September23
Now that the first day of fall has passed, this post seems somehow timely even though it is a couple of weeks old.
The local Yamhill County Historical Society put on a Harvest Fest a few weeks ago, and we were lucky to take Papa and the kids along with us. The Historical Society is an up and coming organization in our area that has a goal of restoring items that teach us about our history as a community. They work to put on festivals to gather people and show them how we have come as a farming community. We went to the 150 year celebration they held for the state of Oregon back in February, and I was excited to go to the Harvest Fest.
They started the day off with a parade of tractors. They own hundreds of tractors that have been donated to the society. Many of them work, and many of them have been restored to working order by the volunteers. It was fun to see all the different tractors that were used on farms in our county. The other cool thing is that they know the history of many of the tractors, whose farm they were on for how long.
Daphne watched from her daddy’s shoulders. She was very interested.

Totally unrelated, but she was having a good hair day. Look at those wonderful curls.

Back in April, they used the old farm equipment to plant a field of oats, so the point of the harvest fest was to cut the oats, save the grain and bale the resulting straw.
I was delighted to see that they were using mules to help with some of the work. By the way, look at those lovely clouds. It was the PERFECT day!

This was the machine that took the bundles of oats from the field and pulled off the grain (I think it is called a thresher). The long belt along the front of the photo was connected to a tractor. Again, ooh and ahhh at the lovely clouds.

We got to walk through the building where all the tractors are stored. It was fun to look at them all up close and personal. There are some lovely specimens in the building. One really adorable thing is that Daphne walked by this tractor and pointed out to me that it was missing an eye. SOOOOOOO CUTE! I think when you look at the tractor thinking it is missing an eye that you have the potential to see so much personality in it.

We then made it to another part of the festival where they had a tractor set up that kids were allowed to climb on and play with. Daphne was a little shy at first, but she got the hang of it, and she really enjoyed sitting up there after a while.


They have an old covered wagon set up with a bunch of different things. There are old chicken cages and toys from long ago. They have a buffalo hide and some other cool things to look at. The kids are allowed to get up and climb on the wagon to see what it is like to drive it. I must say that making a trip to Missouri to Oregon in one does not seem like a fun summer.

Daphne was really interested in all the activities. This is a photo of the back end of the threshing machine. All of the straw gets blown away and put in a big stack to be baled later. Daphne loved it. This shows how she was all day. Head turned to the action!

Look at that pile of straw! Don’t forget to admire the clouds.

The oats were lovely looking. Definitely ready to be harvested.

I got a chance to grab a portrait of Daphne in front of the golden oats. The good hair day combined with the overcast clouds and the golden color of the oats made for a very lovely portrait indeed.

We got to grab a good ol fashioned lunch of hotdogs and hamburgers with papa.

After lunch, it was time to get some baling done. This is the old baler that they were using.

Daphne thought it was VERY intersting.

We even got to see them working on the machine that cuts the oats. It is a tw0-man operation. One man drives the tractor and cuts and the other man pulls the lever to dump the clipping when there are enough of them. Really cool operation.

What a handsome tractor.

These are the bunches that then go into the thresher.

Daphne showed me a stalk of oats they had cut.

I even got Papa to stop with Daphne in front of an old car for a quick photo. That car was awesome. It is an original Model T. I would adore driving one myself.

After watching the harvesting and the big equipment demos, we headed over to the educational center. Daphne found a washing board, and she got to work on the laundry. She was still there 30 minutes later working hard at cleaning the socks.


When we did finally manage to drag Daphne away from washing the clothes, she got to sit in the covered wagon and be a pioneer.

On our way out, they had a blacksmith station with people demonstrating the skill of iron work. It was fascinating to watch. Daphne loved seeing the fire.

We had a total blast on so many levels. I got to snuggle with Cyprus the entire time while he slept in my sling. Jared and Papa got to walk around talking and hanging out with Daphne. Papa got to see some of the old equipment that was being used when he was a farm kid. He knows an AWFUL lot about those machines. How cool is that? We enjoyed the educational aspect and the fun activities for kids. This is definitely an event that we will be doing yearly.