SOUTH DAKOTA FARMERS UNION CELEBRATES PERKINS COUNTY RANCH FAMILY

By Lura Roti

For South Dakota Farmers Union Meadow rancher Brian Flatmoe says fall is his favorite time of year.

“It’s hay hauling and harvesting and working calves and selling calves — you can see the fruits of a year’s work in the fall,” explained the thirdgeneration Perkins County cattle rancher.

Fall is also when the community hosts the Coal Springs Threshing Bee. Held each year on the fourth weekend in September, during the Threshing Bee, the Flatmoe family and neighboring ranch families put antique equipment to work, demonstrating how farm work was done when the land was first settled by homesteaders like Flatmoe’s grandparents who emigrated from Germany and Norway.

“I think it’s good for kids to understand how agriculture started and where it’s come from and to get a feel for how food used to be produced,” Brian said.

Brian, his brother, Bruce, and dad, Harold, are among the group of ranchers who founded the Coal Springs Antique Club and started the threshing bee 25 years ago. “My dad and brother and I, our pastime is fixing up early antique tractors,” Brian said.

The first tractor they restored together was a 1926 Hart Parr. “Dad bought it at an auction sale, it had been completely taken apart to salvage the bolts. Bruce and I helped haul it home. When we were loading it, we found all the bolts in buckets in the old shop building.”

At another auction, Harold was able to buy back his dad’s grain binder. This is the binder that is put to work binding wheat during the Coal Springs Threshing Bee.

“When I’m restoring old equipment, or I see it working, I just think how easy it is now compared to what people used to go through. Now, I harvest wheat in an air-conditioned combine. My grandpa’s generation had to bind the wheat, shock it, load it onto the wagon and pitch it into the threshing machine and shovel it off once it was threshed.”

In addition to the threshing bee, Brian serves as a volunteer on the Meadow Fire Department. And he and his wife, Gloria, are actively involved in their community church.

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