..., but we've had some- lot of you-know obviously with these trees, they get older and they get butchered by trimming around the hydro lines which (laughs)- and then sometimes you just go and build a- put another one in right underneath it. Yeah (laughs). "Hey, want to do this again in twenty years, do you?" Yeah.

Interviewer: (Laughs) When did you get ah indoor plumbing on the farm? Speaker: We- we didn't get hydro until nineteen-forty-eight, and I- I wan-- ah I- I can't help but mention this um, I remember the hydro guy an come down through our farm, I was heading for school one day, and they came down through the farm, three men with long handled shovels ...

So they dug the holes that day, these three men, I suppose they dug ten, twelve holes or so by hand with these shovels, big deep hydro holes.

Guillaume-Lachance actually built that first, and that's how-how they incorporated themselves into the- into the fantastic milking machines that they have today. That's where it all started. And ah, the hydro lines were just put in by more local contractors you-know and all these houses were wired by Graham-Aylmer who was Kurtis-Aylmer's father.

Glen-Tay actually had a street light before the town of Perth had hydro turned on. It was a street light at the end of the old wooden bridge apparently. ... And the hydro lines went through our farm property following the height of ground into the town of Perth. That's where the transmission lines were.

Go-- going to the neighbours to get care packages. Yeah, another thing, our- our father- the cedar- the hydro poles for this line into this property here, up on Black-Lake, and brought them down, cedar poles, and we- we owned that- we owned that line, until they changed it, and for a while one time one broke off and they were going to charge me for it.

Interviewer: Now I seem to remember hearing that ah, for hydro, you used your horses to- Speaker: Yes, I pull line to the hydro. And ah, ah quite a long piece too. With a team of horses and you pull the wire. At that time, the hydro poles went from farm to farm to farm.

Oh, that was back when I was young. ... When I pulled the hydro wire. ... And they were putting the hydro line through or replacing wire or whatever your case may be, and they hired me to pull the wire with the team. And there's a great big row maybe miles away or so. And you- you pull the team through the fields.

But anyways ah, the hydro trucks started flocking in. They phoned one another. And it was an awful pedal to get that horse out of the mud. But when I got the horse out of the mud, they made me get a vet and check it was good and-all-that.

Yeah, I only done it for about one season, yeah. Then they took a notion to tear that all down and they moved it all out here. You see the enormous high hydro poles? The hydro poles at that time weren't that high. They just had just- had three pipes. They were always trying to stay just above the farmers who'd go into the laneway with a load of hay on a knot on the wire ...

... when he worked at the- town hall here, being the clerk-treasurer, so first of all, we'd be folding, ah, you-know, bills, it was tax-bills, when it was tax-bill time, for property taxes. And when I was nine years old, ah, my father started us on hydro - billing, because we had the hydro um, utility, ah, Barry's-Bay-hydro - Utility, so my sister and I would do- would type up the buildings on this big m-- building machine.

And then they- you ah provide communications to all these places because in this kind of a flood you- your telephones would be out for a period of time, your hydro would be off. Solely- the communication that people- ah using there own radio set up communication with the hospital, C-J-B-Q because we use the broadcast media to get messages directly to people ...

Now, the senior elected person is going to seek the advice, of-course, of the hydro and-so-on, because they're the experts and the- and this applies equally to the telephone eh.

... well, I worked until they closed the gas house. I don't know exactly, I guess it was in the thirties, they closed that down and I got a job with the parks board on the city for a while 'cause they didn't want nobody on the hydro, you-know, they were going to close the gas company down.

They broke a big gas, what they call a meter, then we had to go back to Belleville, take the team of horses and go back to Belleville and get this meter put in and get them all fixed up. But, gradually the hydro has come in you-see, but there was still no lights yet. There was still no electric lights in Belleville yet, but it started, putting in lights in the streets and the churches yet, but it started, putting in lights in the streets and the churches and the schools ...

So, they brought me down here, they paid for everything, they were fair enough, but in the meantime of-course there was not water, no sewer, no lights, no nothing yet, but this house was wired but it was never hooked up to the hydro because they didn't have no domestic lines coming along here. But, later on they did and then the water worked when I got chopped down there, of-course, they saw to it that I got water so everything was all fixed up pretty good.

Interviewer: So you had electric machines then? ... You didn't have a scrub board? Speaker: No. It was all done with hydro. And I had a gas stove. I had a big cook stove and then I had a gas stove, as well. That was when they made natural gas here in Belleville.

Oh, well, why, ah, we never- we never had a- had a refrigerator 'til in the forties. (laughs) In fact it was forty-two, I think, before hydro come through where we was.

Interviewer: Yeah, right, I guess, um- when did the power tools come in? Start to- Speaker: Ah, I think, ah, they, ah- they, ah- well, they come in gradually after, ah, hydro got to be the big thing, you-know? You remember way back hydro was just for lighting. Mostly for lighting then and began making all kinds of household utensils like electric stove. The old gas stove was in before the- before the, ah- the, ah, electric stove.

Ah, it, ah- certainly people were very happy and they, ah- they were very self-supporting. Now we depend on electricity and we depend on hydro, ah, for everything, eh?