LONG LAKE, S.D. (AP)--There's no comparison between Wheat harvests back in Reinhold Schumacher's day and the air-conditioned combine cabs of today, says Schumacher, who, at 93, hasn't missed a Wheat harvest since he was a teenager.

"I've been combining as long as combines have been around," and even before that, Schumacher said. Combines were preceded by binders and headers, and he has run them both.

"Our first self-propelled combine had no cab, so you sat in the dust," Schumacher said. "Our second one had a cab, but no air conditioning."

The current combine has air conditioning. "It's just like sitting in your living room," Reinhold said.

He used to put in some really long days.

But not anymore.

"When I get tired, I quit," he said.

"He's got bankers' hours now," said his son, Jim Schumacher, who now runs the farm his dad bought for $5 an acre in 1940.

Reinhold Schumacher said his long life is due to "working all the time, and to my lovely wife for taking care of me."

He and his wife, Evangeline, 84, live in Eureka. They have 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

They ran the farm for 35 years, when Jim took over.

Schumacher got into the combine after surgery for colon cancer and even drove it after a minor stroke.

Reinhold's father, Christian, lived to be 101, and Reinhold's grandfather, Wilhelm Schumacher, lived to be 98.

Even with all the hard work, "It's been a wonderful life," Reinhold Schumacher said. "If someone would ask me if I would farm if I had to do it all over again, I would say yes."

Date: 8/24/05