or two,in a field that appeared as large as the state of S.D.

My work, at age 14, was to stack each bundle plus a dozen more into shocks to protect the oats from weather and migrant wildfowl until threshing time. I had a well-worn, three-tined bundle fork, and about three days to finish shocking this 60-acre field, if it doesn't rain. A bundle fork is specifically designed to handle grain bundles, as a manure fork is for manure, and a table fork is for mashed potatoes and sausage. A specialty tool you could say.

By daylight I had eaten well at the breakfast table after doing the morning chores, filled my earthen water jug at the cool well, and walked the half-mile to the oats field. It was about 7 when I got there, after stopping to listen to a concert by two yellow-breasted meadowlarks, each with a black bow tie and in fine voice. Oh yes, I also stopped, just for a moment though, to smell the holly hocks down by the garden, and to chase two lambs out of the potato field. Potato tops are poison, and the lambs didn't know that. By now the stubble was dry and crackled underfoot as I stuck the fork into the first bundle. Only about a zillion bundles to go!

Shocking grain is a Prairie art form, learned only after some years and seemingly thousands of acres of practice. To begin, take one bundle with its had up at the end of the fork, and set it firmly into the stubble. Hold the fork and bundle with the right hand, set 2-3 bundles around it to establish a center post, and step back a couple of paces to make sure it is all "set right." Then, with flowing motion and great finesse, stab about ten more bundles and set than against the center post. With much practice and an accurate eye I could toss a bundle with the fork about 12 feet to land upright against the shock. A little touch-up around the shock and then top it off with 2-3 bundles to make a water- tight roof over the whole darn thing. Looked good, tight, and all in about 3-4 minutes of purposeful motion, with ample sweat.

Over the years of shocking grain, oats, wheat, rye, barley, corn, and sugar-cane, a man had to have a "system" to get the work done and to reward himself now and then, or else you would be overwhelmed with the magnitude of the thousands of bundles to be shaped into shocks. My process was simple: attack the field at one corner, work clean around the field so as to encircle the task. Once that was achieved, I tamed the field of untold bundles by doing it in chunks.

After each chunk was sheaved into neat shocks, I tossed the fork into the nearest bundle and pulled my water jug from the shade of a shock. Sometimes it took a bit "of searching to find the shock under which I had hidden it from Old Man Sun. It paid to stick a large sunflower stalk into the shock to herald the thirst-quenching jug. The jug had about 3-4 layers of gunny sack wrapped around it which was soaked down in the stock tank to give it evaporative cooling power. By mid-morning the water was warm, but Ah! it slid down my throat with a gurgle to replenish the supply of sweat. Some folks didn't drink enough water. Either they didn't like the taste of it, were too lazy to hike to the jug, or we re too "tough" to drink. They slowed down by mid-morning. You gotta drink more than you sweat -- Rule One.

Some years the 60-acre oats field held twice as many bundles as it did the year before, depending on the amount of rain those clouds dumped on it. It often took more than 3 days to finish that field. Most years it was neatly stacked in gold shocks, and the loose oats, which the binder had not tied properly, were hauled to the milk cows as a special treat, by the evening of the third day.

Early in the fall my hands were soft, and the bundle fork demanded calloused hands. The smooth wood of the fork handle, often painted, slid a couple of million times through my left hand. As a reward, my left hand had dime-size blisters by the end of the first day. Gloves were OK for softies, but didn't permit getting a good grip on the handle. So, it was an annual ritual to suffer through the first week, then the hands toughened for the task. But during that week, pure, undiluted pain would stab clean up to my elbows, and beyond, when I forgetfully wiped my sweaty brow and that salty sweat hit those blisters. It can make you pucker-up and grunt, but not loud enough for anyone to hear, lest they think you are not "up to the mark" for the work.

After I threw that last bundle on top the shock to cap it off, and took a good long guzzle from the warm jug, I stepped back to lean on my fork handle and eyeballed the job. Yep, looked good! The shocks will hold their heads up high and stay dry through the powerful thunderstorms. A man can always tell if the guy you hired, at a dollar an acre to shock your grain, did the right job or not, by how many shocks were "bare headed" after the first thunderstorm. Some folks haphazardly threw the bundles into a pile, with heads touching the ground, then sort of covered than with more bundles so it looked a bit like a shock from a distance. But, when it came threshing time, the bundles had taken root as the oats germinated. Much loss, for lack of ability, interest, or hustle. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing well.

Some years later my Dad showed me some shocks, or the remains of than, in a full field of wheat on the Hank Mueller, Jr. farm. The field was perfectly shocked, and the stubble a bright yellow carpet, except for 3 black circles in the field. At close examination it was apparent that those three, and only those three, shocks had burned. But by what hand? How did they burn without the rest of the field burning? My Dad said "They were hit by cold lightning." He explained that "cold lightning" burns instantly, vaporizes the object it hits, and in a rain the field doesn't burn. A "hot lightning" will burn the shock and ignite the entire field. I have never doubted that rational explanation, and have seen similar situations in forested timbered land of the West. But, at age 14 or so, it was a great revelation, and I would on occasion, present that explanation to others at harvest. Maybe more to let them know that I knew how those things worked. Great knowledge had to the shared.

Well, I haven't shocked a field of grain in some decades, but know that I could muster the strength and perseverance to make that bundle fork perform it's orchestrated motions and eventually create perfect shocks from scattered bundles. As I drive around the Great Plains my knowing eye catches sight of the antiquated forms of rusting grain binders, see a fine team of draft horses munching dandelions in their twilight years, and the form of a fine threshing machine on a high hill. Like a relic dinosaur howling at the moon calling mournfully to others of its kind on distant hills. Do you hear them?

There doesn't appear to be much, if any, consideration left in our society for the relatively recent cultural era where sweat, hard labor, and more work were the staff of life. The equipment and methods of that era have been relegated to the rock pile, and in its place have come mechanized equipment and techniques with minimal sweat and toil. But when its all said and done, there are fewer more satisfying scenes than a field of grain shocks at sunset, while I lean on a bundle fork handle with my aching back and arms and give thanks that it is finished. Now for some supper, rest, for the next 120 acres of bundles....

.......Finish.....