LIDGERWOOD, N.D. (AP) — Maurice Kutter is the perfect blend of old and new. This rural Lidgerwood farmer is well used to the trappings of his industry, from high-tech tractors and combines that hold GPS units and yield monitors tracking bushels to the acre.
He is a lifelong farmer and works with his son, Jim, along the North Dakota and South Dakota border. The Kutters have learned to fix their equipment themselves, overhauling engines, replacing parts and so on, a mechanical skill that turned into a hobby as Maurice enjoys dipping into the past by restoring the tools of his industry.
He is an Allis-Chalmers aficionado who restores tractors and combines, everything from a 1938 No. 40 combine to a No. 60, the first having a 4-foot cut and the other a 6-foot cut. Consider that today's combines cut anywhere between 25-40 feet and you begin to see how agricultural equipment has grown so much larger and more complicated.
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The 1938 model combine, No. 40 holds 11 bushels of grain in its hopper and sold for $325 when brand new, he said.
"I have no idea if that would be expensive compared to today. I suppose that would have been a lot of money at that time in '38. I was thinking about this. Back then the wheat was (not as high)," he said, holding his hand a few feet off the floor to put it into perspective. "Then it was good to hit 15 bushels to the acre. We combined and hauled it all in and it was 53 bushels to the acre."
It's a hobby that keeps him busy for this self-proclaimed Allis-Chalmers man. He has restored a Massey Ferguson tractor, but most of his antique equipment is orange.
Lightning may strike him one day as he committed sacrilege by painting a John Deere wooden flare box Allis-Chalmers orange, which made him sit up in his living room chair and slap his knee. "It was green and all that stuff," Maurice said as if that explained everything.
He learns about some finds from people who know about his interest, and sometimes it's seeing a piece in the trees, such as a combine that sat out in the elements 30-40 years before Maurice brought it back to life.
He drives the back country roads not only to watch the progress of crops, but also to see what old finds are rusting in the shelter belts.
"I tell him to watch the road," Lucille Kutter said while sitting in their living room as Maurice talked about his hobbies.
That made Maurice laugh. "She's always telling me to watch the road."
Lucille shook her head. "I have to watch the road because he isn't," she told the Wahpeton Daily News (http://bit.ly/2dpPxgx ).
Maurice showed off his restoration hobby recently as he and his wife, Lucille, held an old-fashioned threshing bee to remove wheat from a field west of their house. About 80 people showed up to watch the second-annual event at the Kutter farm.
Maurice's photo albums are not typical pictorials showing his burgeoning family. Pictures of his restored cars, tractors and combines grace the pages. There are also several small-scale models of the combines and tractors he's restored in his household.
"This one here is a 1968 Fury III, two-door," he said, pointing at the first vehicle.
He just finished a 1948 Plymouth Business Coupe, likely one of the last cars he will restore since he said he's getting too old to keep working on cars. He does the work himself, welds frames, paints, overhauls and replaces parts. Since he doesn't have a hoist, he said it's getting to be too hard to crawl under the vehicles to work on them.
That's why he started restoring antique tractors and combines. "They aren't as fussy," he added.
He has six restored cars in his toy shed. He has sold three, but there are still too many, Lucille said with a rueful shake, since this obviously is a long-standing discussion between husband and wife.
As is the way of husbands, Maurice shrugged.
There are getting to be too many tractors, she added.
That brought a smile this time. "I still want to buy one more," he winked.
But this one he hopes will be fully restored since the last one provided too many problems.
"This little CA, if people would have seen it, they would have said to just junk it, it was that bad," Maurice said, which brought another shrug since he worked through the problems and restored what was lost so the tractor could find a new purpose.
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Information from: Wahpeton Daily News, http://www.wahpetondailynews.com
