Matt Folstad had an idea: Rather than mow his 2 acres of yard every summer, why not plow it up and plant wheat on it? That was the start of his backyard threshing bee. Folstad, 38, works as a truck ...

When mid-August rolls around, my thoughts always revert back to harvest time back in the 1940s and 1950s when this aging writer was a youth eager to take on any task asked of him. The old threshing ...