So like we- like my father would own a baler with another farmer and they would split the cost and then the equipment would be shared, yup.

And I was born on Main-Street-East in Beaverton in an old frame house that had no electricity. Um, wasn't insulated. My step-father used to um put snow all ar-- bank snow around the house to keep the wind out.

Speaker: Well that's cheating, I guess 'cause we swapped all our assignments. We still had to write the finals though. Interviewer: Mm. Speaker: So you had to really bear down then (laughs).

And after you fed the cattle and did the chores in the morning, you went to the woodlot and took the team of horses and the axe and the saw and you cut a load of wood. ... Or two or three, whatever you had time for and you hauled that home and you piled it up and you had a big pile o-- of logs or trees, timber. And then in the spring you had a wood-sawing bee, and the neighbours all came in and helped you saw the wood up. 'Cause basically everybody heated either with wood or coal. Nobody heated with oil back then. There was no hydro heating or-any-of-that.

And then we had um- and of course we had corn cutting bees too the same. They would ah- they cut the corn and of course they put it in silos for insolage. Um and there would be a- all the neighbours would get together and often um maybe three farmers would go together and buy maybe the- the cutter to cut the corn ...

Speaker 1: One person would ah donate ah an animal, this would be maybe a- an animal about- maybe, seven, eight hundred pounds. Speaker 2: A cow you're talking about, a n-- a steer. Interviewer: Just a really big squirrel. Speaker 2: Yeah (laughs). Speaker 1: So this- this beef would be ah cut up and divided among all the neighbours and then ah that would be final and next month it would be somebody else's turn.

Teddy-Weasley's grandfather- grandfather, that's where they killed them down- that was on- on the eighth concession, where Teddy-Weasley still lives and his grandfather was one that- that's really killed the beef and- and Teddy's aunt, she was- she was wa-- she's a Althorpe in Orillia now. They have ah, they have the, uh, I-G-A store in Orillia. She ah, she would ah, they used to just- now they- now they shoot them, the beef, eh. But then they used to just knock them with a sledge, hit them over the head. She- she could do that.

We'd kill our beef but then you- one farmer had to go and deliver it and yet- they'd put all in a white bag- a piece of meat that- there's- all they had was the old ice- the ice ah, blocks, eh?

Yeah, for those dinners, every week they'd kill a beef, eh. I remember I was at (inc) we'd get our wheat to the deliver and- the ah, we got chunks of meat and…

Speaker: And then when that was gone then the next person would have to put a beef in and that one would be slaughtered and- Interviewer: Oh, okay. Speaker: Divided up- Interviewer: yeah. Speaker: Amongst the- the neighbours, that was- and he said the slaughterhouse was at Henry-Grier's. I don't remember that.

Then he got an old Fordson tractor and he used that until he didn't need a tractor anymore, until he retired. Um, everything was fixed, made do, he had the oldest working binder that I ever knew. He had a neig-- Well, the neighbour had a threshing machine that worked as good as any I ever saw before or since and they still used it until I was probably sixteen, seventeen years old? They were still using it.

the fields with two or three or four- four-horse outfit. And- and it- and it took forever to p-- it seems to plough a field of fourteen or fifteen acres. And w-- when you ah- hear the little hummingbird. And when you ah harvested the crop, it was cut with a binder and it was put in stooks in the field and you had a threshing machine. Then you put the s-- sheaves on the wagon and you haul 'em into the barn and- and then you had a big threshing-bee and the neighbours came

Speaker: We used to have ah- I could remember as a kid ah thrashing ah- Interviewer: What is that? Speaker: When they- for- to thrash the grain like take the grain off the- out of the sheath. Instead of a combine going out in the field- Interviewer: Mm. Speaker: They w-- you cut it by a binder, a stoop, put it into the barn and then they would- a fellow with a thrashing machine would go around the- the area (phone rings) and pull in- ah sorry for just a moment.

have one at each corner of the field, and so they'd tie up this side and that lady'd go- and you just kept going, the four of them. And they'd tie it with the stalks of the grain. And I used to be able to do that if the binder kept falling out- didn't tie. Dad showed me how to do it. You take the two bu-- the two tops, where the grain is, and you ste-- you just take a handful of grain about an inch or two thick an you split it in two, and just put

Speaker: It was a Ford tractor so it wasn't very big. Interviewer: Oh okay. Speaker: And ah, probably about eleven or-something when I drove the tractor and I drive it. Um, I drove it on the- when we were cutting grain, I drove it. Um, the binder would be on, my mom would be on the binder behind running the- the gears on the binder and-that and I drove the tractor.

Interviewer: How does that- how did the binder work I don't know. Speaker: Ah, I had a picture of it but it's way off over there now (laughs). Interviewer: Oh no it's okay. Speaker: Yeah, it's for grain. Interviewer: Oh okay. Speaker: You go into the field and cut the grain with the binder in it. Interviewer: So it almost (inc)- Speaker: Makes it into stooks, yeah makes it- Interviewer: Oh 'kay! Speaker: Into stooks, into sheaves, yes stooks is when you put them all together made it into sheaves.

Um, I can re-- I'm a curler and ah, I w-- I curl ah with a dairy farmer and we were at a bonspiel oh a farmery at a bonspiel.

Oh I don't know who wrote that one up (laughs). But I remember being at a bonspiel and the vice-president who was in charge of that area was there and he had a few drinks too many, he was telling us this (laughs).

I was carrying gyprocks same as a man by the time I was twelve-years-old. Unloading boxcars, so hot you couldn't hardly breathe, you'd put about two or three planks out, about two-feet from the roof and be sweating buckets. You'd have to come to the door and get real air 'cause it was so hot and so thin in the- in the boxcar, you get a couple breaths of air and back in you go and get a few more planks so you got a whole opened big enough that you could breathe proper.

Speaker: After we been there for a while and ah we had a- a choice I guess ah to walk or ride on a box- in a boxcar. So (laughs) we said we'd sooner go in a boxcar. Interviwer: Mm-hm. Speaker: And some ones that didn't like that idea ah too well knew that a lot of the Allied planes, the Americans especially, they were f-- flew Mustangs, which were long range fire planes. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: And they were in- they were in strifing all the trains that they saw. Interviewer: Oh. Oh yeah. Speaker: Yeah, so you're taking a chance but the Germans, they don't like to be strifed anymore than we did so they h-- they had ah P-O-W's painted in big white letters on the side of the boxcars.