Well, it went into stooks and then we had to get a threshing mill and thresh it.

Speaker: Which made a stook. Interviewer: Mm-hm. What was the idea of stooking the grain? Speaker: Well, to keep it- if you left it on the ground long enough and it got wet, it would start to grow. Interviewer: Mm-hm, Mm-hm and of course- Speaker: It would dry out. Interviewer: I suppose it would deteriorate t-- Speaker: I- an- and it would dry out and if it was- if some of it wasn't quite um, ripe- the odd time there was a bit of it in the green-side, it would ripen up, you-see- Interviewer: In the stook. Speaker: With the stook, yeah.

Well a binder cut the grain and uh, put it out in stooks, tied it with uh, binder twine-

Speaker: Which made a stook. Interviewer: Mm-hm. What was the idea of stooking the grain?

Well, uh, they were fed hay, pretty much just the hay that had been brought in and then sometimes my father would sow a field of corn and there was a bit of a building behind the stable where he would just uh- first of all he would just cut the corn and put it in sort of a stook, leave it there, just for a little and then he would take his wagon and bring this- the length of the corn was in the stook, he would bring it in and stand it all up in this building, low, it was quite a low building, he would stand it up, and then in the winter um, just to give them a treat he would uh- after they would have their hay uh, my sister and I would sometimes go out and bring them in some corn and they just loved it.

... if anyone dis-behaved they uh, or used uh wrong language, she would take them back to the sink and she would uh, ask them to wash their mouth out with a little soap. ... And um, I can't remember now what- oh, she did use the strap. ... No, not too often. As I say, she, she uh, did get the respect that she usually wanted.

Interviewer: Do they still use um- like do they still use the whip and-things-like-that? Speaker: Well the strap. Interviewer: The strap I meant, yeah, not the whip. Do they still use it at your school? ... Do you think that's a good ide-- Speaker: Well only if you're really bad. Like if you're in a bunch of fights or-something-like-that.

Interviewer: What would you use for a mattress? Speaker: It would likely be a straw tick and a feather type over. No mattresses at that time, we'd- ah, nice- get- going out to fill up the- the straw tick with straw, and you didn't get a whole lot of chaff, you shook the chaff out of it, you just wanted the straw.

Oh well we- on our home place we used to have a straw-tick, what they used to call a straw mattress in the bottom.

You see when- ah we'd start in the spring every year and there'd be lawn socials. Maybe oh ah strawberry socials. And they'd serve you strawberries. And they'd have a ball-game. And then after that, there'd come- well it'd be just a lawn social or the ice-cream social.

Did you ever get one- sure you must get one that, um, stopped milking because it, um- when a cow doesn't have a calf that makes it stop milking doesn't it? (interviewer) That's what we call a stripper.

Interviewer: Yeah. Um, what kinds of fences did you have back then? Speaker: Well, ah, mostly- there was some stump fences. I never had to do with any of that. Some stone fences, loud fences. Rail, crooked rail. Wire. Wire came in in my day. They were all- were all loud fences prior to that, pretty much, I mean I helped to fence our place on with the wire.

Speaker: Well, where there was pine- Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: Yeah, where there was pine they tried to- upset them- Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: Up for to make fences. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Yeah. And there is an odd one through the country yet of pine stump fences. Interviewer: I've seen them in some parts. Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Did they use the stones as well for that purpose?

Speaker: Stone fence. Or a stone wall. We called them both. Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: Yeah. There used to be lots of them too. And then we used to have the stump fence. Interviewer: What's that? Speaker: They'd- you took the stumps out of the ground and they'll clean up the ground, they turn them up you-see on their edge and ah they'd stick it way up in there.

Interviewer: But you- you didn't have many of that sort of around here being made? Speaker: No, not at nighttime anyway. No. 'Cause they'd rot down you-see? Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Yeah. But they call them a stump fence. Interviewer: It would be mainly rock fences or um snake fences. Speaker: Yeah.

Interviewer: Tell me about uh, the kinds of fences that people used in those days to separate their fields, it seems to me that there was a variety of kinds of fences. Speaker: Yes, at first, I guess the first fences were log fe- were uh- were stump fences and where- any place where there were a lot of rocks that they had in the fields that they had to uh, to tear off the rocks they put up stone fences and then from- from that they went to uh- to the log fences ...

Interviewer: Do you- do you have any idea what the people who live in Ottawa think about people who live in the Ottawa-Valley? Speaker: Oh, I don't know. No. Interviewer: You've never hears any ah stereotypes or anyone say oh, Ottawa-Va-- Valley people are such-and-such. Speaker: No. Interviewer: No? Speaker: Don't think so.

Then there was a summer kitchen put up ... It was lined up that it became a, ah- a winter kitchen as well as the summer kitchen.

Interviewer: The- now the kitchen would be where you'd cook and where you'd eat as well? Speaker: Yes, where- right away- and the- a few years after they built, ah, another wing to it and then made a summer kitchen. Interviewer: Yes. That would be joined onto the house? Speaker: Yes. But the most, ah- the most, ah, people at that time had, ah- had a summer kitchen either built right beside the house and had a runway (?) between the two or, ah- or had it hitched onto the house. They- th-- they moved the stove out of the main house in the summer. ... Kept the house warm.

Interviewer: Did you have a separate, um, room off the kitchen? The main kitchen? ... Off the main kitchen- the kitchen- the big kitchen you'd mainly, um, cook and the family would all eat in that one, eh? They would- Speaker: Well, ah, this part of the house here, there was a- a double window. Two windows together in the front. ... And there was a living room and a dining room and then a kitchen that had- Interviewer: I thought it was a parlour? Speaker: That had been- years ago it was a- what they used to call a- a summer kitchen.