Yeah. This is Carl-Billingsley's home, at one time, and Jack-Lorde's home at another time. That's across the way.

So they dug the holes that day, these three men, I suppose they dug ten, twelve holes or so by hand with these shovels, big deep hydro holes. And years later I saw them putting in a line where they had a big tra-- truck affair with a big drill on it, and the drill tip itself was ninety-thousand dollars cost, and they were having an awful time with this drill and they got to stuck and-so-on and I kept wondering, what happened to the old way of doing things.

Anyway ah, hydro came in forty-eight, um my dad, I consider him a very progressive guy, ah we had ah bathroom put in, um about the same time. And we didn't have- we h-- we had this cistern, we built a big cement tank affair in the basement and we ran the water off the roof into this cistern and that we used for our first bathroom, and bathtub, and laundry and-so-on.

All them days, ah- young folks seemed to come here.

Speaker: And ah we had an auger there for drilling- well, they used to build fences. You see these- these fences with the pickets up them? Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Well they drilled the holes in them. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: And we had a big machine there to drill them.

Interviewer: Yeah. And so that's astonishing that he would- you had such an enlighten-- enlightened inspector, coming out to Bathurst-Township. Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was awfully glad he came that day, because I didn't get no more hits on my hand! Interviewer: I'm left-handed too, I'm- thankfully, I didn't have to suffer like you did.

And the snow was deep and the bank was deep and they couldn't pulley the horse, 'cause the horse big ton horse go to that, they just fall on their nose. So I said, "Somebody's going to get hurt," so I had saddles, so I took the back pad off the horse and put a saddle on and put the up top of the horse with the helmet on and there would be snow in the trees so you put the big orange bag over them and their arms out so the snow would fly off ...

The one other time Mother- my mother would make tea and biscuits before the game-warden, Ford-Roberts come in to check the fish out in the spring and m-- Mother would invite him in for tea and biscuits in the back-kitchen, in the k-- s-- summer kitchen with Gramp.

Speaker 2: They also had bees for other things too. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Oh they used to have threshing bees- Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker: Corn-cutting bees, wood-sawing bees. Speaker 2: So n-- everybody just came and did the work and ah- I- I- I admired that you-know?

Interviewer: He just- he was one of those people who could figure things out. Speaker: He was- he was quite a guy. Interviewer: Well tell us more about him. Speaker: He- he didn't like you standing around. (laughs) Interviewer: (Laughs) Speaker: If you were there and there- this- this one day bee was on, they would raise the walls, put up the rafters, they would sheet the floor and sheet all the walls, and, ah, put the, ah, strapping on the roof. Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: He'd- he'd put the steel on later himself. He wouldn't let anybody else put the steel on. But it- it was a marvel to behold, to watch them.

Speaker: Well they worked r-- if anybody got (inc)- they had their differences (inc) but if something happened- a disaster happened, they- everybody forgot that and they were there to ... Interviewer: Build the bond. Mm-hm. Speaker: Building bees, building bees. They also had bees for other things too. Interviewer: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Quilts. Interviewer 1: Yeah. Speaker: That was another thing. They had ah- ladies had quilting bees every winter. Interviewer: Yeah. Okay. And- and you were talking about going into the store to buy things. Now folks I think made a lot of their own clothes. Speaker: Yes.

So- so that ah made it more difficult- you-know and- you lost the ah- like the old farmers use to all work together at bees. You'd have your sawing bee where there'd be twenty-eight people come to your house and you'd- you'd saw up a pile of wood into-into stove-wood length and then you had to split it by hand, of course. Then the next bee was the corn cutting where you'd- when they started building silos you-you'd have twenty-five or twenty-eight men come again ah- they'd just changed hands of course with- with ah the neighbours. And ah the women- there might be two or three women that would help ...

Interviewer: Now we talked about- oh, you- you had talked about doing bees for ice. What other kind of bees were there? Where people would get together and help each other. Speaker: Basically ah wood cutting was the other- all the houses relied on wood heat and ah you generally would sometimes work together in the winter time and draw the ah firewood out in ah twelve foot lengths and then there would be a bee to cut it up. And that was done with the cross cut saw first and then as things became mechanical there'd be a gas powered engine running a saw and then a tractor driven saw that would circulate around through the community and would have bees to process everybody's firewood.

We had an ice house here on the- the farm and it was part of the ritual that a certain time in the winter when the river ice got thick enough, you would have bees and ah go out and hand saw the ice and then in later days, one of the ah residents in the township had a motor driven ice saw that they could cut the blocks of ice and an elevator that then would put it up on the sleighs, and you filled your ice house every winter and then covered it with sawdust to slow down the meltdown of it.

Every farmer worked with- helped with the other. They had what they call thrashing bees, you-know, wood cutting bees. They had corn cutting bees. And that's when all the neighbours would bring their horses, wagons, tractors. Everybody pitched in and get- get this farm done. And when it was done, they moved on did the next one. So everybody got their work done.

Well he sold them the rest of the lot. But there was only- that's when they got down far enough so the- they built the office and their entrance down to the offices big time.

I remember my dad ah we used to do that with the grain binder and ah he was always falling asleep because he didn't get enough sleep and ah these grain binders you sat up about six feet on them, six feet off the ground

They had for snow ploughs, they had a bobsleigh, like that's one sleigh ahead of

I said to Dad, "Do you think if I-" well, Melanie wanted to know if I'd bring a box and go to the box social. I said, "Is it alright dad if I could go up-" 'Course Dad stayed overnight to help Dale do what he had to do, so (laughs) yes, I got going up, so we made a box and-that.