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EPISODE 883 THANKSGIVING DINNER AT FARM OCT. 9, ,3023

EPISODE 883   THANKSGIVING DINNER AT FARM   OCT. 9, ,2023


allan skeoch
Oct. 9, 2023

It is easy to take our good fortune for granted.  Too easy.   On this day 
there are so many  who do not have our good fortune.

See if you can find the long dish with goat cheese and pear slices
soaked in brandy and garnished with green things.   Marjorie at her
creative best.   Yum Yum.

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EPISODE 880 “GET IN THE POLICE CAR, SON, WE ARE GOING FOR A RIDE”

EPISODE 780


alan skeochOct 6, 2023







E

This was ‘MINNIE’S in the 1920;s


EPISODE 880  :”GET IN THE POLICE CAR, SON, WE ARE GOING FOR A RIDE”

“Have you ever sat in the back seat of a police car?”

In an earlier episode i asked if you had ever been strapped.   That got quite a  response.  John Morton said he ws strapped often in elementary
school which explains his attitude to authorities.  Bob Root said he ws strapped by the best teacher he ever had in public school.  The strapping
did not change his mind. “She was wonderful!’.  Erin Furlong said she was strapped at home often along with her siblings.  

“You were never strapped, Alan.”  commented my brother.  But the strapping seem so real.  The wooden chair in the Principals’s
office….the drawerwhere he kept the strap…the caution lest I pull my hand away….the sound as the strap hit his knee…
“Never happened, Alan, .”  Is Eric right?  Or was I just too ashamed to tell him and mom?  Afraid Dad would 
high tait down to Runnymede PS. to straighten out the man with the sore knee.  “Never happpened, Alan!”   God, Eric can be a 
spoillsport.   And truth is so hard to pin down.  I could concede….Eric might be right.  But listen up…Eric witnessed this one.

“Remember the police car, Eric?”
“Now that was a  fact…you got arrested.”
“Do you remember why?”
“The key…Minnies swimming pool…”


See the jumping tower on the left….and the pool below…jumping was dangerous….


Here is Minnies Tower….pool far below….pic  taken about 1954…do not take a running jump…
might land on har 1953 Ford Meteor or the fence.

We had been swimming at Minnies, more properly known as the Mineral Baths across Bloor street from High Park.  A rather run down swimming pool whose main feature was a high
wooden tower  designed only for the brave.  

“Never take a running leap from the top tower, boys.”
“why not?”
“You will impale yourself on the iron fence along the south edge of the pool,  Do it
if you favour easy suicide.”

It was a rough place built way back in the 1920’s.The male changing room had banks of wooden cabinets.   Gray and dingy’  It was the lockers that got me  into
very serious trouble.  Police trouble.

I was putting on my pants when the idea came to me.

“Hey Eric.  I bet you dollars to doughnuts these keys are all the same.  One key
can open any locker.  They’re just skeleton keys.”

Then I made the big mistake.

“Watch this, Eric, and I stood on the bench and slipped my locker key into different locker.   Were all keys the same?  I never found out.  The moment

I put the key in the locker next to me, one of the locker room boys peeped around the corner and started to yell.

“GOT HIM! Come quick, I just caught some son of a bitch breaking into the lockers.”

Before i could say Jack Robinson, a bunch of muscle guys had pinned me to the floor.

“Got him.  Hold him down while we call the police”.The police?  
Oh God, no, not the cops. What could I do?  Who in tarnation would believe my key idea.
sounds like a stupid excuse.   

  “I was only testing the key…thought all keys were the same.”  No one in their right mind would believe 
that story.  

 As the muscle boys were shouldering me into Minnie’s office I got a look at Eric.  He was dumbfounded.  Jaw dropped.   Maybe thinking how he could
help his big brother….He was just a year younger than me.  I said noting but noticed him heading for the bike rack. He would get the bikes home.
I needed dad but he was fast asleep from night shift at Dunlop Tire Company.  Not sure I wanted him,,.  Afraid he would start
World War Three on Bloor Street.  Dad was a ‘those are my boys right or wrong’… kind of parent.  And he was tough.   Slapping huge chunks of vulcanized rubber
on to spinning wheels was a big man’s work.  He could take care of the muscle boys.   But there  must be a better way.

They had me pinned to a stool in Minnie’s office.  

 “How many lockers have you rifled?”  
“None”
“Bull shit kid…The cops will get the truth out of your”
“Any minute now,.. here comes the cruiser.”

A big guy in blue levered himself from his car.   Carried a revolver.  “So you are the kid who breaks into lockers.  A thief?”
“I was only trying to see if the key was the same….”   His eyes looked amused. I was not crying.  Wanted to but just could not  do it.  

 I knew my career as a Humberside student was done for…

What would Cruickshank, Green, Burford, Schroeder, Charlesworth…. think of me? .and  the principal W.E. Taylor who rescued Ted Puccini and me from
a local poo hall.  Maybe W.E. would expel me…. worse still what about the girls  of the Runnymede Presbyterian  Youth Club?
 Girls would look at me with disdain,  I was on the road to purgatory.

The cop looked at me in a funny way.  He did not call me a son of bitch.  Quite the reverse .

“Come along with me son, I’ll drive you home..”

Did he call me ‘son’?   Was I hearing right?  “I’ll take the boy home,   He won’t do that again.”
So I escaped  and crawled into the back seat of the cruiser. “Son, get in the front
seat with me.”  Did he call me ‘son’ again.  Was this a trick…bad cop – good cop scenario?
And away we went.  I never went back to Minnies again.  But new worries surfaced.
What would the neighbours think if a squad car pulled up to our door?  What would Grandma think?  She was living with us for a while and 
loved us.  Sh liked  sitting on the verandah watching the Annette Street trolley stop where smokers often discarded cigarette butts.  She liked to chew tobacco.
She was dying…perhaps a month to live. She knew it. Granddad had died a few months e earlier. A 19th century woman. Over 90. 


“Officer…sir?” 
“Yes”
“Could you drop me off  around the corner on Gilmour?   
“Suppose I could, why?”
“My grandmother loves me and she might be sitting on the porch and….”
“And she might form  a different opinion, right?”
….I’ll pull up out of sight ,  don’t worry but do not do that key trick again, son.”’
he called me son again as he let me out.  I have liked police ever since and rarely use the term cop which is a put down word.

I never mentioned that Dad was asleep in the bed room.  Dad would believe my story…I think.


So that is my story about getting into the back seat of police car as  a suspected criminal.  Even a nice guy like the policeman would not
believe the truth about the key.  Would you?  Never went back to Minnies so I have no idea if  it was a ‘one key fits all’ locker room.
Minnies was demolished a few yeas later…lockers gone’

Maybe you have had
a similar  experience.in a police car
      
alan

P.S. A s some readers know Dad said “I have two sons, one is a  gutsy bugger and the other is as stupid as Joe’s dog.”
Sounds stupid I know but believe it or not the terms had meaning.  Dare not  tell you the meaning in this story. They were
terms of endearment.   Dad expressed affection in odd ways.




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EPISODE 879 TREES ARE SMARTER THAN YOU AND ME….THEY KNOW WHAT’S COMNG

 EPISODE 879    TREES ARE SMARTER THAN YOU AND ME….THEY KNOW WHAT’S COMNG


alan skeoch
Oct. 2, 2023


“I grow old … I grow old … 
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” 

― T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Other Poems


AS A MATTER OF FACT, I THINK I’LL TAKE OFF MY PANTS
AND TAKE A DIP IN LAKE ONTARIO IN  MY UNDERSHORTS
…SUMMERTIME ‘ AND THE  LIVING IS EASY “   GETTING MY
POETS IN A JUMBLE.  HOT WEATHER RESPONSIBLE.

WHY ARE THE TREES LOSING THEIR LEAVES?  STUPID THING TO DO.



Hot weather.  Must still be summer.   That’s what I think.

But all the trees think differently.  They are getting ready for winter
even though the temperature is 20 , even 22 or higher.   Bathing suit weather.

But the trees are dropping their leaves,,,millions of them fluttering to the 
ground because the trees know their time of green glory…of feeding from the sunshine 
is coming to an end.

How do they know this?

Simple.  The hours of daylight are getting  shorter and shorter.   It does not matter how
hot it is at high noon.  What matters is when the sun goes down.   Have you noticed?
Ask the trees in the forest…along side roads…in your back yard…they can tell the time.

Trees are watching sunsets.  And shivering.

alan




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EPISODE 876 IN THE BEGINNG…A CREATION STORY…SKY WOMAN FELL FROM THE CLOUDS

EPISODE 876  iIN THE BEGINNING…SKY WOMAN FELL FROM THE CLOUDS…


alan skeoch
Sept. 29 2023

NOTE: THE story of Sky Woman fascinated me . Why?  Because her rescue was done by 
 the creatures on earth.   There exists harmony between humans and all living things
in this creation story.  Seems a nicer CREATION STORY  than Adam and Eve.

SKY WOMAN

An excerpt from a book you will never read
titled YOUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND, a book I wrote in the hope
it would improve young  Canadians understanding of  our native people.
The book never got that chance.




“Where did we come from?”
“How did we get here?”
“What was the FIRST CAUSE?
“Can something be created from nothing?”

Questions such as these have bedevilled thinking people .  These questions do not seem
to have bedevilled non-thikeers as much.  So I write this for thinkers.

When I wrote YOUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND some time ago the trigger mechanism in
my brain was the Turtle legend common to many aboriginal peoples in eastern North America.
It is a story…a legend….a myth…a ‘belief’ that makes more sense than Adam and Eve
because the story is in harmony with other living creatures on planet earth.

Initially, like Adam and Eve, the ‘giant Turtle’ story was told orallly and therefore changed a 
little with each telling.  But the essence never changed, The story was recorded in print after the arrival of Europeans.
Relatively recently.

No doubt my version differs from other versions.  So be it.  I write this as if it was told tome by a wise
aboriginal leader.  A woman.

IN THE BEGINNING

“In the beginning” the earth was covered in water.  There was no land.
The gods lived in peace abed the clouds with covered the earth.

One day a tree fell over and poked a hole one clouds.

Sky Woman was  curious and she peeked through the hole at the watery
earth below.   She leaned over too far and fell through the hole in the clouds.

She was falling faster and faster when a loon saw her.   The loon flew under and
Sky Woman landed on the loon’s back.



She was heavy and the loon cried out to the creatures below for help lest Sky Woman drown.

The Great  Turtle told the Loon to ‘let Sky Woman land on my back’ 

But the back of the turtle was too small so the turtle gathered all the 
living  creatures in the watery world for a conference.

“Sky Woman needs more space.”





And so the water animals…the loon, goose, beaver, otter and muskrat began to dive 
down deep in the water world.   ‘They tried to reach the muddy bottom
They tried often but failed.   Then the lowliest of the water animals, the
muskrat, made one last effort.   The muskrat dived deep…too deep
to keep alive ….but, in the muskrat’s last living act clutch a paw of
mud which was carried to the top of the water.



The other water animals opened the muscrat’s paw where it 
clutched a ball of mud.  “What should we do?”  they asked.
Then the wise old turtle said.   “Press the mud on the edge of my
body.”  And when they did so the mud began to grow larger
an larger unitil  the back of the turtle became the land we know
today.

WHERE DID OTHER HUMANS ORIGNATE?

Sky Woman was piegnant when she fell.   In time she bore two
sons.  The sons did not like each other.   One son was good
and one was bad.  They fought bitterly and  the bad son
nearly killed the good son.  Both lived 

As might be expected various speakers in an oral society
would make changes But the essence of the story is still intact

-a water covered plant 
-gods living above the clouds
-a fall through a hole in the clouds
-Sky Woman falling
-rescue by a loon or a goose
—haven provided by the Great Turtle
-need for living space 
-all animals attempt to get mud
 – most fail
-lowly muskrat succeeds 
-mud multiplies to become land in the watery world’
-Sky Woman was pregnant and had two sons
-one son was good, the other was evil 
-they fight




STORIES OF CREATION ALL ORIIGINATED AS ORAL STORIES TOLD OVER AND OVER AGAIN. 
EVENTUALLY THEY WERE TRANSCRIBED AS WITH THE BOOK OF GENESIS AROUND  500 BC
OR IN THE TIME OF NOAH…
AND  THE ABORIGINAL CREATION STOIES  TRASCRIBED BY EUROPENS IN HE 19TH CENTURY.

BOOK OF GENESIS
Genesis 1:1 forms the basis for the Judeo-Christian doctrine of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) and some scholars still support this reading,[5] but most scholars agree that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds, this is not the preferred option,[6][7][8] and that the authors of Genesis 1, writing around 500–400 BCE,

Most of the myths from this region were first transcribed by ethnologists during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These sources were collected from Native American elders who still had strong connections to the traditions of their ancestors. They may be considered the most authentic surviving records of the ancient stories, and thus form the basis of the descriptions below.[2][better source needed]

Northeast (Southeastern Canada and Northeastern US, including the Great Lakes)

From the full moon fell Nokomis – from The Story of Hiawatha, 1910[3]
Myths from this region feature female deities, such as the creator, Big Turtle;[4][5] and First Mother, from whose body grew the first corn and tobacco.[6] The two great divine culture heroes are Glooskap[7][8] and Manabus.[9]
Other stories explore the complex relationships between animals and human beings. Some myths were originally recited as verse narratives.[7]


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Fwd: EPISODE 876 DID YOU EVER GET THE STRAP IN SCHOOL? (remember ‘spare the rod and soil the child’




EPISODE 876   DID YOU EVER GET THE STRAP IN SCHOOL?


alan skeoch

sept/ 27. 2023’






When did the strap stop being used in schools in Toronto?
  • By 1979, the York and North York School Boards had joined Toronto in banning the strap, but in the early 1980s it was still permitted in Scarborough, Etobicoke, East York, Peel, York Region, the Metropolitan Separate School Board, and virtually everywhere else in the province. Elsewhere in Canada, the tide turned towards abolition in the 1990s.

    THE STRAP

    I got the strap once.  At least I think I got the strap.   Was it my imagination or did it really happen?  I am not sure but have
    a clear memory of waiting in the principals’ office for him to deliver a whack on my hand with a leather strap that looked like 
    a thing dad used to sharpen his razor in days before Gillette Blue Blades made the razer strap obsolete,



    Memory
    “I sm sitting on a wood office chair outside the principal’s office in Runnymede pubic school . Toronto.  Nervous.
    Not exactly sure what I have done.  I was To be strapped though. Likely because I vaulted over the school fence in a kind of somersault.  Or maybe
    because I was late for school because it was garbage day and there were always good things to find like the
    western novel Frontier Doctor which was jammed in my back pocket

    “Well, son, stretch out your right hand.”
    “I’m left handed.”
    “Then stretch out your left hand.”
    (I should have shut up.)
    “I am going to hit you once wit this strap.  Do not move your hand.”
    (Good idea…I must move my hand.  Do not want to be hit.  Wait until
    strap coming downward…..then..”

Damn!

  • “You moved your hand.  I hiT my own knee”

    My memory ends there.   I remember he was mad but do not remember
    him actually hitting me.  If he did then the blow was not memorable.   Hitting his
    own knee was memorable.  No laugh..no snicker…no tears.   
    Afraid he would double the punishment.  But he did not.  Did this really happen?
    My brain says i t did.   The same brain had said Santa Calus was not real years ago
    The same brain that told me to sit down most of the day..that way no-one would notice
    that the ass was torn out of my pats.  My back pocket had hooked on the fence
    and tore a gap revealing y underwear or my bare ass.
  • Those were the days in late 1940’s and early 1950’s 
    when strapping kids was considered essential.  Belevers in the strap really believed that
    to “spare the rod was to spoil the child.”  A good whack on the hand was important somehow.
    Seemed a bit deranged to me.
     
    Our family did not believe in strapping.  My dad was a big tough tire builder. Strong 
    as an ox.  But he did not believe in disciplining Eric and me.  Never touched us
    He was prepared, however, to defend us from the dangers of the outside world.
    One illustration ?   A lady followed us home from school one day.   We were with our
    friends…big Red Stevenson Billy and Bobby Rankin, Brian Hetheirngton…and had
    been using pea shooters all the way home.  Especially this one woman’s dining
    room window which was in range. No ill will to her just  fired the beans because i was in range.
  • The window glass got a shower of hard white beans
    rather than soft green peas.   

    So there she was.  Folowing us.  We lived closest to the school so got the visitor…the woman.
    Dad was working the night shift at Dunlop Tire.   He was home only because there
    were  no horses running at Dufferin track that day.   The doorbell rang and dad
    lumbered down to the main floor.  Opened the door….

    “Your boys have been firing white beans at my window!”
    “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Your boys…”
    “Listen and listen closely  Get your goddamn self off my verandah
    and bugger off homel”
    “But…(splutter splutter)
    Dad closed  the door, lumbered back u the stairs, ignored Eric and me, and
    went to bed…night shift.   We had  a one bedroom house.  Eric and I slept there
    at night.   Dad did on night shifts but normally dad had the front-room couch
    mom the dining room couch   We were a close knit family.   Loved each other but
    never said so   Did not need to say that nor to get kissy assy with hugs.

    I never told dad about the strap.  Afraid he would go down to school and punch the shit out of
    the principal who already had a sore knee.

    When Marjorie and I had Kevin and Andrew we followed the same pattern
    but les dramatically.    Certainly no strapping.  Makes me shiver to even
    think of that.   The closest i ever sae to discipline was quietly saying:I was disappointed’
    to kevin or  Andrew for some minor indiscretion.  And the boy began to cry.  Maybe 
    words hurt more than a strap.  But I am not convinced.

    If you beilong to the ‘SPARE THE ROD OR SPOIL THE CHILD’ parental generation
    then Get the hell off our verandah

    alan skeoch





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EPISODE 884 APPLES IN A TANGLED ORCHARD

EPISODE 884   APPLES IN A  TANGLED ORCHARD — 


alan skeoch
sept. 22, 2023




Namng apple varieties was once a common thing to do since apples do not
replace themselves from apple seeds.  I wuold like to call this wild apple
‘RED STREAK’ but that is the name  of one of the most famous apple
varieties in the 19th century.  What should I name my…MY?…apple tree?
There’s only one tree in the whole world like it.  It grows in our TANGLED
ORCHARD on abandoned land. Tastes good…easy to eat.  Might make 
good apple sauce.  Think of a name as you read this story.

WHEN grandma and grandpa Freeman stopped farming they let their 25 are farm return 
to nature graduallly.     The first invaders were wild apple trees…a complete wild 
orchard that looked like a bad hair day.’’’



When the  Freemans stopped farming around  1950 … the wild apple orchard took over the land which  delighted Angus McEchern’s Hereford cattle who
loved apples.   They pushed down the rail fence with ease.

The cattle ate the windfalls….some in advanced decay  This was not good.  While apples are not
poisonous, but their seeds are bad news.  Those tiny black apples seeds contain a chemical that produces 
CYANIDE.   A seed or two will not kill but should a human being decide to chew 200 apple
seeds then call the dead wagon.  What would they do to a cattle herd?


Our wild apple orchard is struggling to survive. The re’d pines are getting taller and which means less light reaches the
apple trees..



Here is how one apple tree manages to survive using a single branch which is loaded with a
a big green variety of apples red to be picked.


Small wild apples below..perhaps a crab[[;e/

 


Here (below) is the prize tree producing large  yellow apples with decorative red streaks.  In ten minutres I managed to
fill a pail and I hope Marjorie can do the real work of converting the apples into apple sauce.  We need a name for 
these apples?  How about ‘Delight of the Forest”





The myth regarding cows and apples

You might have heard this myth. Cows that eat apples can get a bloated stomach and die. But that’s not what’s happening when your cattle feed on apples fallen on the ground or those that you offer them to diversify their diet.

So, if that’s not true, where does this myth come from? There is a small grain in this myth, which is that the cows can get a little bloated when eating apples. However, that happens only if they eat a lot of apples all of a sudden and for the first time in their lives.

Anything new that’s introduced to a cow’s diet can cause bloating. It is not only apples that can cause this side effect, but any other fruits and veggies that your cows may eat by accident or otherwise. As long as cows feed on fallen apples, they won’t run the risk of overeating.

They know what’s good for them and what isn’t and they won’t eat more than what they can digest. So, if you plan to introduce apples into your cows’ diet, do so gradually. And here’s another thing. Many cows love apples and will consider them treats.


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EPISODE 883 OUR KITTEN WAS THIRSTY TODSY

EPISODE 883   OUR KITTEN WAS THIRSTY TODAY


alan skeoch
Sept. 22, 2023

We call her Chelsee Bun because she looks like a chelsee bun..   She is
litter pm the verge pf adulthood and
likes to awaken us by putting her nose in touch with our noses.
in the morning.

I think that cute habit will have to stop or else we must put
an end to that.    Which is easiest, discipline or leverage?
i.e. Say ‘bad kitten’ (discipline)
or  shut the toilet lid (leverage)

 Which is easiest discipline or leverage?



P.S.  Notice our bathroom reading material.
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EPISODE 882 CRAB APPLE JELLY…FROM WILD CRAB APPLE TREE…guarded by three mowers with hidden knife like blades

EPISODE 882    CRAB APPLE JELLY…FROM WILD CRAB APPLE TREE…guarded by three mowers with hidden knife like blades


alan skeoch
sept. 20, 2023


Our wild crab apple tree  has had no care in its 50 or so year life.  Nondescript is a word that
suits the tree.  It grew on the old barn hill about the time the barn fell down.  A apple kind of
phoenix…something good from something lost.

Today I drove our ATV under the sprawling apple loaded branches and in 15 minutes filled 
a pail with bright red crab apples. 

 “I want the reddest crab apples, Alan, they will give 
the colour to our apple jelly.”

And that was the end of my labour.  The rest was done by Marjorie who managed to get 
five small jars of crab apple jelly from half a pail of apples….

“Take off the stems, leaves and watch for worm holes.”
“There are no worms, Marjorie….every crab apple is perfect.”
“Did you pick them all?”
“No…I got half a pail of apples from one single branch. The tree
is loaded..   Do you want me to pick more?  “
“No more….the real work is converting the apples into jelly, that will
take hours.”
“I did my part…15 minutes.”
“And my part will take a good part of the day.”

“How much  jelly did you get?”
“Six small jars…bright red crab  apple jelly.”
“Do not give any away, we can spend part of the winter eating the jelly with toast and butter.”
“You are so self centred.”
“They are my apples.”
“What have you done to help the tree”
“I parked three old horse drawn mowing machines under the tree….great long  rusted 
mower blades will dissuade any thieves…the cutters are hidden in the golden rod
that ring around  the tree.  “

alan


Find your own recipe for crab apple jelly….then look for a willd crab apple tree.

Marjorie  says if you want a recipe, let us know and we will do an episode with the recipe included.
….next episode will feature our wild apple trees…the few that have survived. They have no 
names…feel free to suggest names starting with our crab  apple tree.

END
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EPISODE 881 HOW I FOUND ROBERT DOWNEY AND HIS THRESHING TEAM LABOUR DAY AT STEAM ERA 2023

EPISODE 881   HOW I FOUND ROBERT DOWNEY AND HIS THRESHING TEAM  LABOUR DAY AT STEAM ERA 2023


alan skeoch
sept. 18 , 2023

STEAM  ERA — THE HUME FARM — LABOUR DAY 2023

The huge Sawyer Massey steam powered tractor was taking a long slow turn on the Hume
Farm near Milton.   A good chance to get a picture with a clearly rural background.  what I found
was more than expected.  
something was happening in the distance.,, a threshing team of four med a little boy
shoving cornstalks into a most peculiar machine…a McCormick Deerng corn harvester …ancient, rusty, confusing, mysterious.
The machine had been rescued and renovated by Robert  Downey,  a young inspired mechanic.   It was in full operation with no audience.

I did not know that until I got closer and talked with robert downey.  Nor did I know that the little boy would steal the show.





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EPISODE 880:ROBERT DOWNEY’S 1920 OR 1930 CORN COB SHUCKER…FEATURING 7 YEAR OLD DOMINIC DEBOER


NOTE:  YOU CAN SEE THIS MACHINE IN OPERATION THIS WEEK END AT THE ANCASTER FAIR 
FROM SEPTEMBER 21 TO SEPTEMER 25, 2023.  DOMINIC MAY BE PRESENT. DO NOT DISTRACT HIM,
HE  HAS IMPORTANT WORK TO DO.


EPISODE 880: ROBERT DOWNEY’S 1920 OR 1930  CORN COB SHUCKER…FEATURING 7 YEAR OLD DOMINIC DEBOER


alan skeoch
Sept. 18, 2023




Dominic DeBoer was a busy little boy, perhaps 7 years old.  Dominic and his dad Joe DeBoer were very busy feeding cornstalks from
a farm wagon to Colin Fearman and Colin Tomlinson who were operating the McCormick Deerng Corn Shucker.  A weird and wonderful
machine designed to shred corn  stalks and shuck  corn cobs onto a conveyor belt.

Dominic took the job very seriously.  No time for small talk.  The corn thresher was alive and a touch dangerous for a little boy lest his
hand got ingested.   So Dominic took one stalk at a time and pitched it into the mouth of the machine.  And what a beautiful machine it is.

How can I describe the shredder and chucker?  The image of a rusty octopus comes to mind.   An octopus with three long legs of
varying length.   The longest is the endless power belt….that hooks the tractor to the shredder.  There is danger here so Colin and Dale
and Robert keep a close eye lest someone gets too close.  People can lose an arm is they are stupid enough to touch the belt.

The other arms of the shredder are busy … one arm blows the shredded corn stalks into a pile in the field while the shortest arm
moves the clean cobs to a corn crib.  Inside the octopus (i.e. shredder) razor sharp blades rip off the husks and chew the stalks into
bit sized chunjs,

Dominic never let his hands get close to the shredder.   With two hands he hurled his con stalk into the mouth of the shredder….one
stalk at time while his dad hurled in a pile of stalks/   

I had never seen a machine like this.  And I hadd documented most farm machines  The years fro 1850 to 1891 were great years
for mechanical investors.  One invention paved the way to outher inventions.  Hand operated corn sellers were common nachines 
on 19th and 2th century  hundred acre farms.  But for shuckers and shredders were not common for goof reason.  They
cost too much…$1600* ($29,000 today) …for farmers in those lean years of the late 1920’s and the Depression years of the 1930’s.
Far better to shuck corn by hand. Cheaper.

So this McComick Deering shucker is a rare find.   

Enter Robert Downey, 38 year old mechanic who fell involve with ancient  machines while working with his granddad when 
his peers were more interested in cars, sports, clothes or drinking beer.



“How did you get interested in the old machines. diverting many of them from scrap yards ?”

 I am 38 years old, born and raised just south of Caledonia, where I still reside. I am a licensed mechanic by trade and currently working at the Hamilton Airport fixing ground service equipment. I also do some farming and help Leanne’s family with the 4000 or so acres they do.  I started working on things at a young age in my grandfather’s shop, Allan McBay, who was a Skid-Doo dealer, ag mechanic and farmer. I would spend all of my holidays and summers there working on equipment. At the time of his death, we counted all of the tractors, not including equipment and there were roughly 160 tractors. I got the “old iron bug” from him.  Lol.  All the way through high school my friends could not understand why I was always spending time at grandpas until one day they came up and took a tour through the barns, after that they understood and a few of them caught the “bug” themselves. I bought my first tractor, a 1949 Farmall H, when I was 17 and the first thing I did was take it to grandpas to get his seal of approval. After that it was just a tradition to get his seal of approval on all our tractors purchases.  I was fortunate enough to end up with a farm girl who also caught the bug for old iron and she has since started collecting her own, however like Hatfield’s and McCoys, we have our fun battles as I come from an International Harvester family and she is a John Deere family. It is all in good fun, but at the end of the day we love all the old iron. We have a vast number of plows that we use in the fall to do plow days, the corn shredder, a corn binder, an old new holland baler with a mounted 2-cylinder Wisconsin engine and a few IH fast hitch attachments.  My current project I have been working on is a 1976 IH Loadstar truck that I have put onto a newer truck chassis and plan on using to haul the old iron around on. I was also just lucky enough to retrieve my grandpa Downey’s 1947 International KB3 truck that will be on the restore list next. 
    Between Leanne, Dale, Colin, Joe, Dominic and myself we are pushing in the neighbourhood of 50 tractors in our little collection. the oldest being my 1938 McCormick Deering 10-20 on steel and the newest being my 1960 Farmall 560 diesel that I still do farm work with.

What is the buying power of $1600 in 1930?
  • $1,600 in 1930 has the same “purchasing power” or “buying power” as $29,064.72 in 2023. To get the total inflation rate for the 93 years between 1930 and 2023, we use the following formula: The average inflation rate of 3.17% has a compounding effect between 1930 and 2023





POST SCRPT:  IT is easy for me to identify with Robert Downey even though I am 85 and he is 38.  We share the same illines….OLD IRON.
He is the better man though.  He is a mechanic. Whereas I am left handed and therefore handicapped since the world of machines is designed
for right handed people.  I have other flaws.  Optimism being one of them.  Long ago when I was 38 I attended the Thompson farm sale near Cambridge.
There were five threshing machines in the sale.  I bought them all rather than see them scrapped.  Stupid thing to do.  These machines need flat bed 
trucks to move them so I hired Gordon Hume to help me do so.  Two I gave to museums.  One I sold at auction and the remainder are tucked away.
Marjorie did not criticize my foolishness.  
she knows my illness is incurable.  Robert Downey would have done the same.

One good result was that the largest of the threshers was accepted by Riverdale Farm in the heart of Toronto and when Godeon Hume moved up Palriament Street
with the behemoth, David Shatsky, then host of Radio Noon, happened to notice.   He was curious.   And his curiosity led to my decade long ‘CBC radio
career.    I was able to become a radio journalist delivering 5 to 10 minute stories to a radio audience.   Left anded people are often dreamers…story tellers.
But they are not mechanics.   Love the romance of the corn shucker but I  could never do what Robert has done. 

I have the wreck of a corn binder on our farm.  “Robert, if you are listening, I will give it to you as a parts machine if you want it.  It is a pathetic pile of old iron
in our red pine forest.  Think twice before you accept tis offer.”

alan