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Serial #0224

Harvest Mirage 

Even though she saves everything, Marie Schneider’s place southeast of Lipscomb, Texas is clean and orderly. When looking back on the changes that have occurred during her eighty-four years, Marie considers the weedeater one of the greatest inventions. So it came as no surprise when she pulled a neatly wired bundle of combine reel batts or beater boards out of her shed. Years ago Marie had put a new set on a John Deere 55 combine, and the used set had been stored away—just in case.

Sections of one of the thin boards, the surface and edges sculpted by years of grain and straw, become door and case panels for the Harvest Mirage. Combine elevator chain links help buckle down a rim band fashioned from windmill tower cross strapping. Marie also saved--and was able to find--the beater board bolts. Two of these bolts secure a section of buggy hardware for the door handle.

Interior mopboard and door casing reclaimed from a Wolf Creek valley ranch house are reassembled for the Harvest Mirage cabinet and door frame. Built in 1900 of southern longleaf pine, hauled by wagon from the railhead at Canadian thirty miles to the south, the grand old house stands silent now, slowly weathering down. The rancher, an Englishman, died soon after the house was completed, leaving his young widow alone on the ranch. But she, like Marie, was a capable and determined woman. For forty years she fed cattle, broke horses, maintained the house, and got along just fine.