... Adam was the horse person so he'd always- usually every year he'd raise a- a colt. So you'd have to go see that wherever it would be- be out the pasture some place. And then, ah, uncle-Brent, he was more of a- what would you call it, bush person or?

... that was his Sunday outing to go o-- he'd know where there was an apple tree some place and then be- he'd have a pail with him, he'd go pick apples.

... we come home from town one day and looked down and the front of the bee box was just moving with bees. ... Yeah, that was a swarm had come from some place and they- within about ten minutes there wasn't a bee to be seen on the box, they all just moved in and were all set to stay then.

Well you see, there was no such thing as lawn-mowers. ... You know, it was a novelty to see a lawn-mower some place.

... we had a pretty good time. Right up until, oh about the second week of October or some place. And she left. And she left, went elsewhere.

Well you got to tap a tree and if you do it the way everybody started out with, you've got- you put a spile in the hole you drilled and you hang a bucket on it, then you got to collect the sap and then you have to boil it and it all depends on whether you've got a good, big evaporator or not

Interviewer: Now what did you call the thing that goes into the tree again? What was that- Speaker: A spile.

We had an aunt. She was a bachelor, not a bachelor, a spinster.

No. Ten cents a day. That's what they used to get, ten cents a day and three square meals. The guy that turned the crank, that was the power- the power of the machine. He got ten cents a day and three square meals and the other guy over here that you can run the machine got ten cents a sheep.

So I got it, and all us Tollan boys have a distinctive walk and a kind-of distinctive for lack of a better word square head. So, I'm on the internet and I typed in Almonte, and boom this picture came up.

I was four on the seventh of June and I went to school in September with Daisy. 'Cause she was just a squirt.

Interviewer: Oh my goodness. Speaker: Yeah, so that's why it took us a little longer at that time and then just another couple of fields and we'd just- and there was a stile at the back fence into the ah- the schoolyard, so you'd climb up over the stile and there you were. Interviewer: Explain what a stile is. Speaker: What a stile is. Interviewer: Yes. Yes. Speaker: Yes. Okay so you have the wire fence, and that's really awkward to climb over. So they would build ah wooden steps up one side and down the other. So- Interviewer: A stile. Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. And ah, when he was seventeen, he took the team and the stoneboat and he went down across the river down here and out to where John-Jameson is now. That was my Uncle Ed Parcy's. <11> Yes. Speaker: He went out through there and down to where Fred-Stroud lived and they got the corner stone, and they loaded in on the stoneboat and he drew it up to Middleville when they built that church in Middleville.

Speaker 2: And how does the stoneboat work? I don't know anything about it. Speaker: The stoneboat is a ah, they took like about four pi-- logs, pine- we usually an elm, that- something good and strong like that and they would- and they would saw them out so it was like that, tipped up, and it would be four- four boards like that and they'd have a plank across and they'd- there'd be a hole through there and they hook the team on that and- and trail right flat on the ground 'cause they were trying-

Well I did everything I could. And then my brothers came and helped some and a neighbour came and helped some. So then he was at um, a silo felling. Like at that time the stooks were in the field and you forked them into the corn cutter. It wasn't like the way they do it now.

And there was a whole pile of blackbirds or starlings out there and they were just nesting in the top of all these stooks of grain helping themselves. Well I said, "I'm going to fix that." Oh I got the old long barrelled shotgun out there.

And the ah bailer t-- or the binder twine. And then you got to run around there and stook all the grain.

And then you got to run around there and stook all the grain.

Like you'd- I- I must have been difficult for my mom because she'd have the huge table full of all the neighbourhood men there for lunch and she'd have to put on this big spread for lunch and, of course, um, she always had to have pies and the men raved about her pies and her- her cooking, but, ah, yeah, it was- it- the one farmer had the threshing machine and he would bring it over and then all the other farmers would come with their wagons and- and- tractors and- and we'd go out to the fields and throw on all the stooks of grain and bring them back and throw them into the threshing.

Speaker: So they would cut the grain with the binder and would b-- be done up in stooks. Interviewer 2: Right. Interviewer 1: Yes, okay. Speaker: And then people went- neighbours went to the next neighbour and the thrashing mill would come and neighbours would bring this- load these stooks of grain on their wagon, bring it to the thrashing mill.