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COLFAX, Wash. (AP) — The work of plowing, planting, and harvesting is still done the old-fashioned way with teams of draft horses and mules on a parcel of farmland in eastern Washington.
On Labor Day, several hundred spectators watched an annual, public demonstration of those methods near Colfax.
A combine header pushed by a team of six Percheron draft mules fed cut grain into vintage wagons, each pulled by a pair of horses, as several acres of barley were harvested.
Volunteers with the Palouse Empire Threshing Bee Association, a group dedicated to preserving the way land was farmed decades ago, took time away from their own harvest work to bring in the barley.
Stan Riebold, a long-time member of the group, said it plans to continue preserving the old way of doing things.
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