Stay Out of the Oat Bin

Across the Fence #561

A ride through Amish Country and seeing fields filled with shocks of oats or an old abandoned threshing machine, rekindles memories of days long ago. What was once a common sight on most farms is now the exception, unless you take a drive through Amish Country.

I still remember the threshing machine powered by a steam engine at our farm when I was very young. Neighbors would go from farm to farm with their teams of horses, and later with tractors, to help each other harvest the oats. It was a great time and very exciting to us young kids.

Don't know who the men on the threshing machine are.

My cousin, Sandy, who was three years older than me, lived with us. We were more like brother and sister than cousins. 

Sandy and Howard. Notice she has hold of my hand. Probably tying to keep me out of the oat bin... or dragging me to it. :-)

We were too young to help, but it was exciting to watch all the action. We’d sit for hours at a safe distance and watch the threshing crew as they drove their wagons alongside the big, rumbling threshing machine and unload the shocks of oats. They’d pitch the shocks onto a conveyor belt and they would disappear into the big, gray machine. The straw and chaff would blow out the end of a long pipe and into a pile of straw that grew larger as the day went on. The separated oats would come out another opening where a man holding a gunnysack would catch them. When a sack was full, it was set aside and another was used. Eventually, the full sacks were loaded on another wagon and hauled to the granary where they were dumped into the oat bins.

I remember the whole process as being hot and dusty, with the air filled with the blowing chaff from the dry straw. It would stick to the sweaty arms and faces of the men and was not a good place to be if you suffered from hay fever! 

Sometimes, Sandy and I would get to ride with Dad to the field on the empty wagon. Then he’d hoist each of us onto the backs of the large work horses and we’d ride on the horses while he picked up the shocks and loaded them on the wagon. We hung on for dear life to the silver balls on the horse collar as the horses slowly walked along pulling the wagon. We thought we were king and queen of the world perched high up on those huge horses. When the wagon was full, he lifted us off the horses and set us on top of the load of oats for the ride back to the threshing machine. Then we’d get to drink cold water out of the same Mason jar as the “real” workers. That water was often stained with tobacco juice!

While we were having fun “helping” thresh, my mother and grandmother were busy in the kitchen preparing huge meals for all the hungry threshing crew. When I was older I heard neighbors tell how they loved to help at our place because of the great meals they received!     

When the threshing was done, the oat bins were filled to the top. Dad repeatedly cautioned us not to go in the oat bins. He said the oats were like quicksand. We could drown if we crawled in the bin and tried to walk on the oats. 

Well, that’s all we had to hear, “Don’t do something,” and we knew we needed to try it!  One day Sandy and I headed for the granary. We made sure no one was watching before we opened the door and went inside. We closed the door behind us so no one would see that we’d ventured in where we’d been told not to go. Sandy climbed up the side of the bin, went over the top, and stepped into the oats. I followed. My brother, David, was too young at the time to climb up the bin. 

We ventured out on the oats, which we quickly found were very slippery. Just as Dad had warned us, it was like quicksand. We started sinking and began to panic. We suddenly found ourselves up to our waists. The harder we struggled, the more it sucked us in! We couldn’t get out and were really scared. I think people could literally “drown” in an oats bin. 

Sandy being older and taller, with longer arms, was finally able to reach the edge and grabbed hold of a board. She managed to pull herself out of the oats. Once she was in a position where she could hold onto the side of the bin, she reached out and grabbed my arm. After much struggling, she finally pulled me to safety also. 

I don’t remember this part, but Sandy said later, we clung to the side of the oat bin, our little hearts beating a mile a minute, with tears running down our cheeks. It had really put a scare into both of us.

Needless to say, we didn’t try that again. We also didn’t tell anyone what we had done out of fear of being punished, especially not the folks. Not until many years later did we admit to our oat bin adventure!

Sandy and I must have been quite a handful for my folks when we were young! In later years, I told Sandy, it must have been her that always got us into trouble. It certainly couldn’t have been me!

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