Faith Family Shredding Day
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Kim Tschudy
In his book, The Land Remembers, Ben Logan writes, once you have lived on the land, been a partner with its moods, secrets, and seasons, you cannot leave, touching you in unguarded moments, saying, you are part of me. Let me hear the drying plants rattle somewhere in a cold wind and I am with the corn-shredding crew.
And so it was this past Saturday, a day, just as Ben Logan described, when the Bob and Nancy Faith family invited guests to their farm south of Monticello for their annual corn shredding day, an event that they have been holding for 10 years.
Friends and neighbors got together earlier in the month and put up 80 corn shocks to be run through the corn shredders on Saturday. The day's events, despite a cold wind, warmed the hearts of those who had come to help with the shredding. Many of the helpers were too young to have been a part of the shredding crews of 60 years ago, as they made the rounds of the neighborhood getting everyone's corn shelled, and the stalks shredded, to carry over through the approaching winter.
The crews began work at 9:00 a.m. Just as the 1931 Model A Ford pick-up truck came through to announce that dinner was being served, the crews were shutting down the machinery, their work done for the year, their stomachs growling for nourishment, provided by the traditional shredding day dinner at Noon.
Kim Tschudy
In the heated building, the wives were busy putting the final touches on a dinner that would have done any shredding crew of six decades ago proud. All joined hands in a communal prayer, for the good food they were about to dine on. As the workers, and their families, 200 strong, ate their dinner, Ruth Marty, Hank Blumer and John Waelti entertained on their accordions.
One of the highlights of the day was Jim Faith's 1919 Case steam powered tractor. It's been said of Jim, that when he was a very small kid, he could take anything apart and put it back together and make it run properly.
Life has a way of changing, and this particular Case tractor is a good example; it was lovingly rebuilt by Jim Faith, who now takes apart much bigger things and puts them back together, and in the process turns them into a work of art.
