Hay, Hummers, and Horsepower

E and I drove to Elnora Indiana today to the 23rd Antique Show. They had over 700 antique tractors. Antique cars and trucks, steam engines, gas engines and lots more. They were making cider, sorghum syrup, soap, homemade ice cream, (and was it ever tasty!) and lots of other things. There were rows and rows of booths of antiques of every description! We didn't get to see it all, because we didn't get there until late morning, I think about 10:30. If you go, get there EARLY! Sorry, you will have to plan to go next year, as Sept. 9 is the last day. It is so worth a whole day to see it. Seeing the antique machinery running was what I liked best, and of course the people watching. It is located in an area that has a lot of Amish and Mennonite people and there were many of them there, enjoying the day. It threatened rain all day, but didn't rain a drop, until we were about half way home to Spencer.
Here are some images from our day:

This is a steam powered sawmill. These men cut a huge log into boards,

and this is the steam engine that made it possible. Her name was Kitten and she burned coal.
This is a horsepowered threshing machine. It is a treadmill for horses! These three horses sure weren't getting anywhere fast on this piece of machinery.

Here is the rear view

and the front view. It looked like hard work for these horses. But they just walked and walked, as the straw was fed into the thresher.

And this was a mule powered straw baler. After it was threshed, it came over here to be baled as the mules walked around in a circle packing it into wire tied bales.

This is a corn shucker if I remember right. The stalks were fed into it, and the ears were seperated from the stalks. An Amish young man with his young son about 3 years old stopped as we were watching this work, and told E that he and his dad used one of these every year to shuck their corn crop.

This is what E and I did earlier this week. E bought a used sickle bar mower and after adjusting, repairing, oiling and carving down a board to make a new pitman arm, he cut our back pasture for hay. A couple of days later,

he baled it and used his bigger tractor for the first time in the fields. We got a grand total of 38 bales of hay!! Last year we got about 100 bales! But this has been the driest year since we have been here, and the hay just didn't grow. But it was not just us, everyone is having hay problems. They are selling for 5.00 a bale and up. In a normal year they sell for 2.50 in the field and 3.25 off of the wagon. And that is for cheap mixed grass! I'm afraid to ask what orchard grass/alfalfa sells for! Yikes! Lets hope we don't have a longggg, coldddd, winter!

The hummingbirds are thick around my feeders. I have three feeders up, and there are sometimes 5 or 6 hummers, all fighting each other, over the right to defend that feeder from any or all others! They squeak and zoom past my head when I am standing on the porch. They aren't after me, but just the other hummers that take every opportunity to rush in and get a drink! They are fun to watch, but it looks exhausting, all that constant chasing of each other. It is both males and females that do it. This one paused on a branch by my kitchen window long enough for me to take her photo.