Thursday at the fair 2013

It was too hot this afternoon to go to the fair, so I waited until evening. After talking to several people, I discovered a huge audience in the Community Building. It was not just the air conditioning that brought the people in. It was the event, the presenting of various and numerous 4H awards.

 I wanted to see the free stage entertainment for the evening, which was a singer named Karli Edging. I talked to her father, who was also her sound man. She is from Delphi, IN and will be a freshman at Purdue this fall.

 If you missed her at the fair, you can see her at the Fall Festival on August 24 at 6:00 pm CST. Her website is www.karliedging.com.

 As I was leaving for the evening, I noticed that there was a threshing demonstration behind the Retired Iron building. This operation is no longer done on farms because it has been rendered obsolete by the modern combine, which combines the picking and the threshing of wheat. But in the old days, the wheat was cut and then brought to the threshing machine.

 Guys use pitch forks to toss the wheat into the machine.

 The machine needs an external power source. I do not know if modern tractors have the power wheel that almost all old tractors have and, before there were tractors, that farm steam engines had. (Here is a picture of a steam engine my late uncle probably restored and owned.)

Notice all the belts on this machine that transfer the power to where it is needed. Very similar belt technology ran the factories of the 19th century.

When the threshing machine is in operation, the grain spits out one pipe and the straw spits out another.

The grandstand show was a rodeo. Tomorrow's grandstand show will be a demolition derby. There does not seem to be a combine demolition derby on the schedule this year.

Update: fixed the link.