Near Roseville in west-central Illinois, Abby Wendle joined the Illinois State Corn Husking Contest, an event that replicates the fall harvest from the era before agricultural mechanization. “Whole families would head out at dawn to walk the rows with their horse-drawn wagons. They’d try to pick 50 bushels, 2,800 pounds of corn, before lunch and another 50 bushels in the afternoon, often harvesting until dark. Farm kids regularly missed weeks, even months, of school to help,” writes Wendle, a reporter with Harvest Public Media. For her, the challenge was to pick as many ears of corn as possible in 20 minutes in a race against half a dozen women in her age group. Wendle was inspired to participate, in part, by Ardith Clair, who grew up on a farm with draft horses and who competed in husking contests in her 60s and 70s. “I just want to win,” she told Wendle.