Popcorn time!

As promised I took a few pictures today with my vintage corn harvester.  I need to do a little research to figure out exactly how old it is, but they made this model until 1962 so it is at least 48 years old.  It's really a neat machine and these machines were used until the ag industry came up with self propelled machines that would husk and shell the ears all in one.  It can handle two rows at once, but it is made for 56 inch rows and my planter which is only slightly newer than this plants 30 inch rows - therefore I only can use the outside row.

The corn goes in the front and there are two rollers spinning very fast that suck down the stalks.  When the ear of corn hits the rollers it pops off and goes up an elevator into a series of spinning rubber coated rollers which then suck off the husks.  They come out the side as you see below.  The corn then travels up another elevator into a wagon that is pulled behind.  The picture below is taken from the right side of the machine.

 This picture is what all the gears, chains, belts and other dangerous moving parts look like.  This drives all the different moving parts.  This is all driven by the PTO (Power take off)  from the tractor - I would have taken pictures explaining all of these things, but unless you can see these things they probably aren't all that interesting.

I took this last one while I was picking I ended up with a little more than double this amount of popcorn - mostly husked and ready to get shelled and dried.  I walked back through the field after I picked it and only found a few missed ears of corn.  If I would have picked and husked all of this corn by hand it would have taken me at between 8-16 hours of work and I probably would have missed more than this machine did.  This took me about 40 minutes (20 of that was fixing a chain that had jumped off it's sprockets).  I can't wait for 20 years from now when I can afford to buy a machine that was made in the 1980s that does all the husking and shelling in one step!  

I still have two more varieties of popcorn to harvest, I want to get this drying before I do that.  This is some hybrid yellow popcorn.  My favorite will be next - the shaman blue (or purple) and a new variety Lazer - which has red and brown striped kernels.

So I've been thinking I need to keep updating about the fall around here.  I've been more busy than I would have liked to have been this fall.  Still not sure how this keeps happening to me, but I guess for the most part that's OK since it keeps me out of trouble.  I've picked all the Indian Corn (I suppose Native American corn would be more appropriate) and I have never seen such vibrant colors in corn before.  Opening the husk of each ear is like unwrapping a present.  These were my favorites, they almost don't even look real.

What's fun about this is that there is a corn field around my property this year and I peeked at some of the corn there and found some ears here and there that have a spattering of colored kernels.  It's probably not enough for them to notice considering that it is a 155 acre field and if there is a good harvest it will yield about 250 bushels of corn per acre.  A bushel of corn weighs about 70 lbs depending on the moisture content.  So doing that math they will take away 2,712,500 lbs of corn from that field and given that amount of corn a few colored kernels will probably not be noticed - but for those that do I can imagine them wondering where these crazy colored kernels came from.

Next on the harvest agenda will be popcorn.  I think I will do quite well this year.  I plan on getting my harvesting machine all fired up this week and if I can remember I will take a few pictures in action.  I don't think they will do much justice though.  I will try to show how much of a death trap this thing could be.  It's probably about 50 years old and has only minimal safety guards on it.  It's the sort of machine that chops off fingers or rips off arms or other appendages with out even slowing down.  Since I always make sure it isn't running when I am off the tractor there isn't too much to worry about.

I am hoping that after October is done and all the crops are harvested, all the pumpkins are plowed under and the snow starts to fly that I will be able to have some rest.  I sort of doubt it though, my next project could involve more than I have ever taken on before and whether or not I will do it is something I will decide on in the next few weeks.  I want to write more about it, but I am exhausted right now and need some well deserved rest.