We had two reaper binders, still remember the things breaking down all the time.
Stooking the shavs (sheaves), then forking them onto rulleys with gormers fore and aft.
The stackyard absolutely rammed with stacks, waiting for the contractor's threshing machine to arrive in winter.
The Allis Chalmers threshing machine was powered by a long canvas belt attached to a pulley on a Field Marshall single cylinder tractor - a "pop-pop tractor" to us kids. The "pickers" standing on the stacks, forking the sheaves across to the man on the threshing machine, all had their trouser legs tied up with band, to keep out the rats and mice which had built their nests in the stack.
Our first combine was a Massey Harris. It seems crazy now, but the corn was collected in 12 stone hessian sacks, which were then slid down a chute onto the ground. They then had to be collected and lifted by hand to be brought back to the farm, where my father took them on his shoulders and climbed a 10' ladder to transfer then to the first floor granary. All day.
The advent of bulk grain storage changed everything, including the number of farm workers, from seven down to two.
At least the two remaining shire horses were not sent to the knackers yard, as so may were. Tidy and Dusty lived out their days in the back paddock.
