RIDGEFIELD — Kids at the Rural Heritage Fair on Sunday got a glimpse at what their chores might have been like had they grown up on a farm about 100 years ago.
Back then, parents would send their children to fetch corn that had been shucked and dried for at least 30 days, farmer Tessa Pou told visitors at the Iron Ranch southeast of Ridgefield. To get the kernels off the cob, kids on Sunday practiced using an antique hand-cranked corn sheller, which has little metal teeth that help pry the corn loose. Then they picked up the dried kernels and ran them through a hand-cranked grinder.
“Keep going. Muscles, muscles, muscles!” Pou told her 4-year-old son, Caleb Martinez, as he turned the metal crank on the corn sheller.
The ground corn can be used to make food such as corn bread, and it also is used to feed chickens, Pou said.
“Most kids around here, they have chickens at home,” she said. She asked one boy who finished grinding corn if he had chickens. He nodded, and Pou gave him a bag of cornmeal to take home.
Pou works at the Andersen Dairy farm in Battle Ground and lives in the Heisson area in north Clark County. Besides overseeing the corn sheller at the fair, Pou also brought a tractor to display.
It was the 21st year for the Rural Heritage Fair, which ran Saturday and Sunday and saw an estimated 400 visitors.
The free event allowed visitors to check out a few dozen antique tractors, view several old fire engines, observe a blacksmith at work, browse a flea market and see steam-powered engines in action. A wood-burning steam broiler gave life to the types of steam engines that would have been seen in a logging mill about a century ago.
A majority of the items at the fair were acquired during the past six decades by ranch owner Alan Schurman, who has been featured on the History Channel’s “American Pickers” show.
‘Cool part of history’
In the event’s children’s area, called Pioneer Square, 10-year-old Kaitlyn Gasaway of Ridgefield was busy making a birdhouse under the supervision of Dave Audette of Woodland. Her experience wasn’t completely off the grid; she used a power drill at one point.
When she was done, she held up her completed wooden birdhouse. “I made my own birdhouse and I bolted it on my own,” she said proudly. She also got to take the project home with her.
“It’s gorgeous. Good job,” her mom, April Salsbury, said. They were at the event with another one of Salsbury’s daughters, 7-year-old Alyssa Salsbury, and Salsbury’s husband, Brian Salsbury.
“They’ve done everything from riding the (tractor) to using the washboards to wash clothes,” April Salsbury said of her daughters, adding that they also peeled apples, churned butter and helped make a quilt. The fair “has a lot more to offer than I thought it did. … We spent hours just in the kids area.”
It was Brian Salsbury’s idea to bring the family to the fair. The firefighter had been to the event without them in the past, mainly to check out the antique fire engines.
“It’s just a cool part of history,” he said.
Demonstrating another part of history on Sunday were blacksmith Don Kemper Jr. of Ridgefield and his nephew, Chase Callaway. As temperatures lingered in the mid-90s, the two were standing around hot coals, heating up metal and pounding it into a number of creations. On display were a belt buckle, hair pins, coat hooks, a bottle opener, a steak turner and knives.
Kemper said he comes from a long line of blacksmiths.
“Since my dad passed away last year just before the fair, I’m it,” Kemper said. Now, he’s passing his knowledge onto his nephew, he added.
