Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s
Puttypalooza
When it was announced Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter, I rejoined the social media giant after cancelling my membership several years ago in protest of Twitter’s policies. I was glad to rejoin and quickly started following several of my old favorites, including of course
Fish Report and also “
@Puttypalloza”, the handle of a Ft. Loramie resident name Mike “MD” Puthoff. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him, but we’ve talked on the phone plus he follows me and I follow him on Twitter. I attended high school with his dad, Don, who unfortunately lost his life in a farming accident in 1999..
Mike lives on this picturesque setting southeast of Ft. Loramie shown above where he and his wife and 4 growing sons are "living the dream”. Mike was a huge fan of my MLB-playing cousin, Jared Hoying, and he would post highlights each morning of Jared’s game the day before and also any articles about Jared.
Unfortunately, Jared has retired from baseball, but Mike’s posts about farming are amazing, especially in stark contrast to the memories of my Dad’s farming exploits during my younger days. Mike works at Clopay, but during harvest season helps his cousin Jeff Puthoff and wife Becky, owners of Laneview Farms with over 1000 acres including the home place in Ft. Loramie, and acreage in Newport, Versailles, Oran, etc. Jeff and Becky also have a
twitter handle for their farms as shown here:
Their farm equipment is extensive, highlighted by the most recent acquisition nicknamed “Black Betty” a gigantic grain cart pictured below. What a monster, as it holds 1500 bushels and weighs in at 24,000 pounds when fully loaded. Twitter video posts of
Black Betty have this memorable background song.
Another unique piece of equipment is Mike's drone, providing all kinds of aerial footage. Mike is a weather junkie, like most farmers, as was my dad. he's always posting sun rises and sun sets, as well as analyzing weather patterns and cloud formations. Notice the aerial photo of the pond in front of his home; how meticulously the lawn is cut like the grass in the outfield of a baseball field. In fact, next to the red barn behind the house, notice the baseball field, football goal post and soccer goal that doubles as a golf ball hitting net as well; perfect for his 4 young boys!
Dad also maintained a tidy farm as evidenced by this aerial photo. We also had a baseball field with the red monster barn in right field! Our woods, just beyond the farm buildings, represented the perfect place to roam and explore during all four seasons of the year. No doubt Mike’s 4 boys enjoy the woods as much as I did as a kid.
Like Mike, Dad also always paid close attention to the weather and was really good at knowing exactly when to cut hay, as it took a couple days of good weather for the hay to dry before baling. He trusted weather forecasts originating from Ft. Wayne radio station WOWO, 1190 on the AM dial. Here’s the makeshift chart WOWO used to forecast the weather!
Dad’s farming all came in 10 acre bunches, as that the acreage most farm equipment in those days could handle in a day. As pictured here, corn planters were two rows. I loved sitting in the planter seat following along behind the tractor. That seat meant the planter was originally horse drawn. Jeff has a 16 row planter, so he can plant over 80 acres in one day, or more if going under moonlight as the following photo implies!
Notice the old wagon next to our planter? We had one just like it, but with rubber tires, which also had been converted from being horse drawn. And check the huge tractor trailer outfit Laneview Farms uses to transport the grain for storage. Quite a contrast!
Once the planted corn starts growing, an airplane is used to treat the weeds, while my dad dealt with them by sending me into the field with a hoe!
Harvest time on our farm back in the 50’s meant combining wheat and oats by taking about a 5” swath, compared to Laneview Farms self propelled monster that can cut about 40’ in one pass.
Ditto for corn picking, with MD harvesting 8 rows in each pass compared to one row for Dad.
Here’s my favorite tweet from Mike. Dad also loved those old hickory trees in our woods. We have two in our yard that I admire as well.
Ditto on that spot-on shagbark hickory logic for me and my Dad.
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