PREECEVILLE — Harvest time back in the pioneer era meant neighbours gathering together to help cut grain into sheaves and feed a threshing machine, usually run by a steam engine. Neighbours would go from field to field helping one another bring in the crop. Harvest time was always a season everyone looked forward to, as it was not only a social gathering but also a lot of hard work and fun, commented a senior farmer.
A threshing demonstration near Endeavour, on a field owned by Peter and Bill German, was alive with activity and surrounded by nostalgic memories of a time long gone on Oct. 30.
“This was a great opportunity for the younger generation to help out and learn what threshing time was about,” said Bill German. “The project kicked off last year when the five acres of pasture hay land were overtaken by weeds that cattle would not eat. We decided to break up the land and seed oats. The crop of oats netted a good yield, and when it came time to start harvesting it, we used a binder to bind the crop into sheaves that we stooked into bundles, ready for pick up on hay wagons to be taken to the thresher for processing.
“My brother, Peter, myself and Vern Poworoznyk, who were the main organizers of the harvest, want to thank everyone who came out to watch, reminisce, learn and to be part of a very nostalgic event. This may be the last time we get to thresh grain this way and are happy we could share a little bit of the past with everyone in attendance,” he said.
The binder used to cut the sheaves was owned by Poworoznyk; the trio did all the work of stooking the sheaves, and Bill German owned the thresher used to process the grain. The grain will be sold to a local farmer to feed his livestock, while the straw was left on the field for wildlife.
Threshing is the process of loosening the edible grain from the non-edible straw. This age-old process has always been time-consuming and requires a great deal of energy. Threshing follows reaping the grain from the fields.
Throughout history, this time-consuming process brought communities together to help one another. Often, a bee would be held, and everyone who was able pitched in to speed up the demanding but necessary task of threshing the grain harvest.
