Episode 95: Summer Ruhls Show Notes Picking up the thread from the "Winter on the Farm" and "Spring on the Farm" episodes, Mike and Uncle Sim start with local fairs, tying back into last week's tribute to Catherine Schott and the Lebanon Area Fair. Sim recalls the Schott and Ruhl families being close friends going back generations through the farm women's association, and describes a full summer fair circuit: the South Annville Fair, the Myerstown Fair, and eventually a week at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg, where farm kids competed in tractor-driving and cattle-judging contests, slept in the pig pens, and Sim once won first prize with a rooster that wasn't supposed to crow (but did, right as the judge turned away). From there, Sim gives a detailed, almost step-by-step account of haying by horse-drawn equipment: mowing with a sickle bar, raking hay into windrows, loading it with a horse-drawn hay loader, and hauling it into the barn with a hay fork and pulley system, all timed carefully around the weather and finished before the Fourth of July. He explains the real danger of barn fires from improperly dried hay, including a fire at a neighboring farm where he tried, and failed, to drive panicked cattle out of a burning barn, since cattle instinctively run back toward the barn rather than away from it. The conversation moves into wheat and oat threshing (a shared, rotating job among neighboring farms every July), then into what Sim calls the most hated job on the farm: apple production. He describes spraying orchards with lead-based pesticides that likely contributed to several orchardists dying young, hauling apples in an old repurposed funeral car to a neighbor's cider press, and multi-day apple butter production involving a massive copper kettle, all-day stirring, and storage in crocks that developed a protective mold layer. Corn husking gets similar treatment: with 15-18 acres husked entirely by hand, it became the family's built-in incentive system, since Sim and his brothers weren't allowed to hunt small game until the corn was in, often not until close to Thanksgiving. The episode closes on lighter, reflective notes: the improvised, low-cost family entertainment of Saturday night church picnics (with a once-a-week backyard bathtub to match), the crank telephone party line, one-room schoolhouses, and how rare travel was for his parents' generation, punctuated by Sim's own memory of being the family's "black sheep" who left Pennsylvania for college in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mike and Sim also reminisce briefly about the family's shared Montana elk hunting trips and the creekside cabin with its resident "ugly" rodents. Topics covered: County and township fairs, the Pennsylvania Farm Show, and 4-H style competitions The Schott family connection and the Lebanon Area Fair Horse-drawn haying: mowing, raking, hay loaders, and barn storage The real danger of spontaneous-combustion barn fires Wheat and oat threshing on a shared neighborhood rotation Lead-based orchard spraying and multi-day apple butter production Hand-husking 15+ acres of corn as a hunting-season incentive Farmhouse life without air conditioning, indoor plumbing, or central heat Saturday night church picnics as the family's version of vacation One-room schoolhouses and how rarely his parents' generation traveled Family reflections on staying close to home vs. scattering across the country Shared memories of past Montana elk hunting trips Links Outdoor Ruhls Podcast: www.outdoorruhls.com Connect with Outdoor Ruhls Email: outdoorruhls@gmail.com Instagram: @outdoorruhls YouTube: Outdoor Ruhls Catch up on the earlier farm-life conversations with Uncle Sim, "Winter Ruhls" and "Spring Ruhls," for more on growing up in Rexmont, Pennsylvania.
