Vintage Farming Days Festival

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Among the earliest settlers in the Lynden area was a family farm homesteaded in 1883 by Hans Berthusen and Lida Hawley-Berthusen. In 1944, the entire Berthusen homestead was given to the people of the city of Lynden. It is now a beautiful city park with walking trails, a camping area, historical buildings and markers, and some amazing vintage equipment from the early days of the farm.

We were fortunate to be able to attend the 50th Anniversary of the annual Vintage Farming Days festival this year at Berthusen park. It apparently was cancelled for a couple years, but the fair resumed this year, and we really enjoyed our day. It was at least a bit of a taste of a real small-town fair, although we can't speak from our own small town fair experience: the Monroe and Puyallup fairs are not small-town affairs. This fair felt really comfortable because the crowds were bearable, the equipment on display was amazing, much of the entertainment was really tailored for kiddies, the people were very friendly, and many seemed to know each other, if only for a few minutes. Quite a refreshing experience.

We had no idea what to expect, except several people had told us this fair was worth our time. So we started following the directions we found, and were able to see an amazing amount of flat farmland while wondering if we'd ever get there. (It takes a long time to outgrow our childish impatience, even when I’m doing the driving.) Finally, we began seeing signs suggesting the parking was just ahead, and eventually arrived at the parking area: it looked like a small airstrip because it really was an airfield for radio-controlled aircraft hobbyists, just not in use at the time. We parked and wandered a bit before figuring out where to wait for the shuttle to the fair entrance. A few minutes later, what should come motoring up but a tractor pulling a cart with enough seating for a good-sized group of people. When we were all aboard, the tractor drove through the park, and even the drive was enjoyable as we rode through a sizeable, picturesque and very nice wooded campground. This really is a very nice park.

After paying the minimal entry fee (senior rates make life nice, don’t they?) we wandered into the entry area to see the vintage farming days version of a kiddies’ train ride. That little train drove all the way through and around the fairgrounds, because we saw it many times in many places as we wandered around.

Then we saw some of the main area of equipment on display. It was in a field about the size of a high school football field packed full of all kinds and sizes of obviously very old machines. As we wandered through one large shed, the machine we saw brought to my mind the engine room of the USS Hornet I saw as a ROTC midshipman on summer cruise. It was several cylinders of a massive steam engine.

One event each day of the fair was a parade of tractors, some of them massive, with wheels made completely from steel, and taller than Tom. Some of the drivers took great pleasure in blowing their steam whistles, which definitely earned our attention.

One building was part of the sawmill where cedar shakes were made from the huge forests in the area. Now, much of that land is dairy farms and corn, potato, and berry fields. As a matter of fact, most of the raspberries grown in the United States come from Whatcom county, with more than 85% of North America’s raspberries for the frozen berry market are produced within 15 miles of Lynden.

But there were also quite a few tiny little things, not much bigger than lawnmower engines, and several of those machines were running. I became a little frustrated at the variety of machines I couldn’t quite figure out, and there was almost no information to describe them. There were a few people adjusting the machines, or discussing their operation with other interested people, all obviously and justifiably proud of their machines, but engrossed with the machines.

Then I noticed another group of little machines and a guy inside the ropes of those machines who seemed quite happy to talk about his equipment. He proved quite interesting and really enjoyed his hobby. Perhaps the main thing that drew me to these machines was one that seemed quite unique to me: This machine made a little “pop” like an engine, then just went on spinning for a while before it made another “pop” and spun some more. To me, that just didn’t make sense until he explained the machine to me. Its firing was governed by the rotation speed: Each firing gave it enough rotation speed to keep it going for several revolutions, and a small flywheel kept the momentum going until it slowed down enough that a spring allowed another firing cycle, which sped it up again for the next several revolutions. This kind of machine was used in at least one case to keep a home’s water tower full enough for a day’s supply of water on the early farms. Then, in the morning, the owner would fuel the machine with another pint of gasoline for the next day’s water. Similar machines could be used to irrigate fields, and how many other tasks could be automated with these amazing machines invented for specific uses around the early 1900’s?

The other thing to be amazed by is the idea that many of the machines on display, and actually working during this fair were found as little more than rusted hulks of metal in the middle of nowhere. These hulks had been there and ignored for many years before somebody noticed them while wandering through the forests, fields and farms. Then somebody painstakingly worked to clean them up, figure out how to make them work, and brought them to life for the pure joy of the experience and show them off for this little fair. A real labor of love and an interesting peek into history for us.

One of the big fun times for the kiddies was a candy and coin scramble. They made a pile of straw from several bales of hay, messed the pile up really good then threw in bunch of wrapped candy and a couple hundred dollars of coins, and let kids root around to collect what they could. They broke it up into several age groups, so the big kids wouldn’t ruin it for the little kids, but they all had a wonderful time digging for goodies. It was quite fun to watch.

At the big fairs we’ve attended, there are always an armload of professional vendors selling everything under the sun. We’ve all been there, and happily bought things from many of them. At this little fair, there were very few of these kinds of sales booths. Instead, they had what they called a swap meet, and the exhibitors were almost all small-scale hobbyist selling their hobby goods, or just showing off their collections. And much of the stuff on display is as interesting as the machines we saw.

The final interesting little display we saw before leaving was a barrel roll competition. It consisted of a track with a pylon at each end, one big barrel (like a 50 gallon oil drum), and a contestant driving a basic tractor. The objective was to push the barrel with the front wheels of the tractor the length of the track, around the pylon and back to the beginning in the shortest time. Having never seen such a contest, we had no idea how difficult the task can be. The barrel just doesn’t want to go straight, and the tractor drivers really had to work to make the barrel go where they wanted it to go. It’s amazing what we’ve missed in the big city, but mighty fun to watch.

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Photos

WelcomeSign.
Welcome Sign

1910SteamEngine.
1910 Steam Engine

1910SteamEngine16FootFlywheel.
16 Foot Flywheel on the 1910 Steam Engine