Still, that shouldn’t spoil the fun. The sun is shining brightly and the visitors are amazed. The tractors are lined up on the lawn in the village. The great thing about the old tractors and machines that dot the village is that they have been preserved, says Geert Huisman of the Oude Trekker En Motoren Vereniging. “I come from the farm myself. I remember mowing with the scythe and threshing with the threshing machine.” It’s all in the past, Huisman concludes. Still, he is happy that some of it remains.
On the same lawn are a hand-turned whirligig, a stage for the dancers and a large threshing machine. “It’s to thresh the wheat,” says thresher Derk Schipper. He is standing at the machine with a team of young and old. The rye is thrown into the machine from above. The machine separates the grain from the straw. At the back, the packets of straw come out and at the front, the grains come out. Schepper thinks it is great that he can show this to the visitors. “The boys will honor it.”
Visitors all stop at the large machine in the middle of the field. When it is on, it makes a noise. That is precisely what visitor Rik Jets finds so beautiful. “I like that old stuff. That sound and everything. It’s nice that it still works after all these years.”
Organizer Huisman is pleased with the event and the interest of the visitors on this sunny Sunday. The love for the past connects visitors in Orvelte.