Volunteers at Sheppard Family Park in High River used turn of the last century technology to harvest some wheat on Saturday, September 8.

It was the Annual Old Time Threshing Bee, and threshing crew member, Jordan Rasmussen, says they seed the crop in the spring, and bind and stook the crop in the fall.

"So it sits and drys in the little stooks like all the paintings have for a couple weeks, and then we'll come pick them up and put them on the wagons, you know like two weeks before, and then we come and of course thrash."

Rasmussen says, because the barley crop they planted at the park was so short this year, they used wheat from Monteith's field.

"We took our old binder over there and ran it on Monteith's three or four weeks ago, so the wheat stooks actually sat on the wagons in our shop for a month instead of sitting out, which is part of the reason we were having some trouble today, because it hadn't dried up enough."

He says, the old threshing machine is very similar in design to modern combines.

There were roughly 40 to 50 volunteers in total who brought High River's history to life at the park on Saturday.

Some of the threshing bee crew after the work is done.

 

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