By Norma Dittman
Fulda Free Press staff writer
Bert Kolander, who celebrated 90 years of life this year, is participating in one of his very favorite activities this fall – he’s driving the combine for the harvest. His machine is a 9500 John Deere.
Fieldwork is not new to Kolander, but he says that he has seen some great changes in farming equipment and practices throughout the years. Picking corn by hand, using a Wood Bros. one row cornpicker, and harvesting with a two-row pull-type Case are three ways of gathering the harvest that Kolander talked about.
“I’ve worked with farming all of my life. We thrashed with horses and hauled the bundles up to the farm place to put them in the silo,” Kolander said. “It was 1937 when Dad got his first tractor. Those were the days when we had alfalfa, oats, corn, and pasture.”
“He went from riding a horse to a comfortable, climate controlled cab complete with air conditioning and heater. If you get too warm, turn on the air; if you get too cold, turn on the heater,” Kolander’s son Jim, added.
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