And also, in the- in the winter-time, well she didn't relax all that much. Because I remember they also had what they call quilting bees. In the wintertime, that's all the women- they all get together, and they would quilt. Ev-- you-know, in the wintertime. And it'd take up the- the dining room- t-- the dining room was all- you-know, the frame for the quilt was put on there, and they would quilt, and quilt, and quilt, and quilt.

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.

Definitely an inspired idea, I think my mom has the new edition of it. I- there are other books that I- like it's a good all-around reference. It's one of those things, like, if you don't know how to roast a chicken or do a turkey or roast a beef or you-know those-kinds-of-things, you will find the answer in the Joy-of-Cooking. Yeah.

Speaker: It's a- it's group of young people that lived in the country and farm and we ah, we used to get to together for meetings and to learn different things about gardening and animals. We showed a beef at the fair and- Interviewer: Oh. Speaker: Some people raised pigs and all different- we had a lot of um- we used to hold dances and things for fundraisers...

Speaker: Ah no she was- made good soup. Used to enjoy soup but- Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Yeah but apart from that we used to ah- a lot of our food was from the farm so we- Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: We had our own beef and we had our own vegetables and most part and- and ah the freezer and so ah self-sufficient in a lot of ways that way, of course we'd had to buy groceries. Ah apart from that you only went into town every couple of weeks or more...

Interviewer: But did you have livestock on the farm too? Speaker: Oh yes. I remember I killed a beef one time by myself. Interviewer: What? Speaker: I killed a beef by myself. Interviewer: How did you do that? Speaker: Well I ah got a pile of straw outside the barn and I- of course you had to hit her on the head and then cut her throat- cut the throat and- and ah- I didn't get all finished before my dad came home...

Kill a beef about first week of January and Mother would cut the ham slices and can it. And the pork, she canned the hams for the pork and cooked it up ah, other and put it in cans with the grease on it and put it in the basement.

He couldn't ah keep it up. But he h-- always kept one cow pretty well you-know to the last- but he never milked it. It was just his own beef eh?

Not this time of the night. Yeah, your neighbours are your neighbours. Nowadays if you got in touch with your neighbour see if he kill- kill a beef, he'll tell you to take a walk.

He had a shop out there that they used to kill this beef and these cattle and-everything. Like this one. Ah pork and-everything. And they learnt from him, the brothers.

Speaker: My favourite is- actually, if they cook it properly is the bear. Interviewer: Euh! What's that taste like? Speaker: Oh it's absolutely delicious. It is um, more like a beef than-

And that- it's marginal land, um, th-- there's this guy now ah, Joel-Salatin who's sort of the rockstar of- of back- the back to the land movement and he's preaching the gospel of ah, grass-fed beef, rotating every night, every night

You're- you're going to- maybe what you're going to get is ah self- some su-- sustenance, you-know you can raise your own beef, but somebody or both- say in a couple, both people are going to work out part-time or one's going to have to be out full time...

Cause some of the commodities, eh if price of lamb goes down, well the beef will carry you through or-whatever. If you get disaster strikes if you got all pigs and y-- price of pigs goes down you're getting euchred.

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.

So y-- and I- and I- I honestly don't remember how big they were but they must have been fairly large because I-mean, we would- we would kill a beef and we would kill a pig and I think we kept all that meat in the storage locker so each farmer or-whoever could rent a- a storage locker.

Or you would can your- in the wintertime we dress a beef then that would be- it would be maybe canned.

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.