By Ted Weisenburger, Phoenix, Arizona

I grew up on a farm too and some of my memories are a bit different. The bundles were called bundles. We went through the field and set them up-right so that the heads of the grain would be off the ground -- seven or eight bundles stacked together were called shocks. And going through the field behind the binder to set up the bundles was called "shocking".

The header was another machine that just cut the heads off the grain. This was used during the drought in the 30's when the grain didn't grow tall enough to cut with a binder. The grain was cut with a header and elevated directly into the header box. That is why one side was lower. That is the side where the grain came into the box from the header. The grain was then stacked in two stacks separated wide enough to pull the threshing machine between the two stacks and the grain was pitched into the threshing machine from the stacks.

In 1936 was the last year we used the header although the header box was around for a while. In 1936 we moved from Tuttle to New Rockford area, where the grain grew a little taller and we no longer needed the header.

I remember the header and header box and seeing them thresh the stacks of grain, but I wasn't old enough to participate then, but I do remember shocking. That was hard work.