What do I do with my crop? (Storing Grain, Part I)

Ask the typical city dweller to define elevator and he or she will probably say it is a conveyance to lift passengers to the top of tall buildings.  Ask a farmer, and he or she will explain it is a place to store grain.  However, granaries and elevators have changed a great deal since Isaac's time.

Isaac stored grain many different ways.  For example, he partitioned his hennery to use one side to store corn. You can see Isaac's design for a new hennery at "Isaac Raises Chicks with a Broody  Hen," 8-29-2013.  At one point, when all his other storage was full, he used the bed of his wagon for several days.  He also built a small wooden granary to hold his wheat and corn, but he definitely resorted to storing grains and other produce in his house as well.  On February 4, 1891, he wrote in his journal:  "...found it necessary for safety sake to place extra prop under 2d floor of my basement to avoid maybe an unexpected 2d rate funeral, too much seed corn & trash overhead."  I love his little joke with himself about the risk of his house falling in on top of him from the weight of too many barrels and sacks of grain.

Sacks and barrels were the common means of transporting and storing grain in early times, and the slow and labor intensive job of loading wagons and boats took days and weeks, not to mention much sweat and many aching backs.

The photograph at the top of this blog was taken in the early 1920s at my Grandfather Beck's farm.  My father is the boy on the horse, riding with his sister Merle and pulling his brother Arthur.  In the background is the granary.  Notice the cupola on the roof.  That granary, minus the cupola, remained on the farm until my father's death.

Although wooden granaries continued to be used, round metal grain bins gradually replaced them, offering more protection against rodents and weather.  When I paused to photograph the aging wooden and metal structures at right, standing side-by-side in a field, I found that the wooden building had a partition in the middle with no door between the two sides.  I concluded that it was used as a granary, especially because of the door in the gable end.  The two structures are an interesting example of a wooden granary standing side-by-side with the metal bin that replaced it.

Next week's blog will continue to share ways grain has been stored over the years.

Isaac Raises Chicks with a Broody Hen

Isaac's design for a new Hennery

After designing an incubator from a wooden coffee box for his first flock of chickens, (See blog "Isaac builds an Incubator," 8/22/2013) Isaac went in search of fertilized eggs among his neighbors' flocks the following year, apparently not willing to depend on his own roosters.  Fortunately, the neighbors on whom he called were not at home, and the second day he found a farmer with more "Broody Hens" and fertilized eggs than he needed.  When a hen becomes "broody," she generally stops laying eggs, becoming busy enough setting the fertilized eggs she has laid.  Because too many hens brooding means reduced production of eggs, farmers are sometimes willing to sell the "Broody Hen" with her eggs and any other fertilized eggs he can spare to tuck under the hen.

 

Even with hens to hatch the eggs rather than the chore of using an incubator, Isaac found that raising chicks was not always easy.  On August 8, 1886, he wrote in his journal:  "Having 50 little chicks to attend to now, one hen tending 25 of them, many new-comed doing poorly, feeble & die in few days peeping round."

 

He also experienced another problem in October of that year.  "Skunks & coyote around trying at my chickens. Need an iron Hennery."  He had quickly learned that hens wandered off to nest in trees and hide their eggs from him, so he designed a proper hennery.  Even then the skunks continued getting at his hens.  "Last night a skunk in Hennery.  I after him with hammer.  He killed my young pet chicken of the whole flock..."  In an effort to foil the skunks, he added a new feature:  "I busy at Hennery to make it more 'skunk proof.'  Got 6' x 6' bin up by roosting time for them to feel more safe over nights."

 

Entries in his journal reveal that keeping the hennery snug and the chickens safe from skunks was an ongoing job for Isaac.