Timothy Allan Johnston
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Published in the October, 2020 issue of Alberta Prime Times

Threshing Bee on Leo Gooch’s Farm
 
Photographs and Story by Tim Johnston
 
Living demonstrations of words once commonly used in Western Canada were on display on a late August Sunday at the farm of Leo Gooch. Leo farms a quarter section of land south of Arrowwood, partly with horses and equipment in common use on the prairies in the early part of the last century. Friends and neighbors came to help, some to stook the sheaves that were cut and bound by the horse-drawn John Deere binder, others to fork the sheaves onto the horse-drawn bundle racks. 
 
When full, the bundle racks were hauled to the McCormick threshing machine where the sheaves were loaded into its feeder.  Leo used two antique tractors to power the threshing machine during the day, the first being a 1928 McCormick Deering gasoline tractor and the other a 1927 Rumely Oil Pull 3060 Model S.
 
This is the tenth year that Leo has held his threshing bee. It’s a remarkable demonstration of how people once farmed on the prairies, how important labour was in the harvesting of crops, and of the tremendous strides made in the development of farming equipment since the days of threshing machines.