Speaker: ... Bill had this old model-T and did you ever hear of a car with a rumble seat? Interviewer: A rumble seat? No.Speaker: Yeah. This was- it was ah like a one seat in the front but the- you explain what a rumble seat is. Speaker 2: Really just a- a section at the back that came down with another seat in it. ... Speaker: if you didn't want to use it, you just closed it up. But if you had an extra couple people in it you ah you put them in it. Yeah, it was (laughs)- it was the rumble seat. Yeah, that was interesting.

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.

Oh, we had an apple orchard and you picked your own apples. You went out with your schoolbag in the morning and put three or four apples in it on the way out to walk to school.

Interviewer: (Laughs) Did you- how did you take your lunches to school? Did you have a special pack or bag? Speaker: Oh we- I- we had a school- I had a leather school bag with a strap over your shoulder and you put your books in and- and then there'd be room of a bag- an extra- extra paper bag or-whatever and that's- Interviewer: Where your sandwich and your- Speaker: Where the- where the sandwich, yeah.

My dad had to buy the farmland from the estate. Interviewer: Oh. Speaker: But he got his share, like of the estate went to give- but he had to pay for it but he still had to buy it. And Uncle Wilfred had to buy the one down at the corner too, and he got away with her scott-free. So he said oh, years later I was married, and we had the two boys and they were about four or five years old then I guess.

I got what these scotch (inc) and Sophia's- Sophia's ah- Sophia's relatives, they right from Scotland eh?

Interviewer: (inc) remember a fight between you and your brother? Speaker: Oh sure. Y-- you know two kids growing up that do-- that didn't have a scrap? No- Interviewer: No. Speaker: No, but we got- we- we were quite d-- he's unfortunately passed away now. We were quite different ah but we got along very very well, yeah.

didn't- the only- the only riding I had done before that- if- if Dad scuffled the garden, then you'd only be using one horse and he'd let me ride on Duke's back when he scuffled the garden.

Fl-- shadflies or-something we always figured 'cause they die in it. I'm don't- I'm not sure. I'm not sure what it is but they still- you can get an itch out of the water.

Um, yeah, I've had the threshing machine, I worked the threshing machine, throwing the sheaves. Worked- did all the farm work, same as he did, worked, helped him ploughed and-so-on, all summer long ...

My dad and I were drawing in grain. It was stooked and ah, I was building the load and um, a groundhog was in a stook. A stook is five sheaves or- or seven or eight whatever, ah, and ah, this groundhog scooted ou-- out and frightened the horses and the horses ran away.

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 and you threshed the grain and- now of course it's all done with combines and big outfits and- and the farms are getting larger.

Three day- it might take three days at each farm to thresh it and it be six wagons. And six wagons or so and with the team of horses and they- they- they pull up the side of thresher machine and fork the sheaves into the thrashing machine, that's how-

Speaker: There was two kind of stook. They used to have the long stooks and they'd be two, two, two and two. And the stook would be about- it would have maybe ten sheaves in it. Five pairs. And then the round stooks you just had two and two and- 'bout maybe six or seven. And- and it was round then.

Speaker: You go into the field and cut the grain with the binder in it. Interviewer 1: So it almost (inc)- Speaker: Makes it into stooks, yeah makes it- Interviewer 1: Oh 'kay! Speaker: Into stooks, into sheaves, yes stooks is when you put them all together made it into sheaves. Glad you remember these things (laughs) 'cause I can't- made it into sheaves and then ah- Interviewer 2: She drove the tractor, mom rode the binder-

And then come in for breakfast some time, oh, seven-thirty eight 'clock? And then you'd have breakfast and then you'd- some people milked the cows. Um we had like what they called dual-purpose shorn-horns. They were pretty good milkers and were pretty good beef, but they weren't the best in either category but they were- that's why they called them dual purpose. And we had them so they would- we always milked after breakfast.

Back in those days, there wasn't hydraulics, lift-trucks and-stuff-like-that, you- you pile them on a truck that had a stationary roller on the back ... Then once the car was empty it had to take all that and pile all in the crossers on skids to the side of the laneway that you're in. A lot of handling, a lot of work, a lot of physical labour. But it was just the way it was back then.

And ah, anyways mom said she was really glad it was Duke instead of Belle, 'cause Belle was the one that was- it was skittish at best, like not near as- as ah, gentle as what ah old Duke was. He wouldn't hurt anything.

And then you- well, Sandy used to drive it a lot. They would back it into the rows of hay instead of doing it all by hand, that was- and then they would bring it in and put it in the barn and take it up with, um- slings. And then it would go across the big thing in the top of the barn, I forget what that was called, and drop down into the haymow.

Speaker: Hay fork ah, ah, come down from the roof of the barn on- then put- now was it slings they had mostly?Yeah, the slings they had on the wagon I-guess before you put the hay on wasn't it? Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: And then the hay went on top of that and then they hooked ah, slings to the hay for- or-- the hay- so I just had to watch.