Dufur Threshing Bee & Car Show Puts a nice shine on Sunday
Dufur, Ore., Aug. 13, 2023 - Dufur created a nice laid-back event with its Threshing Bee and Car show on Sunday as people were beckoned to take a look at the past, ride some horses or take in some beautiful classic cars.
But for four-year-old Trey Boggs, it was all about that Pink Panther in his family’s 1970 Plymouth All-American Racer Cuda. That’s right. Mopar baby!
Trey Boggs
“Come on,” he said. “Come look.”
The boy from St. Helens raced around the side of the Cuda and quickly pointed in the front seat.
It was his favorite pal behind the wheel of that Muscle Car.
“Look, look,” he said pointing.
Cuda Envy!
And just up the road and equally entertaining were Kathy Bostick and her dad, Thomas.
They were working on a 1930 McCormick-Deering threshing machine - winding up 30-foot-long belts and demonstrating how the machine used claws, fans and screens to separate the wheat from the chaf and eliminate straw. It was stationary and driven by a steam tractor.
Kathy said she has been helping out on the demonstrations on and off for some 25 years as her Dad and her grandpa and grandma Wayne and Camille Ryan had done before her.
“It’s about family, legacy, history and a lost art,” she said, stating the combination has kept her volunteering over the years.
Thomas Bostick examines the intake for the thresher.
Thomas Bostick also showed off the Binder - or cycle that was pulled by horses to cut the wheat and then had additional arms to spill the cut wheat in a row along its side. The wheat then had to be pitch forked onto a wagon and taken back to the threshing mahcine.
Kathy and Thomas Bostick examine the Binder which cuts and piles wheat in a row along its side.
It took crews of 20 plus workers, and horses, to complete a harvest that might have been able to handle 500 acres. And that does not include the cook shack and the dawn-to-dusk task of feeding the people in the field. Cooks dressed in dresses from neck to ankle were the hardest workers in the bunch, said Thomas.
Now, a modern combine - literally combines all of these tools and is, of course, self-propelled and can cut, thresh and auger clean wheat into a nearby bank out wagon or truck. And it only takes three to five people to do it, cutting 5,000 acres a year.
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