Carpentering for the Carpenter

How did we celebrate the Labor Day weekend? We took Suzanne, Roger and Jonathan, and a friend to the Reynolds Alberta Museum. It is a large museum of the equipment that build our province featuring four distinct areas: Industry, Agriculture, Automobiles, and Aviation.
Being the fall long weekend, the main events focused on harvesting. This Steam Traction Engine would soon operate the threshing machine.

Leigh and Randy Kvill ("quill") are members of our church. He is one of the leaders of the Museum and she was doing the announcing at the threshing demonstration. She is a school teacher and taught our children when they were in high school. Randy's father has build several model steam engines that actually work. We also know Randy's uncle who is Chancellor of Peace River Bible Institute.This threshing machine was to be used for the demonstration. If you look closely you will notice that one side of the feeder chain is hanging down because a link is broken. there was about a twenty minute delay as the men fixed the break. "This is all too real," I thought as I reflected on memories of harvest time when I was a teen-ager.

Threshing in progress. Two men are pitching bundles of winter wheat onto the feeder of the threshing machine. If you look closely at the spout going into the green wagon you can see a "dump"of grain (1/2 bushel) coming down it. Behind the threshing machine and wagon you can also see the beginnings of a straw pile and more straw coming down out of the blower pipe attached to the back of the thresher. Everything is working! The wheat will be taken to one of the museum buildings where it will be ground into flower and made into bread that can be eaten in the restaurant there.

Adjacent to the threshing demonstration, these men were cutting a field of winter wheat. The binder cuts the grain and ties it into bundles or sheaves which you can see piling up on the "bundle carrier" attached to the right side of the machine. Ted and I learned to drive the tractor this way at age ten. Dad attached a rope to the leaver clutch of the tractor so he could stop it.

In the background you can see three large steam shovels that were used in coal mining in years past.

In the next field a man was seeding winter wheat for next year. Yes, this is the right time to be doing it. In the foreground are the bunches of bundles left by the binder.

Our friend and I enjoyed this reenactment of activities from our respective childhoods. Outside there were a lot more old tractors and farm equipment to be seen. Inside the pavilion were several exhibits of farm equipment, industrial machines, an automobiles.

We had a wonderful day taking in all (well most) of what there was to see. Roger and Jonathan did very well too.