A reminder that today people can see what early farming was like in Iowa back in the 1800 to early 1900s in Jefferson.

Foster Family Farms is hosting the 23rd Annual Pleasant Prairie Threshing Bee. The two main events include an oat threshing demonstration at 10am and a steam plowing show at 2pm. Keygan Barber is one of the participants and explains what happens during the steam plow demonstration.

“So it’s the old engines and it’s a five bottom plow, so you need five people standing up on a platform and you’re manually doing it instead of sitting up in your tractor, pushing buttons. It’s usually pretty fun. A lot of kids like to get involved in that.”   

Barber says attendees can also do corn shelling and look at other steam engines and tractor displays while they are there. She describes how corn shelling works.

“It’s an antique corn sheller so it’s separating the kernels of corn from the ear. We’ll use that later throughout the year and grind it up and feed it to the chickens out there.”   

The event is free and open to the public and Foster Family Farms is located at 1176 M Avenue.