HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association Thresher Reunion, 1987-09-09, Page 7THE CITIZEN. WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 9. 1987 PAGE A-7.
When threshing
changed.SEE US FOR YOUR
HOME AND FARM BUILDING PROJECTS
country society
changed
BY KEITH ROULSTON
Looking back 30 years now, as a
member of a generation that grew
up at a time when the harvesting of
grainchangedforever, Icansee
that it wasn’t just a technological
change when combines replaced
threshing machines, but a change
of an entire way of life.
Both the threshing machine and
the combine played a part in my
early life. I can remember the
excitement in my really young
days, of the news that the
threshing machine was arriving
that day. Even as a teenager I
worked during the summer on
some of the last farms in our
township that stuck with the old
ways. In between came the period
* when my own family switched from
the threshing machine to the
combine.
As a member of a family that
often had fewer possessions than
our neighbours, the arrival of that
Massey-Harris combine on our
farm was a real moment of pride for
me. It wasn’t new or shiny. It had
already lived a useful life on
somebody else’s farm before we
got it. But at a time when we
considered any car less than 10
years of old as “new”, the machine
was an exciting new addition to the
farm. It was made more so because
several of our neighbours still were
“old fashioned’’ and using the
threshing machine.
I was pretty proud when I got to
ride around on the combine,
standing on the little fenced-in
platform with my dad, taking the
bags of grain away from the twin
grain spouts, tying them, then
sliding them down the chute to the
ground where they’d be picked up
later with a wagon. It wasn’t very
efficient because it still took my
uncle to drive the tractor pulling
the machine and my dad to bag the
grainbut it still used a lotfewer
people than threshing.
And yet, once the novelty wore
off, I found I envied my best friend
who lived on the “backward” farm
across the road where they still
threshed their grain.
In fact my friend’s father ran a
really old-fashioned operation.
Every year he cut his grain with a
binder (in my earliest memories I
think he still used a team of
horses), then stooked it and then
loaded it on wagons and transferr
ed it, using slings, into the barn
where it would sit until the
threshing gang arrived, often after
they’d already done all the other
farmers who threshed straight out
of the stook.
My first earnings were made
helping spread those sheaves
around the mow on my friend’s
farm, the sheaf often being as big
as I was.
It was my introduction to being
pari of the threshing gang. Later I
would drive the tractor while the
men picked up the sheaves in the
fields and the load was built higher
and higher behind me. Later still I
drove the tractor for the first step in
harvest, cutting the grain. I
learned to fix the cantankerous
binder (perhaps the last piece of
machinery I could make logical
sense out of).
As I grew older the sense
comradeship the operation
threshing brought grew as 1 took
my place with the gang stooking or
loading wagons (threshing dis
appeared from the scene before 1
became senior enough to be
around the threshing machine).
Stooking was the most fun when
there was a group of people
working their way across a field. It
Continued on page 8
of
of
We’re pleasedtoextend our best wishes
itoourmanyfriendsinBlythandareafora
successful 26th Reunion.
LANGFORD LUMBER
HOME CENTRES
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QUALITY PRODUCTS If QUALIFIED SERVldIk COMPETITIVE PRICING 3K
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Spreaders, Roto Mowers, Duals, Mix Mills,
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1979 Mack Tractor
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40* Cattle Van
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1
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RINDLEY SALES YARD
DUNGANNON, ONT.
Is having a Consignment Auction of
SALE: MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14th
AT 9:30 A.M. SHARP
iaCe. tfevtte 930 "
APPROXIMATELY 100 PIECES OF EQUIPMENT
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