MY MEMORIES OF THE BUCHANAN FARM
AT BIRNIE MANITOBA
by Don Buchanan

INTRODUCTION
Perhaps as we get older we start thinking more about the past. I don't think it's a matter of gaining some degree of immortality but more of what I feel is a need to pass on to those who are the future, just what or who has gone before. I think it became more evident when I visited my mother in Kinsman Court in Neepawa before a series of strokes took her memory. Her eyesight had already diminished very noticeably. She had two shoe boxes of old photos (I don't have any of them) and there was no way of identifying who was in those photos unless she could tell me. Most of her friends that I knew were gone and her sister Isabel was much younger and as she lived all her married life in Margaret Manitoba, didn't know many of those people who were our family and friends. We ended up being able to name about 75% of those people - most wouldn't mean anything to any of us. What it made me realize was that there were many things about our family that were going to be lost unless I started making some record. We were a close family and although we didn't have any money to speak of' I have come to realize that I was very fortunate to have been raised by two wonderful people in a type of community and lifestyle that was exceptional and no longer exists anywhere in my opinion.

I have to admit that part of the reason is that travel was more restricted so we found our entertainment locally. We were lucky in that all our neighbours were fine people and we got along well with all of them. They could be relied upon when help was needed and many long time friendships grew and continue even now. As an example, Neepawa was 15 miles away and we would often go for as much as a two months or more without going that far away - especially in the winter. In summer months it might be extended to one or two times per month. I'll deal with this later when I talk about transportation.

My purpose is more to relate a way of life that was good to me and a lot of fun and happy times. A way of life that is far different than what we had with Shannon, Trent and Kristal and will seem even more remote to their children. I will probably wander a bit but that, generally speaking, is my purpose in this bit of history. As a child and young man living at home on the farm, I now realize there is a reason for the family history to have some blank spaces. We never travelled away on vacations - I can remember only going to Margaret Manitoba (100 miles away) to visit my grandfather and grandmother Murdock and our cousins (Moms' sister Isabel Campbell and my uncle Bill (they had five children). I remember going once to Clear Lake ( 50 miles away) for a week with Mom and another woman and her kids - I still remember the big tent we rented, it had wooden sides to about 4 feet then canvas and came complete with a bees nest (Dad couldn't leave the farm) and once to Yorkton to visit my aunt and uncle there. That was really far because it was about 180 miles away. I still remember the trip home. My aunt Eva packed a lunch of a sandwich and a piece of my birthday cake that she had made. A big fat fellow sat down beside me and I was too afraid to tell him he was sitting on my lunch. He was still sitting on it when I got off the bus.

My point is that we didn't go anywhere to speak of but did have a lot of company throughout the year, mainly during summer holidays. During these visits, my Mom and Dad talked to friends and relatives about what had taken place in "the olden days". This would have been anything that took place beyond the last six months I believe. I am sure the stories got better as time went by as they do now. Even what had been a hardship often took on a touch of humour. That part is missing from our lives - there are greater distances between family and friends, there isn't the same amount of "visiting" as had been a way of life before. Its far different and life is more complicated. Many people were born, raised and lived until they died in the same community. In many respects T.V. has taken away the art of conversation. On the other hand our home was very large so there was always room for more either for a meal or to spend a few days. Its for these reasons I want to tell you about some of the Buchanan background - taken mostly from memory (while I still have one) and with some help from the only two people left that could help, Isabel Campbell who still lives in Margaret, Manitoba and aunt Gertie Buchanan (Dads' brother Alex wife) who lives in Cassidy B.C.

THE OLD FOLKS
 

James Buchanan

I think its best if I start with identifying my grandparents and telling you what little I recall.
 

James Buchanan
More can be added to my grandfathers history from the "family tree" that we have. He died in 1931 which was 4 years before Dad and Mom were married, so Dad and my grandmother Buchanan lived on the family farm. The rest had all left home by that time as I understand. I never thought too much about it at the time but now I realize that not a lot was said about him, maybe there wasn't much to be said as my mother wouldn't have known him very well. My aunt said he liked sports and enjoyed curling. He moved onto the farm in the early 1900's and built a two and one half story brick home in 1908. He built a large barn in 1916 I believe and had moved a lumber shed from town onto the farm later that he used to store implements and house a work shop. He may have had greater expectations in expanding the farm but in any event that didn't happen perhaps partly as a result of the depression and when he died he left Dad with a large mortgage that never got paid off until 1953. It was extremely difficult for Mom and Dad to ride out the depression of the "dirty 30s".
 

Hughena Buchanan (nee McClay)
I only remember my grandmother as a quiet and rather serious person. From what little I know, she was born and raised in the Owen Sound area of Ontario. She was tall and very slim and not in good health for as long as I can remember. I can only recall her either lying in her bed upstairs or sitting in a chair by the kitchen stove. I thought there was a lot of stress between my mother and her as confirmed by Mom years later when she said she always felt she wasn't doing things right. On the other hand, my aunt said that Mom wouldn't let grandma help - who knows and it doesn't really matter. My aunts and uncles came to visit regularly but I don't recall my grandmother ever going to visit any of them - I guess this was her home and she had no wish to leave. There was a family by the name of Betz who lived in Yorkton that were related that I think she went to visit once. Mrs. Betz came to our place a few times. We always looked forward to her visits because she "read" tea leaves- some of the things she predicted did really take place. I am not sure when Grandma Buchanan died but I believe it was just before the end of the Second World War.
 

Robert McClay
"Uncle Bob" was a fine individual and played an important part in the early lives of my sister and I. He never married and spent all his working life as a farm hand working for several farmers in the area and spent a lot of time helping out and living at our farm. He was a tall and impressive man that, as far back as I could remember, had this thick mass of wavy white hair. He was good to us and we were always glad to see him. It was unfortunate that he died alone in the lower mainland somewhere and no one knew. He had retired and had $20,000.00 for his retirement. He found religion and died broke - apparently the municipality had to cover the burial cost. There had been a large rift in the family when Mom and Dad found he was trying to convert my grandmother when she was ill and not too long before she died. He left and never came back
 

Jack Murdock
My mom's father was a station agent for the C.N. Railway. My first memory of him was when I went to Margaret Manitoba during summer holidays. He ran the railroad station which meant he had to handle freight that was to he put on the train, get the mail ready and sorted etc., to be put in a bag to go on the train as well. He sold tickets to passengers and operated the telegraph. It was also his responsibility to make sure there was coal for the steam engine if it was needed and maintained the water tower as well. He was a slender man and not very tall but perhaps because of his English background, I always remembered him as being well dressed whether in his home or in his uniform that he was required to wear. This included the round black hat with the peak and a railroad shield on the front. He even had a pocket watch with a "fob" (a chain that went from the vest button hole to the watch)which went into a pocket on his chest. He even had those black sleeve protectors that covered from wrist to elbow so the ink didn't dirty his shirt. It seemed to me that my grandmother did most of the work around the house.

He and my grandmother moved to Birnie where we saw more of them but he too died at an early age. I don't recall if he lived to retire or not but I believe he did for a short period of time. His hobby was collecting old coins and other memorabilia. He also had 2-3 swords which I have and a muzzle loader rifle which I also have as they were given to me by my grandmother. He had carved a beautiful sailing ship complete with three sails, crew, guns etc and he called it "The Don". It was for me and the last time I had seen it was in the attic on the farm. I thought it had been discarded with a lot of other things after the sale of the farm in 1969. The farm was sold to our friend and neighbour Tom Eng who is about 4 years younger than I. What a surprise when I went back 29 years later to take some interior photos of the house and found the boat had been left in a corner of the attic with some other things and Tom or his wife Linda never threw it out but neither did it occur to them any level of importance because the name of the boat was on the side of it that was resting on the floor. They gave it to me and now I have to do some restoration if I can. Unfortunately, my grandmother was sick of the "museum" my grandfather had maintained and either junked it or gave some away. He had built two farms with little rail fences, animals, log buildings etc and a bridge and I have no idea what happened to them. The only other thing I remember is that he had a 1938 Dodge that he kept washed and waxed like a mirror at all times. He and my grandmother had come to Canada from England together. As a station agent he worked in a number of areas during which time my mother and sister stayed with grandma in Portage La Prairie Manitoba so apparently they didn't see a lot of him during their younger years.
 

Alice Murdock
This is one of the finest, best liked and happy people I knew. As a matter of fact, this part of my little story is being done on her birthday (May 19). She told me she was a housemaid in England before she came to Canada. She often talked about Bidiford - wherever that is in England. I don't think my grandfather was any happy-go-lucky kind of guy but it never seemed to bother my grandma. She was short and sort of round and always singing or whistling or humming. Everyone liked her in Birnie. She was a good cook and always seemed to be baking something. We could never go there that she hadn't just made something for tea etc.

We lived on the farm 3 miles from Birnie so we saw her a lot but it was always by way of a visit because she never had a phone. After grandpa died, she took in one and sometimes two teachers who had room and board with her. Because travel was so difficult in the winter my sister and I use to spend from Monday night to Thursday night living with her. We prayed for snow anytime after Sept because it was fun to live in town. It was best when I went to school from grade 7 to 11 because the school was right across the street. Her house was two story with three bedrooms upstairs (the museum was later converted to a fourth so she could accommodate the two teachers. The "honey bucket" used in the winter was in the end of my room which as I recall seemed about 7 feet wide and 20 feet long. I don't think we really appreciated how hard my grandmother worked and I never ever recall her acting angry, upset or even down in the dumps for that matter. She lived alone until my mother was afraid she might fall or something like that in the winter so she went into the Seniors Home in Neepawa at about age 85 where she lived for another nine years. She was the kind of person that every kid should know -a great roll model of what all grandparents should be.
 

William George (Bill) Buchanan
Dad was the eldest male of five children. There was my uncle Alex and three sisters, Eva, Ethel and Coral. Dad died of a heart attack in Jan.11 969 just after his 62nd birthday. He hadn't been feeling well so Mom and a neighbour son (Tom Eng who bought our farm) spent all the previous day shoveling snow out of the laneway so she could take him to Neepawa. He never got out of the house - I still get upset when I hear local people complain that the hospital is too far away and we have only an ambulance service.

Dad was a strong character in that what you saw is what you got. His attitude was that if you didn't like his gate "don't swing on it". He never made any attempt to appear to be anyone but himself. Everyone that I knew must have liked his "gate" because he knew everyone within 30 miles of our place. On the odd occasion when we went to Neepawa, it could take an hour to walk one block because he would stop and talk to everybody - we were proud of him. Through him, I got to know a lot of people at an early age. I was known as "Bill's son" far more than by my own name. Dad always called me "Joe" - I don't know why but both he and Mom did for as far back as I could remember until I was well into my teens. It could have been because the Buchanan men seemed always to have a nickname such as Big Sam, Red Bob, Black Jim, Buck - we even had one who wasn't related, known as "Jimmy the Rat".

In later years, I felt sorry for Dad in some ways. He enjoyed spending his life in and around Birnie but when he was younger, he had planned to be a grain buyer. These people ran the grain elevators for the various grain companies.. They graded the grain, put it through the cleaners etc, loaded it onto box cars for shipment etc. He would have been good at it although these people were subject to being transferred 2-4 times during their working life. He never got that opportunity. He was the eldest son so when my grandfather died at an early age, he looked after grandma and took on the responsibility of the farm.

Financially, it would have taken a lot of pressure off him but that didn't happen and even though we didn't have much money at all, he always made sure that each of us had a decent set of clothes. Even from my earliest memory, he was nearly bald and wore some type of straw hat in summer and a tweed cap in winter. Although he was about 3 inches shorter, most who have known both of us say I look very much like him

He had such a strong character - he always managed to find something good regardless of the situation. I know it put a lot of pressure on him because once in awhile Mom would get "down" a little because they couldn't seem to get ahead. This bothered him but rather than feel sorry for himself' he would find a way to bring her out of it and everything was fine again. He and I were good friends as well as father and son. The most difficult time for me was when I first left home at age 19.1 could not convince him that I didn't want to be a farmer. The other people we knew had their sons staying home so he felt that he had failed in putting together a big enough farm operation that would at least allow me the choice. I got a ride into Winnipeg with a cousin. Mom told me later that Dad sat on the back step and cried, that picture still brings a lump in my throat. I never saw that happen before or after. He was pleased and particularly proud after I joined the RCMP.

I have told this story many times but I think it best describes Dads' character.. I was 16-17 and was going to a dance in the area. I had the car and could put gas in the tank from the tractor gas barrel but I didn't have any money for admission or lunch. We didn't work on allowances - just had money as we needed it. I asked Dad and neither he or Mom had any - we never had a bank account at any time so there just wasn't any anywhere. Dad went to a glass jar he kept in the china cabinet and found $2.50 and gave it to me. I wouldn't take it but he insisted that if that was all there was, I should have it and have a good time. That's why the red glass with the clear base in the cabinet is important to me as a reminder of the type of man he was.
 

Annie Leona Buchanan (nee Murdock)
Mom was born and raised in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba. She and my aunt Isabel and Grandma and Grandpa Murdock lived in a railway owned house by the tracks in that city. Mom was one of the few women in those days that graduated grade 12. At one point in high school she was entered in and won a spelling bee in Winnipeg. When it came to spelling, she knew I didn't take after her. She had intended to become a secretary but when the family moved to Birnie, that was nearly impossible. She met Dad and spent the rest of her life till he died, on the farm.

Mom and Dad had a good life together but I know it was more difficult for her. Coming from a home in which there was always a monthly pay cheque was quite different on the farm where weather often dictated the family income. Pretty well everybody else was the same so it wasn't a matter of being poor or anything like that at all. As a farm wife, she worked outside as well as in the home, particularly in the summer. We always had a large garden and they often spent evenings and Sundays working there. She would have to help Dad occasionally where a second pair of hands were needed when working with the horses, etc. Later when we got a tractor, she would operate the "binder" (for making sheaves of grain) and Dad drove the tractor or vice versa.

In the house, she had to do all the baking and cooking as well as mending, washing cleaning etc. Its difficult to envision what a chore laundry was; as an example. In the winter, we had to bring in buckets of snow to melt and then heat the water. We, like most other people at that time had a "scrub board" which was ribbed glass about 18" x 24" in a frame. Mom would have this in a galvanized tub lull of water and soap and cleaned the clothes by rubbing them up and down on the scrub board - then they were rinsed in clear water before they were hung to dry. Small amounts of clothes might be draped over a rack in the kitchen or hung on a line outside. At one point, we had a hand operated washing machine that we all took turns running. it was a series of gears put in motion as we pulled on a pump handle type lever. There was no dryer so she hung it on the line outside where it dried in summer and froze in winter. The picture of someone's long johns leaning on the cupboard after Mom brought them in during the winter, was very real.

In addition to this, I have seen her can 100 quarts of Saskatoons in a summer. She also canned beef and chicken in the same fashion. On top of all this Mom's butter tarts and chocolate cakes were always in demand every time a local organization had a supper or bake sale.

For her recreation, Mom played the piano and enjoyed pretty well all card games. In those days Canasta and Rumoli were popular in that quite a few could play. She liked to sing and was part of the church choir for as long as I could remember. There was a local lady that insisted on sitting next to her "because Mom was the only one that sang the notes properly". That lady was also what I call a professional mourner - she sang at every funeral and cried openly every time whether she knew the deceased or not.

When I think of it, Mom's Xmas day was pretty long in that she was up when we woke which would be early and she never got a break until after the dishes were all done usually by around 10:00 p.m. There were as many as 27 people at our home for Xmas dinner. Often the card games continued till 34A.M. Mom liked curling and took part in that, usually a couple of times each week from Dec. to March when the ice melted. She also took in the ladies bonspiels in the immediate area.

In her later years after Dad died Mom moved from the farm to Neepawa and travelled quite a bit, usually with a bus tour group from the area. As she grew older, she would often talk about how unfair it was that Dad had died so young and had not been able to enjoy much of what she had done. On the other hand, I can't envision him being old and in poor health - the picture just never fit.
 

Nels Buchanan
This man was an uncle to Dad and always lived in towns within 15 miles of our place so we saw a lot of him. He wasn't a very ambitious person but was one of the most enjoyable guests in our home when he visited. 1 think he only went to about grade 4 in school but was one of the smartest people I knew. As an example, a strong wind ripped the doors off the opening into the loft of the barn. They would be about 12 feet wide and 15 feet high. They were heavy and ran on a track so they could be opened when we were putting in feed for the livestock for the winter and then closed against the elements. Dad had brought in a contractor on one occasion and a carpenter on another and no one could figure how to put them back as they were too heavy and the track was buckled. Nels came to visit and Dad told him of the problem. Nels sat on an apple box in front of the barn with a pencil and paper for about a half hour and showed how it had to be done - it worked and was relatively inexpensive and with a minimum of difficulty. He could also take apart any car motor and put it back after completing the repairs, without any difficulty and had never taken any mechanics training. As another example of his ingenuity when he lived in Riding Mountain in his later years, he ran a 100 foot electrical cord to the outhouse. Even though it was lined with cardboard, it was still very cold in winter. He hooked up a heat lamp about a foot above the seat and would plug in the cord at the house a few minutes before he went out.

This man would talk all night if we wanted, both in relating stories about other people and relatives or in telling jokes. He was a master at both.
 
 

OUR FARM

Its a little difficult to know which setting is best to start but this is as good as any - I'll deal with the community later. As far as I know, my grandfather bought the farm and it consisted of two quarter section parcels of 160 acres each (sorry you people are going to have to deal with any metric conversions you might want). The records are probably in some old dusty section of a Rural Municipal office sol don't know when he bought them. The main buildings were the house which was constructed in about 1908 and the barn in about 1916 so from that, it would seem likely my grandfather bought the "home quarter": in early 1900's and later the "meadow" which was about a mile away and was used generally for growing hay and for cattle to graze on it during the summer. When my grandfather died, the "meadow" was given to my uncle Alex and he rented it to a neighbour for the better part of 20 years as I recall. Dad rented it from Alex after that because by that time we had a tractor so it didn't take so long to travel from the home farm to the meadow when we used horses. The meadow only had 80 of the 160 acres under cultivation. In other words crops were planted on half of that quarter while the remainder was left in grass and a number of "bluffs" that provided shelter and shade for the livestock. Bluffs were small clumps of poplar trees that covered areas from 34 and up to perhaps 20 acres. The poplar trees never grew very large as they tended to die after reaching a size of about 8-10 inches in diameter. That land was used for crops other than wheat because it was not as fertile as the home farm.

The home farm had good productive soil and would grow any kind of crop - all but about 35 acres of it was kept for growing grain. There was a solid bluff of oak, willow and maple trees around the north and west sides of the farm yard that provided a good shelter for the house and barn area. This covered about 5 acres with the rest of the 30 remaining used chiefly for two pasture areas for cattle and horses. At one point, the entire farm area had been fenced using poplar posts and barbed wire. Eventually the fenced area was reduced to only where we had cattle and horses. We had a lane that was about 300 yards long running from the municipal (gravel) road to our house.
 

House
The house was built of bricks. It was 2 1/2 stories high with a full basement. The basement furnace burned both wood and coal. As we had to push the large chunks of coal down a chute into the basement, the whole area was suitable only for storage as the coal dust covered everything. We had to go to Birnie 3 miles away, usually with a team of horses and a sleigh box in winter to get the coal which was brought in by railway cars from which we had to shovel it off and then weigh it at the nearby grain elevator to calculate how much it cost. A lot of the wood we burned was old railway ties that Dad would pick up from the side of the track every fall after the maintenance people had pulled them out to replace with new ties the railway was about two miles from our place. This was hard, dirty work because we then had to saw them to block size. He got the ties in return for mowing the grass along the tracks with a mower pulled by a team of horses. when I was strong enough to help, Dad and I cut the blocks with each one on either end of a "crosscut" saw. These were about 5 feet long with huge jagged teeth and an upright handle on either end that you either pulled or pushed. This was our only source of heat so we used a lot of wood and coal each winter to heat the house.

As well as the furnace and coal bin we had a potato bin and a large cistern that used to store water for many years before my time. The cistern had held about 800 gallons of water that ran in off the eaves trough but by my time it has rusted and was too expensive to replace.

The last major item down here was the power plant. The plant was a "Delco" and from what I recall, was a single stroke engine. There were a bank of about 16-20 batteries that the power plant would charge up and that would provide lighting only for the house, yard and barn. By the time hydro came in 1953, the system was just about worn out so we had to run the plant every time we wanted light. We were pretty modern by local standards as every other farm in the area had either coal oil or kerosene lamps.

The house was very large and with it being built of brick was cool in the summer and darn cold in the winter. There were four large bedrooms upstairs and an attic. I use to enjoy going into the attic when it rained because the rain hitting on the section of roof covered in tin was a pleasant drum. There was a period of time of about 2 years when the roof leaked when it rained. To prevent damage inside, Mom and Dad put about 10 pots or tins of different sizes under the drips so that when it rained, we had our own "tin pot band" There were 3 separate storage sections, each with its own door. It was always fun exploring these because they held everything from a box of old mining shares my grandfather bought that were useless apparently, to his large selection of tobacco pipes and a lot of other "things" that were just considered old junk when the farm was sold. As well, there was a dormer with coloured glass in the upper section that was also a pleasant place to sit in the sun and daydream as a young boy.

The bedrooms were very large at about 12 feet by 12 feet each. Mom and Dad had their room at the top of the stairs while my sister and I had our own separate rooms on the side over the front veranda. One summer my sister and I both caught "scarlet fever" for which we were quarantined. We had to stay in our rooms for two

weeks and there was a big red poster on our front door saying we were quarantined and no one could come into the house. Our rooms also had to be kept dark because there was a possible effect on our eyes. I think I was about 10 and my sister 7. Mom could not hear us so she set up a system so we could call her when we needed her. She ran a length of binder twine from each of our beds, along the upstairs hall, down the stairs and into the kitchen where she hung a small cow bell. I think we nearly drove her nuts - she was more pleased of our recovery than we were.. I am sure most of you know how many urgent things occur to children of that age so they have to talk to Mom.

In the winter, this entire section was closed off because we couldn't heat it. It was so cold the linoleum would curl up around the outside. We all slept downstairs with beds in the living room and dining room. The living room didn't have a heater but there was one in the dining room. When it was really cold, all four of us sat around the wood stove, often with our feet on the oven door to keep warm - the only other option was to go to bed. The house had been insulated with wood shavings but these had collapsed over the years leaving nothing but the wood laths, plaster and brick between us and the elements. Dad built a frame around the house about 18 inches from the wall and about two feet high which was filled with dirt. In the winter, he piled manure from the barn on top of that which was a good insulator but a little harsh as far as I was concerned when I became a teenager. I really didn't want any friends coming around until at least after it snowed so we could cover up the manure.

The main floor consisted of a large kitchen with a metal ceiling at what I believe was 12 feet in height. The kitchen was the center of activity for every house so not that much time was spent elsewhere. We also had a dining room with a table that would seat 16 people. There was a small sliding window between this and the kitchen where food could be passed through rather than walking through the pantry. We also had a living room that was pretty well furnished with Dad 5 curling prizes from lamps, to tables and chairs and pictures. The archway leading from the hallway was done in a wooden scroll at the top and a column on each side. This was the same basic design as the stairs to the top floor (17 of them). I knew these very well including the 7th and I 3th that squeaked so I could never come home late without Mom knowing regardless of my efforts to take two steps at a time. The last was a washroom. This was where the 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 galvanized tub was for our weekly bath. We got modern later with a conventional sized one on legs but it meant a lot of water carrying to fill. The water from the well was so filled with iron, it curdled the soap so we used the rain barrel in summer or melted snow in winter.
 

The Barn
The barn was about 40 feet wide and 60 feet long and 38 feet high. It was red with a shingle roof I have already described the doors that led into this big open space called a loft where feed for the animals was stored for the winter. There was a grain bin and two side doors. There was a track running along the ceiling area so that hay etc that was brought up could be dropped from a set of slings anywhere along the length of the loft. There were two holes in the floor above the central passage where the feed was put down to be carried to the livestock. One of these holes was covered and the other was not - we use to put a couple of sheaves over it and cover with hay. This prevented the warm air escaping but wasn't strong enough to walk on. My cousin Barry has never forgiven us for not telling him when as kids we were playing up there and he disappeared through the hole into the passageway in front of a bunch of cows. When he was younger, he hadn't been able to pronounce his "L's" very well. He had hurt his leg and it upset him even more when we laughed as he cried "I hurt my egg". The main area at ground level was divided by the central passageway with a set of open stairs to the loft and a couple of grain bins. On one side was a full row of stanchions. These are like two bars held about 15 inches apart and 5 feet high, secured by a solid piece of steel top and bottom. One side opened until the cow moved into place and then it was closed so she could move her head up and down etc and limited from side to side so we could milk and feed them. There was a bucket of about 45 gallon size on a track at the back for moving the manure each day to the front of the barn and the spreader so it could be put on the field. The other side was for horses with three double stalls where we could put two horses together, 4 single stalls and a box stall. The box stall was fully enclosed and usually used for a mare and her colt when it was newly born. In later years when the number of horses dropped because we had a tractor, the back of the barn was used to house a few pigs each year. There was a big sliding door at the front of each of the entries to the cattle or horse section.

Last is the "slings" which were used to lift hay or sheaves into the loft. We had a rack which was simply a series of boards on either end of a wooden platform and open on both sides. This was carried on a set of four wheels which were usually steel but sometimes rubber tires and pulled by two horses. A set of slings was laid out on the floor and then the ends were hung on nails at either end of the rack. A second set of slings was put on when the rack was half full and then the rest of the load was put on. The load was taken to the front of the barn where each end of the sling was pulled to the center by a pulley on the end of a rope that was about 11/2 inches thick and 200 feet long. The horses were taken off the rack, hooked up to the other end of the rope and the sling of hay was pulled into the loft. This wasn't without some problems because occasionally the trip rope that released the sling full of hay would release early and drop it too soon, like while it was still outside the loft. There was also the time one of my visiting cousins chopped the rope in half with an axe - a major disaster from our standpoint but I guess they were forgiven because they continued to visit almost every summer from Yorkton, Sask.
 

Other Buildings
There isn't that much to be said that is of any interest about the rest except that they do make up the rest of the farm yard. We had a chicken house that was quite large because Mom always had about 100 hens at least because she sold eggs. Added to this were the meat birds that were cooked or canned as the need occurred. whenever we had company, Dad would have to kill a chicken for dinner. Once each week a man came to our farm as well as others in the area and picked up the crates of eggs and cans of cream.

We had a large granary in which was stored grain for sale and for feed to the livestock. It was divided into 4 separate bins with a large central area where we crushed grain for the cattle and pigs this was usually a mixture of oats, barley and wheat and was called "chop"

We had and old implement shed where Dad had a work shop in one end and the rest of the area was used to store equipment. One feature was this was where we had the ice well. This was a square hole in the floor inside the shed and the hole was lined with timbers and a solid wood top. In the winter Dad put down a layer of sawdust and then filled the well with blocks of ice and then covered them with sawdust again. We could put buckets of things that had to be kept cool, in the well until the ice melted which was usually through until early fall (Sept). Dad would get the ice from a farm nearby where they had a dugout. This dugout was an excavation, usually along a creek bed where the farmer dug to about 20 feet deep and it would hold enough water to feed his livestock. Dad would go there in the latter part of the winter when the ice was usually up to about 4 feet thick. He used a saw that was made for this purpose and the blocks were usually about 2 feet square and 4 feet long. This ice made it possible for us to make ice cream from out own cream using a hand cranked machine - a real treat in the middle of summer and it was even richer than that at Whiskey Creek.

We also had a garage but like our place here in B.C., it almost never saw a car inside. It was secure and strangely enough the one thing I can remember about it is that was where my parents hung a bag of frozen fish. After winter set in and there wasn't going to be any more warm weather till spring , they would order a 100 pound bag of Great Lakes Herring from a catalogue. When we wanted fish, it was just a matter of going to the big sack that hung in the garage and pulling out a half dozen. This was a real treat. While I think of it, they also use to cure our own pork, wrap it in heavy wax paper and buried it in one of the grain bins. when they wanted a ham or roast or piece of bacon, it was a little bit more difficult than we have now of going to the freezer because, first you had to find it.

Last was the pump house which was built over a 40 foot well that had been dug by hand. The casing was corrugated steel. like our culverts. It was a hand pump and provided lots of exercise when it came time to water the livestock. We pumped water out through a square wooden box into the trough outside. Even in late summer the water was very cold which was the reason for the wooden box because we stored milk in a can inside. It was always cold because there was always some animal that wanted water throughout the day whether it was a horse or cow etc. It was difficult in the winter because it would freeze near the top and could only be thawed by taking out a kettle of boiling water. We also had a "cooker" inside the pump house. That was like a big iron bowl that would hold at least 50 gallons of water. We cooked grain in that for the pigs. The base was enclosed and had a fire box for burning wood to cook the mash or boil the water.
 

The Farm Yard
Our yard was at the end of a long lane that was about 900 feet off the graveled municipal road with a fence on each side At the yard entrance was two large poplar trees on either side of the steel gate that led into the yard. This had to be kept closed when the livestock was in the yard. There was a large fir tree that was almost as high as the roof of the house, in the front yard. There was a the bluff on the north and west side that was good shelter in the winter as I mentioned earlier. It formed a half circle around the yard. There was a creek that ran around the opposite side of the yard that had water in it from spring till mid summer. One time during spring run off, I built a raft of some old planks. There was a fair current on the water and the raft turned around a bit, I got sea sick and fell off into about three feet of water.

We had a lawn area that was mostly wild grass but a solid growth at the front, At one time, there had been a tennis court also near the front of the house but that was long gone before I came into the picture. There was a full width veranda along the front of the house and a balcony above - both can be seen in the picture we have of the house shortly after it was built.

During the winter months, the yard would fill with snow so that we would be walking on paths from the house to the buildings that would be built up with 2-3 feet of ice/snow. It was my favourite time of year when the snow melted and the grass grew and the leaves came out on the trees around the yard.

THE FOUR SEASONS

Unlike here on the coast, there are four definite seasons on the Prairies and life on the farm changed as well with each season.
 

Winter
I guess its best to start with what is the longest season. One of the reasons I guess was because travel was pretty restricted. Pretty well every winter, I got a new pair of wool breeches from the Eaton's catalogue and usually a new pair of felt socks from the local store. These were thick felt that reached to the knees and then I had ankle type rubbers on the feet. I can even remember Mom putting strings on our mitts and running it through the sleeves so we wouldn't loose them. I think I was past that by the time I reached my teens!!! Our parkas always had fur trim on the hood so we could tie them up and you could only see two eye balls hidden back in the fur.

One of the worst winters, we had to take the family car which I believe was a 1946 Mercury, into town (Birnie) which was three miles away from the farm, in late October and we couldn't get it back to the farm until late April. The roads were gravel that turned to mud in the spring and there were quite a few places where the trees along the road allowed the snow to "bank up" every time the wind blew. The roads were maintained by the Municipality hiring a bulldozer. All they could do was to push it to the side, the wind blew again and filled it in again. After going through this process 2-3 times, there was places the snow would be 8-10 feet high over the road so even when we had to drive into town with horses, we had to find other routes. This would mean going through other farm fields, through trails in the bush etc.

Winter transportation came in many varieties. Everyone had horses as they still played a key part on any farm. Dad often talked about a team of horses of which he was very proud. They were big matching black horses called Pat and Prince that apparently were the fastest in the community. We had a 'cutter" but used it very seldom. It was good for two people and was pulled by one horse. It was light, had narrow runners and about the only way I can relate it to something current is the carriages you see in parades in England but with no top. It had limited storage for carrying anything so we usually used the sleigh box. This was a wooden rectangular box about 4 feet wide and 10 feet long pulled by two horses. It was only about 4 feet high and was mounted on a set of sleigh "bunks". The bunks were connected by a swivel mount so it could be turned easily - the four inch sleigh runners were wood covered by steel strapping. The sleigh box was used for hauling grain, coal, livestock etc. When we used the rack for hay, it was mounted on the bunks and the box came off. Neither were used when Dad had to haul logs in the winter that had to be cut up for fire wood. As you can see, this was an essential piece of equipment -more for work than pleasure. When we went into town, Dad had to stand up and drive the horses so he had this huge heavy old coat and a fur lined hat and heavy mitts. The three of us sat on an old car seat in the sleigh box and covered up with horse blankets. We also had a foot warmer. A piece of lava rock was heated on the stove at home then put inside this metal container.

We would put the horses in the town church barn till we were ready to go home again after shopping, visiting or attending a dance etc. This became a problem when my teen age years and vanity came simultaneously. I sure couldn't go to a dance and take the chance some girl might say I smelled like a horse!! The year that we left the car in town for so long, my friend Dean and I walked the three miles to and from town. This wasn't bad on the way in to town but was a little harsh at 34 a.m. when we got back and had to get out of a nice warm car. Some times the weather was stormy and for that reason we always left the bathroom light on even when we all left for the evening. A lot of the time we were not on the road such as crossing a field so that was our only "beacon"

One night still remains very clear in my mind. I think I was 16-17 and we had gone to town in the sleigh to see a concert. A severe storm hit, filled in the road so we couldn't get home even with the horses as they just bogged down in the snow. Dad hadn't been well but we had to get home because a sow was due to have a litter of pigs and someone had to be there to make sure there were no problems. I walked home and was sure glad to see the bathroom light. Went to the barn and found that everything was fine. With all the horses, cattle and pigs in there, it was a lot warmer than the house. I didn't bother putting a fire on in the stove but slept on the couch in the kitchen with every blanket I could find covering me. I got up the next morning and found the water in the kettle on the stove had frozen.

We didn't have one but a lot of people who lived further from town had a "van". These had one set of runners that were bigger than the cutter but usually smaller than the sleigh bunk runners. It was fully enclosed with wooden sides, front and back to a height of about 4 feet and then canvas except for the front. This canvas covered a frame work and provided a roof as well. They were about 5 feet high over all so you couldn't stand up in them and there was usually a glass front so you could see the horses. A house window was often used and there were two holes beneath the window for the reins. The main feature was that inside, they had a small fire box mounted on a sheet of metal and a small stove pipe sticking out the top. This was great but they tended to be a little unstable so the driver had to really pay attention. There was a full length door at the back and a bench along either side. These were very popular at the local dances when there was no drinking allowed in the hall and the horses were comfortable in the church barn.

The last fun conveyance was a toboggan. These were flat bottomed, about 2 feet wide 2 feet high and 10 feet long pulled by one horse. They were easily pulled with everyone sitting on the floor covered by a blanket. They tipped regularly, spilling everyone out. The horse would stop, wait for everyone to get settled and go again. Often this was used to go to town to curl and some of the trips with our neighbours from the "Fox Farm" were often more fun than the game.

There was always a fair amount of work to be done even in the winter. Sometimes the hay had been stacked outside in a field some distance from the farm buildings and we would have to go for a load or two from time to time. This was very hard work because the snow often banked up against the stack and sometimes froze. Sometimes Dad had to use a "hay knife" to cut through a section where the hay had bound together in a roll. It often took all day to get just two loads. With at least 4 horses and about 20 head of cattle, that didn't last long.

One of the worst times I can recall was the coldest temperature I remember. It went to -54 Fahrenheit. It was so cold, we had to carry water to all the horses and cattle as they couldn't be let outside because their wet/tender noses would freeze. Believe me, there wasn't much of either Dad or I sticking out to the weather either. There was no wind at all, it was perfectly calm - so strange because we could hear people a half mile away talking in normal conversation. This reminds me of the people at the "Foxfarm" saying that the only time they ever heard me sing was when I was driving our John Deere tractor. As you all know who have heard me, this would be the only time I would try, knowing the tractor would drown me out. I am so bad that I am one of the few that even "lip synchs" 0 Canada

Winter was also our most social time in that no one travelled very much so we visited back and fourth with neighbours. Christmas and New Years kicked it off usually because we would have Christmas and the Foxfarm would have New Years or vice versa. I should explain this before I get everybody too confused. The Foxfarm had in fact been a commercial operation where the owner raised fox and mink for their fur pelts. They even had a "tower" inside the pens which would be about a 2 acre enclosure. Because both mink and foxes are pretty nasty when they are having their young, you could only watch for trouble from a distance but couldn't be close. Tom Binks was a tough old. hard working guy who owned it all. He was English, having moved to Canada as a young man. He hired two sisters (Rita and Agnes Carruthers) to help and to keep house for him as he was a bachelor. Rita married a mechanic Les Powne) and he ran the garage in town, she kept house for Binks and their family lived in the main house. Agnes married Karsten Eng, a Norwegian who came here at age 19 and several years later he took over the fox and mink operation. (their son Tom who is about 4 years younger than I now has our farm which is great). Now after this explanation, we get on with Christmas and New Years and included in the group are the Kilburns (a close friend of Dad's and a Second World War Vet - his wife Dot was one of my teachers) - she was one of the tough ones who would come up behind me and give me a crack over the head with a book for "talking" - this was one of my class majors in grade 3. Also we had the Baileys who had rented the meadow for a number of years. They usually ran about 200 head of Hereford cattle and their son Roy still has the farm. Russ Bailey was one of Dads fishing buddies and was known as the only one of the group to catch a 20 pound Pike. These people then formed part of the group so now we had another big dinner on Boxing Day. We were all in great shape for a hard winter after these kinds of dinners. Just as an illustration, when we had dinner at our place, it was usually about a 25-30 pound turkey so either Agnes Eng or Rita Powne would cook a goose of comparable size and bring it with them. If they hosted, it was vice versa.

Dad and Ralph Kilburn curled together for many years along with Jim Servante who had a local store and had also been in the Second World War and Delmar Mclntrye who had a farm near Birnie. Delmar played third and after moving to Alberta later on, represented that province in at least one Dominion Briar. Dad always played second because even by Ralph's own admission, Dad knew what shots to play but Dad also knew that Ralph was better at making the final shots so they worked well together. I'll talk about this a little more we I get into sports.

We got together with neighbours during the winter to play cards. We usually played Rumoli as I have mentioned but also played Canasta when that was in vogue.

It doesn't really fit anywhere so I'll tell you about Dad and hunting. He use to go out once a year to see if he could get a deer.. Mostly this was social because although there were a few in the area, the only time he really went "hunting" was to a bachelors cabin in the "Sand Hills" about 25 miles away. There were about 7 guys who got together for a week - half were fellows from Winnipeg. The bachelor, Alf Coak, was a trapper and not really known for his house keeping skills. when these people came, the table was always "set". Before a meal Alf would check the plates. pick it up and rub the elbow of his not too clean shirt over the plate and put it back down -that was "good enough" This was also "good enough" to make the guys from Winnipeg wonder what kind of condition their health might be when they got home - they had a great time every year and was more of an event than a hunting expedition. If you ever hear about the "Sand Hills",. you will find they are part of the Camp Shiloh Army Base, artillery range near Brandon Manitoba.
 

Spring
In early spring, some of the snow would melt into the creek - it would freeze and we had great skating near the house. The livestock stayed out longer and were able to soon start munching on dead grass that stuck through the snow. The cows soon started having their calves and Dad would start cleaning grain for seed to sow the next crop of grain.

We always had trouble with the road. When the frost came out of it, there was always someone who would drive over it with a truck, get stuck a few times and make such a thorough mess of it with ruts over a foot deep no one could do anything more than cover it on foot or with the horses but eventually we could travel again.

The eastern side of the Riding Mountains was covered in a lot of trees and was usually the first to show green as the leaves came out. Now we didn't have to melt any more snow for water, the well didn't freeze up and a lot less wood had to be carried into the house.

As soon as possible, Dad would start working the land to get it ready for seeding. That had to be done by the May long weekend so that the crops matured and could be harvested before the frost came in the fall. We didn't have a tractor when I first helped Dad. I was probably 11-12 years old and could only do a few of the jobs. Driving a set of four horses on a plow, cultivator, discer, etc was too dangerous because there was always the risk of falling in front of the implement. Although I used these later I did a lot of harrowing with four horses and six sections of harrows because I could drive the horses as I walked behind the harrows. I can remember being very happy in telling our neighbour Fred Babcock that I had done a little over 10 acres that day. He informed me that his son Dean, my life long friend, had done more than 30 - they had a small tractor.

In any event , the harrowing encouraged weed growth then Dad would hook the horses onto the discer or cultivator (both were about 7 feet wide), kill the weeds, harrow the field again and then plant the seed with a drill. In a way, these implements were easier because there was a metal seat on the discer and cultivator so you could ride but a lot of people got hurt when once in awhile the horses would bolt or if you hit a big rock etc. The drill was a long box with spouts going down to the ground where the seeds went in and were immediately covered by a discer blade. There was a plank suspended above the ground behind the drill so that Dad could walk along while the horses were pulling to make sure the grain was going through the spouts as occasionally something would cause it to clog. Once the seeding was done; all we could do then was hope for enough rain, no hail etc until the crop could be harvested in the fall.

At this same time, Mom had ordered her seeds , again from a catalogue so we could plant the garden. The garden was near the house in one of the small fields. The amount they planted was usually enough for a small army. By the same token, there were always people who visited that would take home a load of vegetables from our place. We also had a large raspberry and strawberry patch that kept us and many others in fruit for the year. We had a couple of large crabapple trees in the yard for fruit. Grandma had three big trees that produced tons of small crabapples for jelly. We picked a lot of wild fruit for jelly or jam such as choke cherry, pin cherry and cranberry. Once in awhile Dad would find a black current bush and he was in heaven as this was his favourite. We had a potato patch that would be about the same size as the total of three back yards in an average city lot. Mom and Dad did most of the work but we spent a lot of time tending this garden. During this period of time, not many people bought vegetables or fruit for that matter. We lived on what we grew for the most part, so the vegetables had to be stored or canned as the case might be.

There was more time to enjoy ourselves in the summer. In late June, before closing for the summer, the schools in the district would hold their annual picnics. The schools only went to grade 8 and the kids from the different schools had games at each one such as foot races, softball, high jump etc. In the evening, the adults would play softball (mixed) and it was a great fun day with soft drinks, bars and ice cream served from concessions made of poles and covered with tree branches for shade. There was usually a church group who put on a cold plate dinner, hot dogs etc. We usually attended the four in our immediate area which was Orange Ridge, Oak Leaf, Tobarmore, and Big Valley as well as Birnie.

In June and July, there would be Sports Days in which baseball was the feature at several towns within a short distance of home. This was in addition to the league play we had that started in early May. At times, we had as many as 9 teams in our league. It was also a time to travel as far as 100 miles away for a days fishing in one of several rivers in the St. Rose/Dauphin area. There was often several families who went such as the bunch from the Foxfarm, Baillies and Kilburns so the whole day turned into a picnic and everybody fished along the river bank. Pike were the usual kind we caught although once in awhile, we would find some Pickerel. Very often, we would come home well after dark, Dad would scale the fish and fry them while Mom baked fresh bread that she had put on to rise while we were away. It couldn't get much better than that.

There were not that many Sundays that we didn't have company in the afternoon, Mom sang in the church choir, so we went to church quite a bit during the summer. I even went to bible school (held at Orange Ridge school which was two miles away) several years. I can even remember getting little sheep stickers on a certificate for each day I attended This was probably more social than anything else because sometimes kids from out of the district would be visiting relatives and attend as well. I think around this time, I developed a dislike for wool pants. I guess that was the only good ones I had but I recall it being darned hot and the cuffs often caught in the bicycle chain

One of the jobs I disliked the most was picking mustard. This is a weed that can effect the grade the farmer gets on his grain and also chokes out some of the young shoots if its not kept under control. It always seemed a drag because there was nothing more depressing than standing on the edge of a 40 acre field and seeing little dots of yellow flowers all over but still in such a small amount they could be picked rather than to resort to a spray.

One job I did like was picking wild berries such as Saskatoons. We had a good patch in the middle of a bluff near a spring about a quarter of a mile away. Dad really enjoyed this as well so that one year when there was a bountiful crop, he picked several water pails full. Mom canned them all and ended up with 100 quarts stored on shelves in the basement. We always had a large strawberry and raspberry patch because we seldom had any fruit that was not either wild or grown on our own farm. Dad loved black currents and he would spend a lot of time tramping through bushes at our home or wherever he could, to find a few bushes. We grew crab apples that were the size of golf balls and good for fruit while grandma Murdock had three trees of small crabapples that were good for making jelly. Late in the summer, we could always be expected to spend a day looking for and picking cranberries, chokecherries and pin cherries, all for jelly. Mom seemed always to be canning something or making jelly, jam etc.

Another job that was hard work but satisfying, was "haying". This was done with neighbours as it took several people. On our farm, Dad would use the horse drawn mower which was a bar about 6 feet long which had small triangular shaped teeth crossing one over the other, to cut the hay. When it had dried, he used a rake that he rode on to pull the hay into rows and then "bunches" that would be about 5 feet high and 8 feet across. Then we used a "bucking pole" (I don't know why it was called this) to gather the hay. We had to wait till it was fully dry and a warm or hot day so there was 110 moisture inside the stack. One person would have a team of horses hooked onto an end of the bucking pole which was about 10 feet long. The pole would have to be about 10-12 inches thick and smooth. That person would pull up beside a "bunch and a second driver would hook another team of horses to the other end of the pole. The teams would walk parallel to each other picking up bunches until they had all they could handle and then pull it to where it was going to be stacked. It had to be piled as high as they could so that it wasn't covered by snow in the winter nor did they want too much exposed to rain. We used a "slide" after the first load. This was a bunch of smooth poles put on a frame where one end of the pole was on the ground and the other supported by the frame at a height of about 10 feet. The horses pulled the load up onto the slide by one team going on either side and over the top where it dropped on the first load. To look after this, there was a" stacker" who made sure the stack was the right shape to preserve the hay as best he could against the weather. When it was finished it would take on the shape of a loaf of bread. The "stacker' would stay on top of the first load so the fun part was to try to bury him in hay if we could. The hottest I can recall was that it was about 110 degrees when we did some stacking on Kilburns farm. This was slow going because we had to take it easy on the horses and both we and the horses went through a lot of water.

After haying, there was time for a little break in that most that had to be done was to work the summer fallow. This was cultivating unseeded fields to get rid of as many weeds as possible so the fields would be ready for seeding (usually wheat) the next year. Although they have far different processes now, Dad use to sew a crop in a field for two years and then summer fallow it - giving it a rest and to clear out any weeds. Sometimes there was manure (a good fertilizer)from the livestock spread on it and worked in to help produce a better crop.

Although it was a little quieter, there was always the livestock to look after, cows to milk, eggs to gather, fences to repair etc., so there was never much time to do "nothing".
 

Fall
Although there was a lot of work involved, this was the most important time of the year. All the years' effort as it refers to the crops, ended here. If it was a good year with enough rain, warm weather and no storms - the crop would be good. Now it would be the race to get it harvested as soon as possible to get the best grade and the best price at the elevator. If there was an early frost and the grain was not yet ready, it could be reduced to a "feed" grade which was about as much as making your expenses. The same applied if it was cut and then had rain fall a few times before it was threshed or combined, the result was the same. If everything went well - it was a very happy time. Farmers are a different kind of people - so often they say "maybe it will be better next year".

I have just mentioned the two methods of harvest. I don't see any likely change in the near future for combines so I won't dwell on that - we never had one on our farm. Dad use to help a neighbour in later years and in return that fellow, Nels Bay, would combine the fields that Dad wanted done that way. The threshing process was the most enjoyable for me. When the grain was ripe, Dad would go into the field with the 'binder". My first recollection was when he used horses. The machine was pulled by four horses. It had one big drive wheel under the middle of it with lugs that ran all the moving parts. There was a smaller wheel at the outside for stability. Dad sat on a steel seat that was suspended off the ground at the back and drove the horses from there. He had a bamboo pole that stood in a bracket beside him that was long enough to reach the back end of any horse so he could give it a little tap if it was going slower than the others. The grain was cut with the same type of blades I covered in describing the mower. There was a reel that was positioned on the binder so it was about three feet above the ground that turned with the forward movement of the binder wheel and it as it turned, it pushed the top of the grain back onto the binder canvas. The canvas carried the grain up into a system of rollers and a steel arm with twine threaded through it. As it finished the process, a sheaf came out with the twine knotted around the middle of the sheaf(usually but not always which was sometimes cause of some bad language). After the grain was cut, either Dad or I would go into the field to "stook" the sheaves. There would be about 5-6 put on end with the grain part on the top to form a teepee where it would stay till the straw dried for threshing. It was a great feeling of satisfaction as we could look back at the end of the day and see what we had done. This was a time of hard work and long days because often Dad would have to go out again after putting the horses away and having his supper and "stook" until dark

As well as the hay, we also fed oat sheaves to the livestock. After the grain had dried, we would bring it into the yard and build a "stack". This was usually done by Dad and I. We would load the sheaves on the rack and then someone would throw them off onto the stack that was being built by the other. The stack was built in a circle about 12 feet in diameter. The center had to be a little higher than the outside so that it would help repel any rain. The sides would be vertical to a height of about 8 feet and then tapered inward to a point like a cone on top. This sounds simple enough but with the center being higher, more than one stack fell down when the outside shifted outward and you would have to start again.

The sight of the "threshing gang" coming to our place was always a thrill Our friend and neighbour Russ Bailey had a machine and almost always did our harvesting. It was quite a procession. The threshing machine was driven by a tractor so we had the tractor pulling the threshing machine. Behind that would be a trailer with gas, oil and tools etc., on it. Sometimes, provided it was a straight run across a field etc., they would also pull the bunkhouse - the reason being that the tractor was about 10 feet long, the threshing machine would be about 20 feet long, the trailer would be about 10 feet and so was the bunkhouse. Add the length of the hitches between each unit and it was easily 60 feet long. Behind this procession came either 4 or 6 teams of horses hitched to racks for carrying the loads of sheaves from the field to the threshing machine. They were usually there for 2-3 days. After the bunkhouse was spotted in our yard, they set up in the field. The threshing machine was driven by a pulley. There was also a pulley on the tractor. The two pulleys were connected by a heavy belt that was about 8 inches wide and 40 feet long. The belt was put on the pulleys and then the tractor backed up to tighten the belt so that it would turn the pulley on the threshing machine. The front of the machine had a short trough on which the sheaves were thrown and then carried into the machine on a short conveyor. There were knives and sieves inside that cut up the straw and shook out the grain. The grain came out a spout from the bottom of the machine while the straw was blown out into a pile through long steel spout that was about 15 feet long and a foot in diameter. Sometimes the grain went straight into a small granary on the field but usually it went into a truck or wagon box where it was carried to one of the larger granaries at the farm buildings. The straw stacks were important as they provided some feed for the cattle as well as shelter. During a storm or cold weather, the cattle would often lay in the straw out of the wind to keep warm.

In addition to the man operating the machine, there were drivers for each team and either 2 or 3 pitchers to throw the sheaves up to the driver on the rack. who built them into a load and then drove off to the machine. I really didn't care much for looking after the horses all day so I "pitched" (Aha - bet you guys thought I was going to break out into baseball stories) for 2-3 falls. We also didn't have to get up quite so early. Our days usually started about 5:30 a.m. and went through to about 7:00 p.m.

If you think this was the hard part, you're wrong. Now I'll tell you about Mom's day while the crew were there. She would have to be up at about 4:00 a.m. because a breakfast for these men would consist of bacon or sausages and eggs, fried potatoes, fresh bread and fruit preserves. She took coffee, hot biscuits, jam and honey to the field at 9:00 a.m. At lunch, she fed them something like a ham or fried chicken, vegetables, potatoes and pie. At 3:00 p.m. she took out more tea, coffee sandwiches and cookies or tarts. For dinner at 7:00 p.m., there would be another full dinner such as roast pork or beef' the usual vegetables and then preserved fruit and cake. After every meal, there was a lot of dishes to wash, all without any running water and the water had to be heated on the wood stove regardless of whether or not it was hot weather. You can imagine how she felt after 2-3 days of this because seldom did she have anyone to help her as Dad was fully occupied handling grain etc.

One of the fun parts was the bunkhouse. It was about 7 feet wide and usually had a little tin wood heater in case it was cold. It was about 7 feet high with an "L" shaped bunk built about 4 feet off the floor. There was a side board around the "L" both top and bottom where they threw in either fresh hay or straw in lieu of a mattress and then the men put their bedroll down on that. It would sleep about 6 guys because not all stayed at the farm over night. This was pretty basic accommodation and certainly no five star hotel.

After the harvesting was complete, then it was a race against the weather to get the fields ready for seeding next spring before the snow came. The plow was most effective but very slow. With horses, Dad could only plow with 3 plow shears with each cutting a furrow of 16 inches. He would ride on a steel seat over the plow shears - not real comfortable. This was the most difficult for the horses to pull so he couldn't work them too hard. It would take several days to do one of the larger fields. I think about the biggest field was about 50 acres. I did quite a bit of plowing but by that time we had a tractor. I liked it the best because the look of a field with the good black soil turned over in even furrows was impressive and left a real feeling of satisfaction of doing a job well. Even with the tractor, we still could only use a plow with three shears.

This was also time to take in the vegetables from the garden. I think Dad must have always felt there would be another potato famine as there was in Ireland when our family immigrated several generations earlier. To plant the potatoes, we used a plow as well. Dad fixed a stove pipe in front of one of the plow shears and then someone had to sit on the back of the plow, dropping potatoes into the stove pipe at regular intervals. The next plow shear would turn over the furrow on top of the potatoes. We used a plow with a single shear to dig the potatoes and then a garden fork to lift them out of the loose soil after the plow. This would almost fill a wagon box which you'll recall was about 4 x 4 x 10 feet in size. We stored them in a bin in the basement and usually hauled out about half of them every summer fully sprouted, some rotted etc. Sometimes we would cook a bunch in the cooker in the pump house and feed them to the pigs if we were short of grain.

We would also try to have a couple of loads of coal in the basement as soon as the first snow came as it was easier to haul on sleigh runners. The coal came into Birnie three miles away, in railway box cars, so we had to shovel it out of the box car into the wagon box, weigh it at the elevator and shovel it out into the chute to the basement when we got home.
 

LIVESTOCK

Because it was a small farm, it had to be mixed. In other words, we had grain to sell and had animals as well. During the early years, it was most important to have several horses. Dad never left them out at night during the winter and always had enough space for them in the barn. He could put as many as 11 inside if he had to. This worked well for those people visiting as we never had that many horses that I can recall, anyone coming to our place could put them inside the stable during their visit It was important to have at least 7 or 8 work horses. Some of the implements that were used such as a plow or seed drill could take up to six horses to pull and it was always best to have another one or two in case one became sick or lame etc. We had names for them as you might imagine such as "Doc" and "Dolly" a pair of grey/white horses that were mostly Clydesdale with the big hairy feet of that breed. We also had a bay horse named "Star" who lived to be about 30 which is very old for a horse. We had others that I remember such as Belle, Buster, Sandy etc. It was also important to have a couple of horses that were fast and would be lighter than the usual work horse. Before I came along, they had a matched pair of tall black horses named "Pat" and "Prince" that were the pride of the area according to Dad, the fastest team around.

I remember one story about my uncle Alex. He had taken these two out on a buggy somewhere. The buggy had narrow wooden wheels with steel strapping on the part that touched the road surface. It was very light and easy to pull. Anyone who has driven horses realize they travel a lot faster when you turn them to go home. These were fast horses but needed to be kept under control. I understand my uncle likely fell asleep or just wasn't watching. The barn door had been left open, the horses went straight in at a run but or course, the buggy didn't fit. I think my uncle woke up then!!!!

On one of the few times Dad went away, he hired a fellow by the name of Delmar Gunson who lived nearby to help Mom for the week while he was at a bonspiel in Yorkton Sask. I was pretty young but big enough to sit on a horse. He took me with him over to the spring a quarter of a mile away to see that the cattle had water. While we were there, he found an old car tire that he thought Dad might be able to use. I was riding on "Dolly" who was a very wide horse so my legs stuck pretty well straight out. There was no saddle, just a halter and reins. Dolly was a quiet old horse by this time so Delmar put the tire over top of me and then gave her a tap on the rump. As she started to trot, the tire bumped up and down on her back so she went faster. She was at a full gallop by the time we hit the field area in front of the yard and I finally fell off I guess it looked pretty funny seeing me rolling along the frozen field inside the tire.

We always had cattle so that we had some to sell and cows to milk so we could sell the cream. There were periods of time we lived on the money we got for cream from the cows and eggs from the chickens we kept. I can remember we had as many as 26 head of cattle and of course every cow had a name. This was because we kept the ones that had good calves and/or gave a lot of milk. We had one cow named "Lulu" for a long time, she usually had twin calves. I wouldn't have made a good farmer because all the cows would have died of old age - I could not have sold them for beef

One of the chores we had to do twice each day was to hand milk the cows and there could be as many as 6 or 8 of them. Some of the younger ones kicked so you had to be careful, this could hurt as well as you would loose the pail of milk. To milk the cows, we first cleaned the "udders' and then sat on a stool - always on the right side of the cow. We sat with a pail tilted toward the cow and clamped between our knees. There were always cats in the barn so they lined up for their treat which was a squirt of milk we would aim at them while we squeezed the "udder". The cows were brought in to milk and to feed them at the same time. After the milking was done, the milk was taken into the house and put through a cream separator. The milk went into a steel bowl that held about 4 gallons at the top, it was operated with a hand crank. We turned it as the milk ran through a series of steel cones that somehow had the cream come to the top and out one spout while the milk went on through to another spout. We collected the cream in 5 gallon cans and kept it in a cooler in the pump house in the summer. Once a week a fellow came with a one ton truck complete with an ice box and picked up the cream and crates of eggs. He delivered them to the creamery in Neepawa where they were both graded and the creamery would send Mom a cheque. For as long as I could recall, Bill Dowling from Kelwood 16 miles away - picked up the cream and eggs in his truck.

We made our own butter and sometimes Mom sold some as well. We had a big churn made like an oak barrel that was used. It had paddles inside and we had to crank that like we did the washing machine. Most often we just made butter in a 2 quart sealer. It had to be shaken for a long time till it turned to butter so we would wrap the jar in a towel and bounce it on our knee as we sat in the kitchen at night.

Mom always had about 100 chickens. She would order them from the creamery and they came to us in a box with holes in the sides that measured about 3 feet square. It would be full of little chickens that were only a couple of days old. Sometimes the weather was too cold so we had them on paper under the kitchen stove for a few days till they could go in the brooder house. We had to put blocks around the base to keep them under the stove but they "cheeped" 24 hours a day - it was cute - too bad they didn't stay that way. In a few days Mom and Dad could put them in the brooder house which was not much bigger than a large doghouse. We had a heat lamp inside so they would stay warm. If the power went out or something else stopped the heat - we could loose all or most of them because they would bunch up and many suffocated so the first couple of weeks were always tricky. After feeding them for about four months ,they started to produce eggs and they had to be collected once each day. By this time, they were in the hen house which was about 20 by 30 feet in size, near the barn.

We almost always had at least one female pig - a "sow". She would be kept in a pen in the barn as well and would often have a litter of pigs up to 20+. Because she was so big and the piglets so small, this was also very tricky for the first 2-3 weeks so they needed constant supervision to make sure she was comfortable, had lots to eat and lots of space till the little ones got bigger.

We always had about 25 turkeys that we raised for ourselves for Xmas, to give away to friends and relatives as well and a few were sold. One arrangement that went on for years was that we would send a fresh turkey to Niagara Falls to my cousin Doug Smith (Eva's son) and he sent Mom a cheque so it was good for each of us.

We always had 34 geese as well and they had goslings so that at Christmas we usually had a big turkey and a goose. The older geese were very big - a gander would reach about 30 pounds or more and have a wing span of about six feet. They could also be very nasty, as more than one person had learned they were not pets.

Sometimes we had to raise an animal by bottle feeding it for one reason or another. One time Mom had to raise three sheep this way, first with a bottle and then feeding them, with a pail. It was quite a production and cute at first with these little lambs drinking and wagging their tails. However, before she finally had them trained to eat on their own, she and whoever else had the job got bunted around a lot by these half grown sheep as they jockeyed for position to get fed. The same applied with a pig once in awhile such as a runt had to be fed separately by hand because it couldn't compete with the larger ones.
 

The Beef Ring
I don't know where else to put this topic so this will have to do. Because there was a limit of food that could be canned and meat "over the counter" from a store was expensive, local people formed a "beef ring". This provided all who belonged to the group, a quantity of fresh meat once every two weeks. In return, each family had to contribute a steer either once each year or every other year. If you had a full share, you would get 40 pounds of meat every two weeks, a half share would get you 20 pounds. If you had a full share, you provided the group with one steer every year of not less than 1000 pounds as I recall. A half share meant one animal every two years. The group had to pay a butcher and everyone took turns delivering the meat to the rest, on a Saturday morning. It dispensed with the "middle men" who make it so expensive now when it comes to feeding a family. The portions were sent out so that by the end of the season which ran from spring till late fall - everyone had the cuts of meat you would have if it was your own done at once.

4H CALF CLUB

There weren't many organizations for young people to join in such a small rural area. I remember when I was 12, they had a club for teenagers called the "Oh Be Joyful Club". It must have been pretty hokey because I don't even know what they did but I couldn't wait to be 13 so I could join - it folded after a year, so I never did find out. Once in awhile we had field trips with the 4H. On one occasion, we went to Brandon to a fair as a group of young people. We went in the back of Jack Hentons 5 ton grain truck. It had been fixed up with a tarp over the box and benches down two sides. This was quite different from what we have now with seat belt legislation.

4H was pretty popular at this time as they had a variety of clubs such as sewing, garden and the calf club which is what I joined and belonged to for about 5 years. The first calf I had was one of our own - just a mixed breed of calf and turned out to be one of the best I ever had as I rated among the top in the show with him. I called him Karsten after our neighbour "Karsten Eng". After that first year, Dad and my friend Dean Babcocks father would travel to the Plumas area about 30 miles away every summer and buy a calf It was always an Aberdeen Angus (black) because they tended to look better and finished more easily than others. There were several farmers in the Plumas area who raised Angus and none in ours. On one trip, Mr. Babcock took his brand new Studebaker. He always kept it spotless much to the old tobacco chewing farmers surprise as he was showing them some calves as they drove from field to field. The window was so clean, he hadn't noticed it was closed when he spit out the window.

After buying the calf, it was my job to clean it, feed it and teach it to follow my lead as I would have to walk it around the show ring at the rally in Neepawa the following spring. After they were shown, the calves would be auctioned off and that was hard because these were almost pets by that time. After Karsten, I think I only had heifer calves because there was a good chance they might be used for breeding rather than the meat.

This reminds me of a totally unrelated story. When I went into training in the RCMP, I had to learn drill. I found it difficult first in trying to understand what this person (drill instructor) was yelling at us as we stood in front of him. It didn't sound like any language I had heard before and I had heard some bad stuff After I figured out which was my left foot and which was right, it wasn't all that bad. Many of our troop had been in cadets, scouts and some even in the army or Royal Guards. I felt a little lacking in that area when I could only relate to walking behind a banner at a 4H rally once each year.

A GLANCE BACK AT THE 30'S

There are some stories of what farming was like in the middle of the "Depression" in the 1930's that I think best fits here because it refers to farm production and prices. I remember Dad telling me about a cow he shipped to Winnipeg. It was taken to the stockyard by truck and the company such as Burns would then send a cheque. Mom had called Servantes' store where the post office was and found the cheque had arrived so they made plans to go to town. The idea was that Dad and Mom and Grandma Buchanan would go to town, buy some salt, sugar and flour and then go to a show. It cost 25 cents each for the show. The movie was shown on a screen from a portable projector in the local hall where they held dances. It had a stage, was fairly large and had an assortment of mounted animal heads on either of the two side walls such as a deer, moose, elk and buffalo. They bought the flour, sugar and salt and then went home because the cheque totaled only $9.00, they didn't have 75 cents left for the show. On another occasion Dad sold a cow that he knew he wouldn't get much for because she was not very fat and no amount of feeding changed that. He found the cheque was in and went to Birnie to pick it up. It wasn't a cheque but a bill for the freight of transporting the cow, they hadn't paid enough for the cow to cover the shipping costs

There were 2-3 farmers in the area who did very well at this time. They had a little money before the depression. They sold only the steers and cows that couldn't have calves so their herds increased quickly. By the time the depression was over, they had quite large herds of cattle and could now take advantage of the better prices.

SCHOOLS

The schools in the area were not only places of education but were part of the community social structure. The schools in our area were all one room with one teacher

Almost all the teachers that I remember were women and single. They would have a choice of 2-3 homes in the area where they could get board and room. We must have had an abundance of men in the area because most of the teachers ended up marrying one of the local men and staying in the community. The only one that got away was Jody Donahue - she had just left normal school (a pre-University route to teaching) - she was the 20 year old that made all of us guys wish we were 8 years older than we were. The schools were never much more than 6 miles apart because there was no such thing as busses etc., - parents made their own arrangements for the kids to get to school. There wasn't much activity between the schools until late May or June when each would have a school picnic and other schools would be invited. There was the usual foot races, high jumps, bike races etc and each had a softball team. The students participated during the day and then the adults would usually wrap it up in the evening with a softball game with teams made up of both men and women.

There were booths made up of poles for support and then branches covered the roof to provide shelter for the treats. Soft drinks. bars, hot dogs etc were available. Ice cream was difficult to manage because there was no refrigeration so there were several trips each day to the store for a bucket of this treat. I don't remember the cost but I don't believe anything was more than 10 cents.

Although we had Orange Ridge two and a half miles away and Oak Leaf three miles away - we went to Birnie which was three miles away.

Birnie Schools
For my first 7 years, there was only one school with grades from Class "A" (which would be Kindergarten) to grade 8.1 remember that one year we had two students who took grade 9 but they had to do it by correspondence and the teacher helped them as best she could. The only high school near us was Neepawa and that was 16 miles away. It was too far to travel and would have been too expensive for most parents to have the child live there and pay board and room.

Our school was one of those you read about "the red brick schoolhouse". It had a basement but all that was down there was the wood burning furnace and a pile of wood. There was a caretaker who would make sure it was fairly clean and the wood taken from a pile outside and put in the basement so the teacher could keep the fire going during the day. Sometimes on the colder days in winter, the furnace did not heat the school well enough and we would sit there with our parkas and mitts on until noon. It had a bell tower but there was no bell when I attended - the teacher had one on her desk that she would ring outside to call the students to class. Often she would designate those who were either good students or well behaved to perform this task. I don't remember ringing the bell much.

There was a large porch area and a storage room off ii that the teacher used for supplies, books etc, as it could be locked. There was a cloak room at the back divided for boys and girls. The floor was a hardwood and it was treated with oil or something like that I believe. There were huge blackboards at the front and along one side, on the other side was mostly windows.

There were four rows of desks I think the two rows in the middle were double desks and the outside were single. They were the kind that the top of the desk lifted up. The teacher usually had the ones who weren't really well behaved, sit in the front where she could watch them. 1 spent quite a bit of time sitting close to the teacher. Even when I was young, I seemed to have this penchant for talking when I should have been listening.

Discipline was never that tough. Miss Quinney was my teacher in grade 2. She was going to give me a smack on my open hand with a ruler for something. She wasn't holding my hand hard enough so I pulled back as she came down with the ruler and hit her own hand. I really got it then but that's the only time I can remember. Most of us spent a lot of time after school cleaning chalk brushes, blackboards or writing on the hoard a bunch of times that we would not do what we had been doing when she caught us.

There was a large fenced yard around the school with ample area for a ball diamond for softball. The teachers always had us outside for some type of P.E., weather permitting because there was no room inside. In the winter, I recall at least twice that Roche Bailey made a skating rink in the yard for us. This was very hard work given that he hauled the water from a local well in 3A 45 gallon barrels and then spread it on the ground. To build up the surface, he pushed snow in around the side till there was enough ice to cover the complete surface which was likely about 20 feet wide and 40 feet long. The barrels were carried on a "stone boat" pulled by a team of horses.

Starting in the early grade, our Christmas concert was a major event. We had the use of the hall which as I have mentioned, had a stage so the whole community came out. We practiced for 2-3 weeks before the concert. Mom and Dad said I was "cute" in one of my first concerts. I had to recite a poem. I had a brown striped wool suit and as I did my recitation, I rolled the front corner of my jacket up to my chest by the time I finished. Another time, as we got a little older, Dean Babcock, Cyril Painter and Ron Birch and I had to sit around a make believe fire on the stage and sing some cowboy song. I didn't sing any better then than I do now. Actually the only one who could sing was Cyril. He kind of looked like the little guy in "Our Gang" who had the freckles and a rooster tail at the back of his head. When he sang "Old Shep" a lot of the audience had tears in their eyes.

It was a big production, we even had a curtain that ran the full width of the stage which was about 30 feet wide and 15 feet deep. There was always one or two plays so that by the time the evening was over, everyone had participated.

The teachers were all different but all enjoyed there work. They must have because it wasn't something that paid very much and it was difficult considering how they had to deal with about 30 children or more in the 8 grades. (I think class "A" went out the window by the time I hit grade one.

Birnie Jr. High
This was really good because my grandma lived right across the street as I mentioned earlier, it was fun in winter when we got to stay with her. Apparently this had been a Methodist Church at one time and then was converted to a house and now to a school. Once again it was one room with grades 7-1 1, again anyone who wanted to get grade 12 had to go to Neepawa. That seemed good enough for me at the time, consequently, I never finished High School until I started taking night classes and finished when I was 35.

This school was a little different in that there was no school yard as such, we played whatever sports there was in the railroad yard across the street. It was still one room and as I recall 22 students with one teacher. We had two married teachers during those years and they lived upstairs which was very small - each had 2 children and a spouse. One was Mr. Fedorchuck We had nothing in the school for entertainment such as a radio or phonograph so under his supervision, we raised money through raffles etc until we got enough to buy a nice phonograph. He said he would look after getting the records for us. He did - they were almost all classical so we were all upset but not much we could do. He left at the end of the year and took the records with him.

We also had Miss Reimer - a spinster who was very religious. She lived with her sister and brother-in-law who had some sort of off beat church called something like "The Church of Christ". They were good people but never built up much of a congregation so they moved after 34 years. Miss Reimer taught for only one year. She was always very well dressed. On the other hand, she had a problem in that some of the kids didn't smell too good. Some wore only thin socks in rubber boots or running shoes most of the year. Others had mothers who didn't do a lot of laundry. Consequently, it didn't smell like any rose garden in the class room sometimes in winter when they couldn't leave any doors or windows open when the furnace was going full blast to keep it warm. One day Miss Reimer went up and down each aisle spraying above everyone with a can of Lysol spray. Some parents were very upset - had it been years earlier, they probably would have lynched her.

What passed for our laboratory for science classes was in the back room. It wasn't much because all I remember of the equipment was some lengths of glass tubing, a few test tubes, a couple of beakers and a Bunsen burner. We never created very much and what we did, usually smelled real bad.

This reminds me - there was no indoor toilets in either school. At both places, they were the outdoor variety - one for the boys and one for girls and both were "two-holers".

We didn't have any gym program because our equipment was very limited. We usually had a couple of softballs, a couple of bats, a catchers mask and a soccer ball. It was usually deflated so we played tackle football with it that way.
 
 

BIRNIE

I went to the museum in Neepawa during the summer of 2000 and got some old pictures of the town that had been described to me by Dad & Mom. When travel was far more difficult, this had been a thriving community of what I would guess would be about 300 people. There was about 125 when I lived there and there are now about 55. At first, there was a boarding house, a bank, two grain elevators, a blacksmith shop, a cafe and 3 or 4 dry goods stores. All the houses were wood frame except one which was brick like ours, owned by a family by the name Birnie after whom the town was named. It also had a curling rink of two sheets of natural ice, an outdoor skating rink and a hall where we held our school Xmas concerts and quite a few dances during the year. There was a big stone United Church where they held fall suppers in the basement that everyone looked forward to and a barn where rural people could put their horses when they came to town. It also had a memorial park where they held sports days going back even to the days of the horse and buggy as I saw in some photos.

There was a time when I was younger, where they still had hitch rails for horses in front of three of the stores. The stores sold anything from tobacco products to work clothes. boots and rubber boots, gloves and a lot of canned goods. A lot of the items gathered dust for a long time before they were sold. It was hard to guess what the local people needed and orders had to come in by train. Servantes' store always had a big round of cheese on the counter that was seldom covered with anything. When a customer wanted any, it was cut with a big cleaver type knife that was fixed to board the cheese sat on. At Balls store, they sold ice cream and had two booths in a separate room in the back where we often went just before we went home on Saturday night so we could have a treat of ice cream and a soft drink. In the front, there was a pot belly stove where some of the locals sat much of the day swapping stories. All the floors of any store were oil treated wood

Mr. Semenchuk owned the blacksmith shop that was later turned into a garage by Les Powne who had married Rita Carruthers and now lived at the Fox Farm in the larger house (remember Rita's sister Agnes was married to Karsten Eng who looked after the fox and mink part of the operation). Les was one of those people who tended to take over a topic in that things were always bigger and better where he came from at Goodlands near Melita in the S.W. corner of the province. He was also one of the most considerate people in the area. He was a mechanic and only he and one other man were in the garage in Birnie. It wasn't uncommon to go to the garage and find no one was there - they were having coffee. If you wanted gas, take it and leave the money on the till. The gas pumps were something you don't see now. The pump was a lever of about three feet long on the side of a cylinder where the gas line was encased from the ground up to a large round glass container showing measurements up to 10 gallons. Anyone wanting gasoline pumped the glass container full and then put the nozzle in the tank. If you wanted 4 gallons, you took the level down to 6 gallons and then hung up the hose so the operator would know what to charge. There was a lot of trust placed in people and it was great. Les was also one of those guys who would work all night to get a tractor, combine etc., running again when it was important to the farmer such as in harvest time. He was also one who charged according to the individuals ability to pay - sometimes the bill was just a fraction of what it should have been.

Charlie Hunt had one of the stores. He was English and liked wild birds. He would shoot a duck (during season) and then let it hang in the basement till it was almost rotten before he finished plucking it and getting it ready for cooking. Its the same principle as hanging beef for a week before it is cut up but not a practice many thought palatable, however, he lived to a ripe old age.

On the other hand we had Harry Hunt who I don't believe was related, who worked on the track gang. He never bothered anybody but it was supposed to be fact that he poached deer all year round so he never bought a piece of meat in his life.

The main street was very wide and had gravel on it for as long as I recall. The town was only one block long and the residential area except for 34 houses ran 2 blocks to the north and 1 to the south off this main street. On the main street, there was a boardwalk but only down one side otherwise they were just gravel paths. Most of the houses were two story with the bedrooms up and the rest on the main floor and all had a basement. Homes were heated with wood or coal, and some had an oil heater. Everyone had a large garden and everyone had an outdoor "biffy".
 
 

TRANSPORTATION

A car is a car, with every year being more improved over the past we are told. However, some of the early ones were very simple and ran forever with little modification. Most owners had a rough idea of how to conduct their own repairs.

I learned to drive in a 1928 Chevrolet sedan. I don't know how to explain the photo of grandfather Jim Buchanan in a model "A" unless it was someone else's car because they were very close to the same era. A car was a luxury almost so they didn't get traded often. As an example, when we got rid of the 1928 Chev., we bought a second hand 1946 Mercury sedan and then a 1951 Chevrolet sedan.

I'm only going to talk about the 1928 Chev. Like all the others of that vintage, the car would almost always run even though the brakes might be a little tough or in this case, the steering was very loose. It was a chore to keep it running in a generally straight line. For the last year or so we owned it, it had a hole in the block. Dad had carved a plug out of wood and hammered it into the hole. When we wanted to go somewhere, he put in the plug, filled the radiator with water and we left. After it sat for a few days, the water leaked out, the plug dried out and fell on the ground so Dad had to go through the same process every time we went anywhere. This is quite different now as there is so much under the hood, about all I can do is check for windshield washer fluid and the dipstick for oil.

SPORTS

As you can imagine, there was a need in these small communities for fun activities. Much of this would center around sports so I'll deal with these now both from what I heard and saw up to the time I became involved The communities were close together so there was always a sense of friendly competition in whatever sport was played.
 

Curling
was a sport that apparently my grandfather Buchanan enjoyed and so did my Mom and Dad. There was always someone in the area who would be willing to take on the job as caretaker. We never had anyone who was particularly qualified but they would devote their time for a very low wage to do the best they could.

Starting in November when it appeared we would have a reasonable length of time when there was no threat of thawing, the caretaker and a few helpers would start to flood the two sheets. Water would be sprayed on twice each day till they had a good surface and then they finished it with a coat of hot water, usually from the salt plant in Neepawa so that we had "keen" ice. From then on it was a matter of keeping it clean and subsequent coats as needed. It was seldom really level as they have now. Sometimes you had to throw an "in" turn at the boards on the right side so the rock would "fall" back to the middle of the sheet. You can see that the advantage was often with the local people who knew what to expect but the bonspiels in each community attracted people from all over. The lighting was not very good as it was only bulbs that hung from the rafters with a shade over them to cast as much light as possible down to the ice surface. There was a narrow board walk down the middle between the two sheets of ice.

The prizes for our local community bonspiels weren't all that much usually. I remember one time Mom and Dad ended up on the same rink (names were always drawn) for the local bonspiel. There prize was that each had won a gallon of pickled herring.

Dad had curled from a young age and was part of the rink made up of Ralph Kilburn who was Dads' best friend as skip, Delmar Mcintyre (who went on to represent Alberta in the Briar several years later after they moved to Edmonton) at third, Dad second and Jim Servante at lead. Jim and Ralph had both been in the Second World War. These four won a lot of bonspiels so that prizes such as a set of sterling silverware, easy chair and hassock, lamps end tables etc formed much of our living room furniture. Mom played in several local and Neepawa spiels as well and also contributed a number of household items.

Unlike what we see now at the rinks, most men owned a set of rocks and left them for use at the local rink. When they went to a bonspiel such as Dad and his group to Yorkton Sask., they took their own rocks which they carried in a heavy wooden box. with handles. As an example, they had to take a truck to go to Yorkton to carry the four boxes of curling rocks. I am not sure of the weight requirements of each rock but I think it was that each set of rocks had to weigh between 38 and 43 pounds each so that the set with the box weighed over a hundred pounds. Some owners didn't have them sharpened very often so on a given shot you could have a rock of one set curl 2 feet and one from another set wouldn't curl half that distance.

Our local bonspiels were always fun in that you had no idea who you might have to play with. Some people would skip simply because they were old and couldn't run up and down the ice sweeping. We had one fellow by the name of Cecil Bailey who seldom ever hit the broom that he set for himself to throw at but he would bounce off 2-3 other rocks and end up with the best rock in the "house" Jimmy Thompson on the other hand was nearly blind and whoever had him on their rink had to hold a flashlight on the handle of the broom so Jimmy could see to shoot at it.

One of the highlights was the meals and lunches served. The cooking odours as you stepped into the waiting rooms of the different clubs made any trip to get there worthwhile. It was all volunteer cooking and serving so the charges were very small and it all went to help meet the club expenses.

As it was a small community, everyone was encouraged to play when they could. We even started playing jam can" curling on the ice on the creek when there was any. We would fill a jam can with water and then put a big spike in the ice bent in the shape of an ~'L" for a handle and then froze it in place. I started curling at the rink in town when I was 10 years old. In order to get the rock to the other end of the ice, I would have to put both feet in the hack, both hands on the handle and push off doing a belly flop just to get it there because the ice was frosty and not as keen as we have now. Some people had to travel 7-8 miles with a team and sleigh or a van, put the horses in the church barn while they played and then drive home again. The Brown family often came into town with at least 4 of the family taking part, two and three times each week.

There was competition between the different towns for the "Hobberlin Cup". It was just an old trophy and I don't know anything about the origin. As an example, two rinks from Birnie would challenge whoever had the cup such as Eden. If each town won one game, the winner was declared on total points and they kept the cup until someone else challenged for it. The rinks were always among the towns best so it was good curling for the spectators as well.

Because it was a small community, any of us that wanted to could learn to curl early and have more ice time than is possible now as the small communities no longer have these rinks. As a result, there were several of us who became pretty good. We had the opportunity to play with adults a lot of the time. We went to Winnipeg one year to play in the Provincial High School Championships. Cyril Painter and I were in grade 10 and Dean Babcock and Ron Birch were in 11. We either borrowed a sweater or wore our fathers club sweater which was grey with a burgundy trim. The sweaters all looked like they belonged to someone much bigger than we were. One mother washed the sweater (heavy wool) and hung it to dry not thinking it would stretch. It had to be turned under so that it didn't go to the guys knees.

There were about 125 rinks in the competition and we made it to the quarter finals without a loss. We met the previous years champions from Gladstone who all had nice fitting green and red sweaters with large crests "Provincial Champions". I played third and Ron skipped. We were two up playing the last end and none of us from lead to third made a shot. Ron made one shot and we lost by one.

A year later, Cyril and I regained some feeling of pride. We had our rink from Birnie - it was mixed as it had to have two girls on each team. We won three high school bonspiels which included Alonsa, Eden and Neepawa. The Neepawa spiel was major and in order to win, we had to beat a Neepawa rink, local favourites, in the final. We went to the Arcade dance that night and Cyril's sister Eva tore into one of the girls Wilma Strohman who had played against us in the final. She was in the washroom and was telling someone it was bad enough to be beaten but it was worse to be beaten by a bunch of "hicks" from Birnie. There were about 50 rinks I believe from all over the area. Other than the main trophy, I don't recall what we won except the Grand Aggregate which was a I pound "T" bone steak at the Bamboo Gardens.
 

Hockey
was popular enough but difficult to maintain. There were boards around the rink like a fence, four feet high. It always seemed that the ice was covered with snow when there was a game coming up. I never played very much because I wasn't a very good skater. No one had any uniforms and very few even had a team sweater of any kind. The lighting for hockey was even worse than curling because the lights were strung across the rink from a height of about 10 feet so there was always some not working having either been hit with a puck or stick or just because of the bad weather It was hard to see a puck if it wasn't on the ice.

I can remember Dad talking about two teams they had when he played. They only had shin guards which consisted of catalogues stuffed into long socks. The names of the two local teams was "The Ragged Assed Rangers" and "The Barnyard Playboys".
 

Baseball
I know you have all been anxiously waiting for this part so I won't hold you in suspense any longer. Every town in the area had a baseball team and it had been popular for a long time. Dad had played both as a second baseman and catcher. He use to catch without a mask – that's one of the reasons he didn't have any of his own teeth for almost as long as I could remember. He enjoyed it very much and encouraged me to play as well. He was very supportive and would come in from working in the field early enough in the evening during the spring and early summer, to catch for me for awhile before it got too dark. Both he and Mom went to as many games as possible.

I think the main reason I became a pitcher was that I was too far away from anyone else to play with. It was three miles to town so sometimes it was difficult just to get to practices as I got older. Its a wonder Mom didn't go nuts. I would spend hours throwing a tennis or hard rubber ball at targets on the brick wall of the house.

When I was 13-14, we had our first exposure to tournaments and most of the time we got beaten very badly. We played a team from Brandon once at a tournament in Neepawa. We were totally intimidated - they were all much taller than us (had uniforms which were white "T" shirts and some type what we now call sweat pants) - the Brandon Cloverleafs. Most were a little older because I think the age limit was up to 16 and they had a pitcher by the name of Mort Wright who was well over 6 feet tall. Our coach was only the coach because he had three kids on the team not because he knew the game. At one point, in his frustration that we couldn't do anything I remember him yelling at all of us "why the bloddy 'ell don't you 'it it where they ain't" he didn't pronounce his h's- that was when we did manage to make contact at all - most of us were too afraid of getting hit by this big guy on the mound.

When I was 14 I started playing with the regular team. I had played a little the previous year but I "rode the bench" most of the time. The team didn't have a regular uniform but a few had ones they had worn while playing at another town. It was sort of "downer" that I wasn't getting much playing time and didn't even look like a player because I didn't have a uniform. Ernie Servante, who was about 70 at the time, had one he had worn, in a trunk at his home. It was white pinstriped like the Yankees. I only wore it once, to a tournament in Glenella. As usual, I sat on the bench. I hardly sat down before the whole backside of the uniform disintegrated.

We had two pitchers, both of whom were second world vets. Jim McConnell was a big heavy left hander who threw his "old Blackwell" ball. He never threw very hard so this I think was just a name for one that made it to the plate - he was a fun guy. The other one was Bob Walker who had an arm like a rifle but he hit or walked most of the batters he faced. Consequently our entry into the league wasn't that impressive as we lost by scores such as 32-1 and 194).

The first time we entered the Neepawa tournament which was held on July 1st every year, we played against Wawanesa in our first game at about 9:00 a.m. There were as many as 40 teams that would enter and 3 ball diamonds in use. Art Brown was working as a farm hand for Nels Bay and had worked all night so he could take the day off to play ball. Wawanesa had nice maroon uniforms - we didn't. Left field was slightly down hill so that if a ball got past the outfielder playing that position, it always meant extra bases. Art Brown played left field that game and it seemed we never saw anything of him except his back as he ran for yet another ball that was either past him or over his head. Sometimes he only just reached the ball by the time the batter reached home base. There was the rule that if a team was 10 runs up on another, the game was over. Art never got a chance to bat as he was number 8 on the roster and we only lasted two innings. He never forgot what he had to do to get there and then never had a chance to try to hit. I still see him once in awhile as they live in Outlook Sask.

Eventually we became pretty good and won our share of games. I played there for four seasons and am very thankful for that experience. As we got to be pretty good, it was good for the self esteem of those of us who were in our teens at the time. I was also lucky enough to have been picked by Neepawa Cubs to play with them in the provincial playoffs at two different levels in minor league baseball. It was also through baseball that I had an opportunity to move to Kenora Ontario for a couple of great seasons before I joined the RCMP. After that, there wasn't much opportunity because I was in training for one season in Ottawa and the next, I was in Port Alberni and there was no team. My last year of active playing was in Chemainus but that was a little different in that several of the players had criminal records. One night I even had to go into a cafe to take a knife off one of our outfielders.

One thing I should mention now is that Ruth (Wife/Mother/Grandmother) sat in on a conversation this summer (2000) that has shown me to be a fraud after all these years. We were visiting a friend who was also a pitcher on our team. After listening to him, she realizes there were only three people on the team, him, a catcher and a friend he asked to play with us from time to time.
 

Swimming
This was never my long suit and still isn't but it was a lot of fun. Early in the summer, we would damn up the Snake Creek down by Babcocks. We would dig holes in the shale bottom and build up what rocks we could find till we had about a hole about 3 feet deep. When I got braver, we put up a diving board which was just an old plank on the Fox Farm dugout. It was used for watering the livestock so it was always muddy around the outside, never clear. it had some lizards in it and I never swam there again after one bumped into me when I was out in the middle where it was about 8 feet deep.

SOCIAL

Telephone
I think at that time, the telephone was more social than a necessity with the odd exception in some cases of emergency. To some, it was more social than others and often a source of great frustration. For those who haven't seen anything more than a hand held type, I'll describe. It was a wooden box about 18 inches high, 8 inches wide and about 10 inches deep that was mounted on the wall. The mouthpiece was fastened to it and could be adjusted up or down according to the height of the caller. The receive was round with a somewhat larger end that fit the size of your ear and was on a two foot cord. You dialed who you wanted to speak to by using a small crank on the side of the box. We were on a party line as everyone was so we were each designated a specific type of ring. Our number was 3 long rings. We had 8 homes on our line and as an example someone else would have a number 1 ring 5 so there was one long ring and 5 short.

Some people talked forever once they got on the line and you could not use it till they got off because the ringing would not be activated with other lines open. If it was urgent, most would get off right away because you could speak to those who were talking by picking up the receiver but others weren't always that considerate. Others were funny because some, like Mrs. Johnson who lived quite far from town, would "rubberneck" on any call as soon as she heard the phone ring. Most knew this and would deliberately start awful rumors for her benefit as well as those others who only listened in on certain numbers. Unlike now, you never discussed anything confidential on the phone.

We visited with our neighbours, mostly during the winter when the roads were passable. Most played card games where several people could play at the same time such as rumoli, canasta and one of my favourites "pig". The adults and kids all played. A group played with sets of cards with the object being for any player to get a full set This would mean 4 4's, 4 10's etc. Each player was dealt 4 cards and traded in an effort to get a full set. There were spoons in the middle of the table, one less than the number of players. When you got a set you lay down the cards and quietly picked up a spoon because everyone would be busy trying to trade cards with someone else so they could get a "set"- there would be a mad scramble and the person who didn't get a spoon got a letter such as a "P" "I" or "G". When you had all three letters you were out of the game and they would take away another spoon till a winner was declared. It could be hard on cutlery but was easy and fun
 

Dances
Every community had a hall so there was usually a dance somewhere within 10-15 miles of a town As children, there was no such thing as a baby sitter unless you lived in town We would be bundled up and taken to the hall. The boys were taught to dance by their mothers and the girls by their fathers usually. Our hall had benches about 12 feet long and were stacked along a back wall. As we got tired, we would be filed away on a coat or blanket in the stack of benches until we were woken up at the end of the dance.

This was great when we were young but of course it was difficult when we became teenagers and had to have that obligatory dance with our Mom. Pretty hard to maintain our macho image. Our mothers never let on they knew it was a "drag" but they never let us off the hook either and always acted like they were pleased.

The dances were all the same pretty well. Our local orchestras were family people who played because they enjoyed it, not because they were professional by any means. Sometimes one of them would decide to sing and that could be harsh but we really didn't care that much, it was fun. All the guys stood at the back of the hall, in the "stag" line. The girls sat on chairs along the wall. The orchestra started but no one wanted to be first across the floor just in case the girl turned him down so half the dance was over before anyone got up enough nerve. I don't know which was worse - if a girl turned you down you knew everybody was looking and your ego was in the tank. On the other hand sometimes some of the girls didn't get asked so they sat there or danced with another girl.

In any event,. it was great that we had this type of introduction to some form of social life at least, courtesy of our mothers we could waltz, foxtrot, polka and schottische and even square dance but that wasn't "cool".

Another dance that came up occasionally was a "Barn Dance". If anyone in the area built a barn with a loft in it, they would always have a dance- sometimes several before it was put into use. This probably goes back to earlier times. Like the other dances, there was no liquor license so the adults brought there own and drank outside the hall. The police from McCreary (RCMP) always knew about these and would make a pass through once or twice a night so th