“Fall brought with it the harvest and the danger of frost or an early snow. Grain was cut and stooked in the fields by hand; later it was built in large stacks ready for the threshing crews, who went from farm to farm. In a good year, the grain was cut, stacked, and threshed dry. In a poor year, the grain could be frozen, with little to be saved from the crop. Taylor records at least 10 years in the period 1878-1900 in which the crop is below normal in yield or quality. In the event that the crop could be gotten off the land in good order, the farmers’ next tasks were to plow and to burn stubble. Taylor wrote that, on several occasions, prairie fire started as a result of stubble burning and that there were considerable losses in some instances. Most often, the losses were higher in the hay fields than in the grain stacks. Finally, in the late Fall and early Winter, the grain would be transported by wagon to the Mill….

In the Fall of the year, the Browns frequently went hunting for rabbit, geese, ducks, prairie chickens, and wild turkey. Taylor recorded hunts in which he participated with Brown brothers (John, James, Magnus, and William Jr.). He wrote of several such hunts in which each hunter took home more than a dozen ducks or geese and often 15-20 rabbits.

During the Fall of the year, the farmers of Headingley also gathered the garden vegetables and most of these were stored in the root cellar for later use. Potatoes, onions, turnips and parsnips were cleaned and dried in the open air and then bagged for storage; some of the crop might have been sold, but this appears to have been relatively uncommon, if the Taylor Journals represent farming practices accurately.

Some of the livestock such as chickens, turkeys, and pigs were also killed at this time of year – the fowl plucked and dressed and then sold, while the pigs were scraped and cleaned with boiling water and then butchered. Most of the pork was salted or smoked for later use…”¹

John Taylor of Headingley recorded the following in his journal during the fall months:

• “Mr Mills came down in the morning and butchered two suckling calves for me. Johnnie took these down to Winnipeg and sold at 5 ½ cts per lbs.” (August 5, 1890)
• “George ran the reaper all the afternoon cutting oats and Morese went out to cut hay. Alice started down to town yesterday afternoon to attend school. She rode down with Willie Tait and is to board at Mr Hall’s.” (September 7, 1891)
• “We finished cutting the last of the oats and stooking too & old man Stevenson came up and gave us a hand cutting the oats in the garden. George & Rupert went out for 2 loads of hay and George shot 8 chickens.” (September 19, 1891)

¹ B.G. Hunter-Eastwood, “Report on the William Brown Heritage House,” Prepared for the Historical Museum of St. James-Assiniboia, Winnipeg, 1988, p. 67-68.