ISU Media Message Episode #14

good evening and welcome to the ISU media message I'm Bob Linda Meyer so shi'ite director of the media Resources Center and I'm very pleased tonight to introduce my guest the founder of the film production unit here at Iowa State Steve Knutson welcome to the program Steve thank you very much when you speak of founder I'm reminded of the how it started which was with a spring wound camera and wooden tripod well there you are from there on we went and now it's almost exclusively electronic that's right well we're we're going to go back to the old times with our first film tonight it's about horses when we farmed with horses right yes that pretty much covers the same span when the customary arrangement was what we call the family farm much more so than it is today each family member playing over quite a role and it's roughly from Oh 1915 to 1919 20s it will be looking at in this particular film okay so but most of this is recreation you went back and found teams of horses to put this together that's right the recreation is about two-thirds but maybe a lot more than that but we also had some pieces some remnants that were left over from films that we shot much earlier back in the 50s and it was these that sort of gave us the idea let's put them together shoot some additional footage and and put it out as when we farmed with horses all right well let's see it here it is Steve Knutson film when we farmed with horses I was always just a small farmer we were farming in dales and I could use a big disk or big plow but most of my famine was done with forces what was Barney bill invited him up together then we had one dick yeah the addiction of more than once in we had more than cake I mean Molly Jack and Widow bill and then we had one we named after neighbors girl and her name was Shirley and I always got in trouble for yell and Shirley when we drive by their farm when they grande it with all farmers all the way up to over here from England and homesteaded down there and one day will come I died on homestead button after my attorney most the farms around our area were quarter sections of land hundred sixty acres and we had to meet he crossed the road John Leland's is 240 and that was a big farm you know you go to breaking up new ground it hadn't been broke up took a lot of horsepower to get that turned over they tried first of all with cast iron plows which didn't scour yeah that steel breaking plow had longer moldboard so it tipped it on over more you see these short ones your size was the tough they tipped back on you when you've got a crop residue of corn or wheat or whatever the crop bars that you're going that's quite different if you went to plough on the spring and that wouldn't scour I didn't do an awful or a job just rode along like an old old you know for years and years you see we we had a thing about whether or not a guy was a good farmer and one of the criteria was how clean he could plow his field which meant he wanted to plow all of that stuff under and they worked quite hard at this can you still have an oil can on the end of the field and oil him for the night in case for the drain so they wouldn't catch show they were often they've been in one of Scour so would 40 means flour was generally pulled by a team of horses and 16 is required to your says that was customary course pop time you started to move for every well you know what happened you hit a rock we dug that out then you keep on going i furnished a team of picked up rock if you worked hard like i made fifty cents a day i'm so i thought i was really rolling the money we get bills don't go closer than we'd head for the fence line where we had a rock pile sweet they said before my time that was the main crop for we had to just fence their crops and I was all because you couldn't fence your old farms because everybody had open rains they let the cattle run they branded them all of course at that time there was raised the cattle cattle done a little bit in my days then older stories about all the livestock to be cut up and everything else but that barbed wire wasn't gonna be either but it was anyway the rhythm of person uses when they use in the side it's beautiful to watch dad had a hand corn planter sticking up boom well I remember their little 12 acre field he went out and marked he planned that whole thing by hand I'll never forget that he told me that that's where all the coin was planted by his father when he first arrived here I'm telling about those planters that they would jerk it every time to try and get him straight cross ways so they could cultivate both ways but after I went to plan why we had the wire and of course that was canvas skill to the chip and to know now how to September you'd have it's a crooked cross way as you can tolerate you look at these planner wire you can tell Billy are you free well tell the neighbor by how he planted yes we used to watch that quite a bit who are the straightest rows and crossroads and they took pride of that sometimes it gatherings they would argue with that we've got the straightest rather than crossroads and so forth oh yeah we'd watch that all the way to town and you'd always hated if you got your rows crooked and somebody else would be going by and look at yours dads were never straight dad claims he got more corn per acre that way very few farmers say that cultivate corn they plow corn she my dad thought the horses are too tired and then we can walk one of the big problems that you had early was weed control now with a check row approach then you could cultivate in both directions and get between the plants he always when you went across lace you was sure to go lengthwise again to leave it you had to go three times or five times otherwise when you picked corn either your wagon need to go up and down the road you go bumpity-bump over here Rose you see the fear the Lord the dad put fear that old bore bar disengage but if it gets plugged and all this business we were frightened because we do the damage that could occur kind break this dump right and you don't in rows then again way ed watch so you got them straight and and then you turn the straddle those rows and open into piles hey cocks we called him daddy he would pick up that bunch mostly and what he I think one of the heartbreaking things that have it down and look over see a great big black cloud coming up so good so you go out after dried apple dare so later soaked again sometimes we hauled in red clover stems and want any leaves you knew then that things weren't very good there winner Oh was right after over first rewarded a bottle side delivery rank and I order before that'll be pictured by an one time I loaded up a bunch of bumblebees and that wasn't so good here as your file to hate on them 35 I got him troll down yeah that's just the wife's job is to pull up the hey why is she had that don't take a hold of the rope and hold his double trees out so they wouldn't step over him when she turned around or dad would sent us up one of us up in the hay mound and my brother used to hate final window where he could peek out and get a little air and he'd wave at me and dad had let her yell out are you my own that back I can remember that and he'd be waving at me generally so Oh its first the disk it in twice things still remember getting the disc out dad sharpened his own displayed she but allowed this they didn't cut in so deep they didn't even cut out all the stuff we generally disk at twice and ragged once then daddy would so the small seed he thought it to get too deep you can come up it was mostly Timothy seed and little clover yes every year see I would put in oats and then when grass seed harvest my oats and the next year I have the hay by rotating that way part of your farm was under sod all the time the Daisy Reaper you bunched it up on the platform and now this would kick off just bunches and and this led then to tying the rice and the old binder come out of that my brother and I tried to shock fast enough so try and keep up for the minder and my dad said I don't think you can keep up we said when you got done will be picking the last one off of the bundle carrier but one thing we never finished the head of hims you've looked down the row and set them straight you had pride in your work and then you'd captain with the heads hanging to the north so the Sun didn't shine on as much we'd put oysters in and eat supper milk cows still a little daylight left Guelph shock I can hardly walk you know early dimes they had a trend table and then you used horses and you could use these then to pump water with them you could use a threshing device Yale we've done a lot of researching depends what kind of weather it was that did very little shots but he inspected shot see my call month August Rush and ring it was really a social experiment I'm they had to go cross rivers because the bridges wouldn't hold up that's pretty big machines and then if one of them got stuck was quite a job well we start just as soon as the dew would get off in the morning you you got a prairie milk the cows cuts in a way because a long day made about 4 o'clock in the morning that we get steamed up you know he'd keep their middle lower so your load tipped in all the time and that way your bundles wouldn't slip off and then when you got finished your Lord you'd put a few rolls down through the middle and trap them good so they stayed on yeah sometimes you know he lost bundles and yeah I haven't seen when they upset it that was any some hard man that somebody needed help and they hired him but farmer is caught a big disgrace if he drools bundles or upset it it was a side vent those smart alecks they would try to get on the clean side my dad he didn't overdo things I mean he was very contented there six o'clock in the morning you'd start your pies here we used to dress her chickens before we had dinner that was a big job I always wore them before and after they'd eat something didn't drink too much each time sometimes some kids would splash one on the other than the other one to scratch your back on him and it was Jenny it was kind of naughty once I went through three tables one time I didn't do it again because everybody made so much fun of three pieces of pie or member that you know a lot how much left out there Neddy Oh third or fourth sure five five thirty we can move on down the road an engineer very Sheldon would keep belong in an hour he's a power engine was his and uh Tara was the other two guys hit his way if the bushel needed umph and then that let allgäu made two dumps to the bushel unloading the heads now had to be all in the same direction there was some nasty I think the dirtiest job but the whole crashing ring was a land that built the sky well trashing no matter how you looked at it was a little dirty but I've always marveled at their we had one neighbor he was crazy he'd never seem to get dirty the old guy that I worked with had a great deal of pride in his ability to build a load of bundles better named Al it's a great satisfaction that last round more than once I had the old coupe I would catch few chickens and went to town and bought the groceries and a few cents left goodbye nine sacks flour time last quite a while but other times we were just few groceries buyer the egg money we had a neighborhood hall dollies manure and the first 12 rows along the road that was his tall coin but you could look it over that and see some yellow little short ones half as big half mile road with a sake and three old horses you didn't make much will mark I'd plow all day long in peak hour the next morning III don't think I did anything one job I liked the best of any was plow drove three horses in front and two behind if he was leavin it over winter we'll put some axle grease on it the beauty oh I should come to our farm it was a guy up here had several stallions you had your own feed and you raised your own horsepower we picked on is good for sensor we shall at the time get out there early as soon as you could see the ears trouble box three times a day always rather than have a bigger box because when you go to picking over 100 bushel a day that's a lot of throwing ears and a foot higher make a difference my horse is very shut up and walk too far away once in a while they got an order you have to run up to him and jerk them little bit on their line but I could shovel it off a triple bark slowly out quick you could start at the back of the low would never stopped he got to the front seven minutes each coupe that off for noon and we meet pick Tillis dark those saying was that rather for conflict and his until Thanksgiving Day he fed the Hogs the bigger hogs only Oh yard well then he had to go out and pick up cobs always didn't his kid they made a hot fire they said it good cook could cook breakfast on three corn cobs he was like we were always late for church you know those are great days well there you have it when we farmed with horses my guest Steve Knutson Steve you made that film shortly after your retirement from the unit right yes from the production year that I was still working at Iowa State Halloween yes this was made in what the late 70s late 70s correct yes now part of it was shot at the living history farm they have a horse farm there don't think yes the century I believe they call it the 1910 farm yeah and yes and that gave us a place for a lot of this material and also the hobbyists all over the threshers reunion Donner Mount Pleasant and we had no trouble really finding places to where we could shoot I appreciate you coming in come back next week and we'll do another one of your films all right join us then will you for another in the ISU media message you