A 50-year-old John Deere combine stis like a monument outside Randy and Becky Stanleys home southeast of Humboldt.
Tines hang from weathered wooden planks on the reel, ready to shove soybean plants before long against cutters and on into the intricate mechanisms that separate pods from stems, and then beans from pods.
The familiar green paint is faded in places, but mechanically it is sound because of Randys TLC.
He bought the combine near Severy in 2004 for $450.
It took several trips to get it ready to bring home, Randy admitted, and since then he has picked up other old combines for parts. Jerry Croisant, a crackerjack welder, has been called on several times to make repairs.
A few years ago troublesome corn, aggravated by weather, jammed up the combine so much Randy threw up his hands and allowed that was enough. Now, his crop rotation modest on 14 acres is wheat and soybeans.
The combines bin holds 30 bushels, so little that neighbors have a good-natured laugh when they drive by. Nowadays combines carry up to 500 bushels.
Call Randy a hobby farmer if you want, he cares not.
He grew up on a farm about two miles north and enjoys being involved with his little spread, including a buffer between lawn and crop fields covered with robust native grass. It has never been broken out, he said. Early this week, the grass, starting to turn brown with the season, waved in a persistent wind.
Behind the patches of soybeans is a tree line, some tall and prominent, making for an artistic scene.
Sometimes turkeys wander through the yard, moseying between cover and a meal of maturing soybeans. Deer, too, like to munch the oil-rich beans. Just the other day a handful of partially grown quail were frockling near the house.
RANDY, 67, graduated from Humboldt High in 1970.
He enrolled at what today is Allen Community College, and earned a spot catching for the baseball team. A year later he joined the Army.
Back home in the spring of 1975 he returned to ACC and played baseball that spring and the next year.
