HomeMy WebLinkAbout28th Huron Pioneer Thresher Reunion, 1989-09-06, Page 5THE CITIZEN. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 1989. PAGE A-5.
Bringing in sheaves familiar task for men
Taking a break
Bill Leiper (centre) took a break from stooking some grain for the Thresher’s
Reunion. If it wasn’t for these men, there wouldn’t beany threshing demonstration
at the Thresher’s Reunion. The Leiper brothers Bill and Tom (right) took over the
chore this year after Norman Cook (left) retired from the job after many years of
providing the reunion with stooks.
BY USA BOONSTOPPEL
The threshing display at the Threshers’
Reunion is a crowd-pleasing actual re
enactment of an old grain harvest. But the
show can’t go on without sheaved grain,
grain that is supplied by hard-working and
generous thresher fans from around Blyth.
Getting grain ready for the threshing
machine is a lengthy and physically
demanding job. First the grain has to be
cut with a binder that will tie it into
sheaves; stooked so that the hot sun can
dry the product and collected and trans
ported to the site of the Reunion.
The process requires time, the physical
stamina to manhandle the sheaves and the
acquisition of old equipment to cut and
sheaf the grain. Usually the stookers are
older and retired men because they have
the time and old equipment to get the job
done.
One of these men is Norman Cook from
RR 1, Belgrave who has been involved with
the stooking end of the Threshers’ Reunion
for many years. Besides stooking his own
wheat field for the grain many times, he
has also picked up the sheaves from other
farmer’s fields and brought them to Blyth.
Last year’s supply of grain came from
Cook’s.
This year, Mr. Cook is retiring from
stooking. “It’s time that somebody else did
it right,’’ he said. Yet, Mr. Cook does know
all about the process because he used to
thresh the grain on his own farm for over
30 years from 1952 until the early eighties.
Mr. Cook bought his farm which is just
across the road from where he was born, in
1951. He has been going to the annual
show ever since it started and has been
involved with it in various activities from
showing steam engines to sawing logs to
stooking grain.
The stooking process is something Mr.
Cook knows about as he describes the
different ways of stooking once the sheaves
are laying on the ground. “There’s the
Longwestern Stook where you set up two
sheaves in a row and there’s the Round
Stook which has one sheaf in the middle
and either five or eight sheaves around it,’’
he said. Stooking is usually done by fork
but some farmers do it by hand.
This year, the stooking was taken over
by the Leiper brothers from RR 1,
Londesboro. Since the Leipers also used to
operate their farm in the manner of the
pioneers, they have all the equipment and
knowledge needed to undertake the task.
Up until a few years ago, the brothers
stooked their own grain but now they only
do a couple of rows for the Thresher
Young spinner finds
fun in old art
Continued from page A-4
that she scrapes together until the wool
looks smooth. Then the wool is taken off
the carders and placed on the smooth
wooden back of the brush for logging which
is rolling the wool up so it resembles a log.
When there are a sufficient number of
these logs, it’s time to go to the spinning
wheel or the drop spindle. Drop spindles
are more convenient than spinning wheels
because of their smaller size and Terri said
that the pioneer women all had drop
spindles when they first came to Canada
because all the spinning wheels wouldn’t
fit in the boat.
Spinners must have the proper seat, said
Terri. “You should sit at a low seat with no
arms and the seat of the chair has to be
small enough that it’s not against your
knees or it will cut off your circulation,”
she said. Then the wool is threaded onto a
bobbin and the spinning begins. The
end-product is collected on a different
bobbin.
“If I really try, I can do one bobbin a
day,” said Terri who has considerably
large bobbins. She has made enough wool
for her grandma to knit her a sweater. But
there are different grades of wool she can
make on the spinning wheel. First grade is
really soft wool for baby blankets, she said.
“Second grade wool is for outside weather
Reunion. All their old machinery needed
for the task is still working and most of it
can be seen in a spectacle of old-times on
their yard. Some of the larger equipment is
kept in a shed down the road.
The Leipers explained how the binder
works to cut the grain and. make it into
sheaves. First, the knife on the binder cuts
the grain and deposits it onto a canvass.
The elevator canvass takes the grain up to
the packers where a trip is operated when
the packers are full. Then, a catch is
released and arms come around the grain
and tie it with twine. These arms then kick
the newly-tied sheaf onto the ground. The
sheaves always come out of the binder the
heads facing back.
Then the Leipers make the stooks with
five sheaves in each one. They figured they
have about three loads of grain for the
reunion which took about three hours with
three people to stook up.
The Leiper brothers really enjoy the old
ways of farming. “I’d rather have stooks
than swaths,’’ said Tom Leiper while both
agreed “thresing is best and combining is
second best.” As for stooking for the
threshers, they said, “We get a bit of fun
out of it.”
It takes a lot of work to stook grain for
the show from the cutting of the grain to
the stooking and then loading and trans
porting it. But for old farmers who never
really made the transition to modern
equipment, it brings back memories of the
good old days while provided a valuable
service to the Blyth Thresher Reunion.
clothes and third grade would be for
something like rugs.” The progressive
grades of wool indicate its strength, and
wool can be made stronger by spinning it
more.
Terri has also experimented with dying
her wool. “I do all natural dyes because I
like the colours more and you can get every
colour you want in nature.” She even
developed a new technique, albeit acciden
tally, for dying wool. She had planned on
dyeing some wool yellow using onion skins.
But when the process was completed, she
found she had three different shades of
brown for light to dark. “The colour must
have surfaced to the top so the dark brown
was on the top and the light brown was on
the bottom.”
Terri has also experimented with weav
ing on a miniature loom her father made
for her. With some spun flax she received
from a lady, she made a small mat. “The
piece turned out rather good,” said Terri of
her first weaving attempt.
In the future, Terri hopes to sell some of
her wool because she says she always has
too much for her own use. For now, she is
busy practicing the art and is well on her
way to becoming a master spinner. You can
catch Terri in action in the Blyth arena at
the Thresher’s Reunion as she displays her
spinning wheel and does some spinning at
the show.
to everyone attending the
28th Reunion of the
Pioneer Threshers
Campbell
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Blyth 523-4204
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