14

Stooking
1938
near Delia, Alberta

Credits:
Delia Museum Collection

15

Roger Pearson in conversation with Carrie Trout

June 26, 2005, Delia, Alberta

Roger Pearson: "The binder went along and dumped about four or five in a bundles in a bunch and then you picked them up and stooked them so it would shed the water. That's why you'd stooked them and they would cure out. The sun would get on them and cure the bundles out, the grain out in there."

Carrie: "What do you mean by cure for somebody who doesn't know our terminology?"

Roger: "... was drying, taking the moisture out of the grain to make it dry and hard. Otherwise if you put it in the run when it was wet it would sweat in there and it would go bad."

Carrie: "Okay."

Roger: "That's why they had to get it good and dry."

Carrie: "So then they would take the grain into the grain...and bring it into the elevators that are still standing..?"

Roger: "Yes they hauled them to elevators and they would be graded in there, to what, how good it was. And Number One wheat was the best you could get, you see."

16

Raking Hay at Imperial Ranch
1920
near Delia, Alberta

Credits:
Delia Museum Collection

17

Roger Pearson in conversation with Carrie Trout

June 26, 2005, Delia, Alberta

Roger Pearson: "And this here, part here is they're raking the hay up after they've cut it on that. That's on the Imperial Ranch. There's two, four; four rakes working there at once, on that."

Carrie Trout: "What was it like working with the horses? Was it more difficult than today or…?"

Roger: "No. A lot of the horses they were well broke and they knew just about what they were doing themselves. You didn't have to steer them or anything when they get to working. And it's the same when they were plowing with them, one horse followed the plow, where the plow plowed and walked in the furrow all the time and they knew exactly where the corners were and everything else after working awhile."

18

Bucking Hay
1920
near Delia, Alberta

Credits:
Delia Museum Collection

19

Roger Pearson in conversation with Carrie Trout

June 26, 2005, Delia, Alberta

Roger Pearson: "Well bucking hay is when they cut the hay and then they rake it into a row and then they have a, what they call a bucking tool on there and they hook horses on each end of it and they go down the row of hay and buck it into a pile or up into a stack. Sometimes they had their runners on poles that go up and then dump into a stack and that's the way they stack the hay. It was a quick way of putting hay up, that was, on there."

20

Threshing Outfit (Panoramic Photo 1: Part 1)
1928
Craigmyle, Alberta

Credits:
Photographer: Elza Lyttle Long, Homestead Museum

21

Roger Pearson in conversation with Carrie Trout

June 26, 2005, Delia, Alberta

Roger Pearson: "Well first they cut it with the binder and then they stooked it by hand and then they picked it up for the hay rack, forked it onto the hay rack and took into the stationary threshing machine. Which run the bundles through the threshing machine and it took the grain out of the heads of the straw and elevated the grain into the bins and moved the straw back into what they called the straw stacks. That was the big straw stacks behind. Some of the big outfits, they had the, well maybe fourteen, sixteen teams all loading bundles into the threshing machines. That was the big machines on that page."

22

Threshing Outfit (Panoramic Photo 1: Part 3)
1928
Craigmyle, Alberta

Credits:
Photographer: Elza Lyttle Long, Homestead Museum

23

Threshing Outfit (Panoramic Photo 1: Part 2)
1928
Craigmyle, Alberta

Credits:
Photographer: Elza Lyttle Long, Homestead Museum

24

Threshing Outfit (Panoramic Photo 2: Part 3)
1928
near Delia, Alberta

Credits:
Photographer: Elza Lyttle Long, Homestead Museum

25

Roger Pearson in conversation with Carrie Trout

June 26, 2005, Delia, Alberta

Carrie Trout: "How big was an average crew?"

Roger Pearson: "Oh, five or six teams I guess, but a bigger crew was up to fourteen teams hauling into a big thrashing machine. And when they had that, the cook had a lot of cooking to do and they usually had somebody helping them. Young teenage girls or older, maybe some of the fellas that were hauling the grain, it'd be their wives that would be helping them do the cooking and all that stuff."

Carrie Trout: "What kind of meals would they prepare?"

Roger: "Big ones. Lots to eat."

Carrie: "What kind of food?"

Roger: "Oh, you name, beef and or pork and... potatoes and cabbage and all that stuff, sauerkraut and that. They always had lots to eat and carrots and everything out of the gardens."

26

Hauling Grain
1920
Hand Hills, Alberta

Credits:
Delia Museum Collection

27

Roger Pearson in conversation with Carrie Trout

June 26, 2005, Delia, Alberta

Roger Pearson: "Well the weather, it usually had to be nice. Nice weather for a thrashing crew because all the things had to be dry and the grain had to be cured in the stooks before they put through the thrashing machine and put it into a bin, because it had to be dry when it went into a bin or it would go bad on them. On that, I think it was about, dry grain was fourteen percent moisture on that."