Starting Out
Grandma and grandpa sold their 80 acres by the highway (E half of SW18-53-3-W5) and moved to great grandma's second homestead, (SW26-53-4-W5) in 1920. Armed with their native wits and experience, good horses, some machinery and twin one-year-old boys they set out to build a house and outbuildings and make a living on the farm. Neither had been raised as farmers, grandpa was a fisherman in his youth, later he hauled freight and mail all around the country. Grandma was the daughter of a missionary/teacher.

The original cow barn was of logs, the horse barn of boards. There was also a pigpen and shelter and a chicken coop below the hill. Together with the granaries, machine shed, ice house and milk house this made up the farmyard. There was a shallow well to the northeast in the lowlands about a quarter mile from the house, it was cribbed in but there was no pump.

Ice for the ice house was cut on "A" Lake (3/4 of a mile west), in January, when it was thick enough. The ice was stored in sawdust and kept the cream and milk cool and provided ice for the icebox in the house, and the ice cream freezer

(Farm stock and equipment list)

Horses
Grandpa always had horses, beautiful gentle giants which we kids sometime rode (without saddles) holding on to the mane for dear life. While Dad was growing up grandpa had three Percherons, Prince (the biggest) Tom and Dick (who was also a riding horse), they also had a cayuse named Dan who was pretty well used for pulling the buggy. Later they got Muggins as a riding horse.

Grain
Barley and oats were grown on small plots, (approx. 40 acres total, NE corner, south of the creek, N of granary) enough for on farm use. The fields were ploughed with the walking plough and harrowed. A seed drill was used for planting seed which was saved from the year before or bought from Uncle Roy and the grain was pretty well on its own from then until harvest time. A binder was used to cut and bundle the grain and the bundles were hauled and stacked beside the granary before the threshing machine arrived, so it could be threshed later in the year if necessary. George Braithwaite did the threshing until he moved away in 1931, Allan Francey's outfit threshed for a few years, Uncle Roy had an outfit later on. Operators were paid by the bushel threshed and the farmer provided the labour, racks, horses and food for the crew. Grandma did all the cooking and washing up for all the meals, a major operation in its own right. This was all done on a wood-fired stove and with no running water. Threshing was very labour intensive and the crews loved to eat well and in vast amounts.

Making Hay
Grandpa would get a permit from the municipality to cut hay on public land, usually on section 25, or 13 at Pavay's(sp?) slough if it was dry enough, or south of Starks on NE27. Sometimes on what became the Stevenson place, NW24. The cows pastured a lot on 23 as well. Hay was cut with the horse mower, raked into windrows, the windrows were raked lengthwise into "coils" about six feet long and three feet high, these were arranged with a hayfork to be mostly weatherproof. The hay was picked up from the coils with forks, hauled to the barn in hayracks and forked up to the loft, with someone in the loft stacking it inside. The extra hay was stacked behind the barn.
Garden
Vast and productive. Lots of potatoes,turnips, carrots, beets, peas, beans. Lots of flowers around the place. Many things were canned, peas, beans, pickles. The root crops and potatoes stayed good in the cellar all winter. A lot of wild strawberries, raspberries, saskatoons, blueberries were picked for canning and jam. Potatoes were harvested by being ploughed up and hand picked, occasionally they would borrow Uncle Roy's potato picking machine, which did a lot neater job, leaving the potatoes clean on the top of the row.
Chickens
Eggs, fryers, roasters. I remember you had to be very calm and quiet while collecting eggs in the hen house. The warm chickens would sometimes peck at you if they were in the mood. The chickens were fed wheat (bought) and a mash of chopped barley and oats, and whatever they could find around the henyard. The eggs went into paper flats of three dozen and were packed in wooden egg crates 4 deep with a wooden lid held by metal clips. If the eggs were for sale they had to be cleaned, that was sometimes a tiresome chore with a wet cloth, especially if the hens were short of oyster shell (calcium) and the shells were thin. When Dad was young the eggs and butter were taken to Bambers Store at Wabamun and traded for groceries. They also raised 20 - 30 turkeys for the Christmas trade. These were killed by sticking and the feathers removed. The heads were left on and they were not gutted. They were carried to Edmonton in the Model-T truck and sold to the Imperial Meat Market on 101st St., operated by A.C.(Butcher) Smith, who had homesteaded not far from Grandpa's place in 1905.

Hogs
Hogs were born on the farm and raised to 200 lbs. in six months on chopped barley (run through the crusher) mixed with some oats (for flavour), skim milk and garden scraps. They were hauled live to Edmonton, usually to Gainers packing plant (historical relationship) about six of them in the back of the Model T truck. In the late Fall one hog would be slaughtered for home use. It would be bled out, the carcass wrapped in gunny sacks, and boiling water poured over it so the bristles could be easily removed. The hog was gutted and hung as a whole carcass in a granary to freeze. During the winter various cuts would be taken off using a meat saw.
Cows
There was no herd law then and the country was mostly unfenced so the cows pastured where they could, but they had to be brought in for milking, which sometimes meant covering a lot of country. Sometimes the boys rode the pony and sometimes they walked, usually carrying a .22 rifle for ruffed grouse, they ate a lot of partridge and grandma was an expert in cooking it. Her word was "No ducks, if you shoot a duck, you do the cleaning.", so the ducks were safe.
Milking
They would ship two cans of cream per week to the dairy (approximately), 5 gallons per can and get $2.50 per can. I remember taking cans to the train with grandpa in later years. The cream was graded at the dairy, usually the Northern Alberta Dairy Pool, as to butter fat content and flavour. Usually they got a "special" rating which was 40% bf. Sometimes they would haul the cream to the dairy themselves, at 103 St and 105 Ave(?) Later they would sometimes take the cream to Pat Storms who ran a truck to Edmonton.
When they were in full production they would milk 15 cows out of a herd of 25, which would take about an hour. Grandma and grandpa did the milking and Dad and Fred carried the pails to the separator, which in summer was in a granary where the garage is now, in winter it was in the house. They did the separating, all by hand, and carried the skim milk to the pigs to mix with chop for their feed. Everything had to be cleaned up afterward, the pails washed, the separator taken apart and cleaned, the straining cloths washed and dried. The cows were fed with hay forked down from the loft in winter. All of this by coal oil(kerosene) lamp light in winter. When the wood box was full and there was water for the house and the inside cleanup was done, it was time to cook and eat supper and relax until morning when it all started over again. Grandma was the best milker, she had good hands for it. If there was too much cream or they couldn't ship grandma would make butter in the barrel churn and sell it to the local merchants in Wabamun. They also churned for home use.

Cash Flow
The farm supported the family well on its own with only some outside money, even through the Depression years of the 1930s. In the winters of 1934-35 and 1935-36 they cut saw logs for the new house, finished in 1939. Every winter they cut (using axe and crosscut saw) and hauled pit props and ties for the Lakeside Mine, always spruce. On the big hills down to the mine they would "rough lock" one of the runners by wrapping a piece of chain around it so the sleigh didn't run over the team on the ice. Dad and Uncle Fred got licenses and went commercial fishing on Wabamun in 1936 with Tom Johnstone, from the mine. They were camped across the lake, on the ice, when their tent burned down. No one was hurt, but the old Star they were driving wouldn't start, so they had to pull the battery, carry it to the mine and get it charged up at the powerhouse, then carry it back to the car. The fish were sold to Bamber or Menzies at Wabamun, whole. They were gutted and packed in fish crates with crushed ice and shipped to New York, where they were very popular.

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