Here is a photo of Dad Thornton, doing what he always wanted to do. He was born on a farm near Canton, and grew up helping his Dad work the farm using horses and horse-drawn implements, like this row cultivator. Fast forward to 1985; Dad has been retired for a few years, has 40 acres of land, lots of old implements that he's picked up at auctions over the years, and a team of horses that he's trained to pull (Morgan/Quarter Horse mix, I think.)

If I remember correctly, he had someone else plant the corn, then he ran the cultivator through the field a couple of times during the growing season. He was tempted to pick the field by hand that Fall, but ended up having someone else pick it. We went through the field afterwards & gleaned the leftovers by hand. That was work enough. I don't know if I (or he) could've handled 40 acres of 100 bushel corn. (Something tells me they didn't get yields like that when they HAD to pick by hand!)

Dad asked me to come out & snap some photos of him on the cultivator. I remember him dragging his little photo album around with him all over, showing the pictures to anyone & everyone. I ended up with his photo album, and scanned in a few of the original prints & cleaned them up in Photoshop. Also brightened up the skiy a bit -- July skies in South Dakota are usually a bit hazy. Unfortunately, the negatives were long gone when we went through Mom & Dad's things when Mom went to the nursing home. Who knows; it may have even been me that threw them out, or they may even be in one of my bottomless boxes, waiting for an archeological team to unearth them.

I've got some high-res files, suitable for making digital prints. E-mail me & I'll be happy to get you a copy, either by e-mail or on a CD. Keep in mind that the files are fairly large, so if you have only dialup access, the CD might be the best option.