Yorkton streets are all decked out in their autumn finery. Driving down Broadway is a pleasure. If this was a painting of the yellow gold trees etched against the blue sky with its whisps of white cloud, no one but someone prairie-born would believe it was real.

In the fields, the farmers are going full tilt to harvest their crops while the weather is hot and dry.

I remember as a child, harvest was one of the most exciting times of the year. We would go out and tumble in the newly threshed straw stacks, and climb up on the wagon to watch the grain come gushing out of the threshing machine spout.

In the farmhouse huge roasts of meat, pies, cakes, mounds of potatoes and other vegetables, cakes and loaf after loaf of homemade bread would be prepared for the hungry threshers.

A special treat was to take mid-morning and mid-afternoon lunch out to the crew. Pots of hot coffee, huge sandwiches and man-sized pieces of cake would be available to the hard working threshers.

But the best treat of all was to share my Dad's noon dinner beside the tractor and threshing machine. The meal would be wrapped in blankets to keep it hot and Dad would eat while he adjusted the various belts and greased the big machine.

A large crew of men would be required in the days of the threshing machine. To fill this need there used to be threshing specials, where men from eastern Canada and from central Europe would come to the prairie provinces not only to take part in the threshing, but to make money to tide them over for the winter.

One day when Dad went into town to pick up additional crew, a group of five men had just arrived from central Europe. None of them spoke English, but they were willing to join Dad's crew.

Bringing them to the farm, Dad opened his pay book to get their names. Immediately the five men emptied their pockets--money, identification, passports were placed on the table for him, much to Dad's dismay.

He bundled up the men and their belongings and rented a safe deposit box in the local bank branch to store all their documents and money.

Coming home to noon dinner, the men sat down and politely waited for food. With the threshing crew it was always everyone for himself, and these poor fellows looked so bewildered at the goings-on. My Mother noticed their bewilderment and fixed up a plate for each man.

After the meal, each man came up to Mother and instead of shaking her hand, kissed it. We kids thought it was so romantic, but Mother was covered with confusion. It took the men several days to realize at meal time, they had to look our for themselves.

Of course on rainy days, harvest came to a standstill. With a crew of men having nothing to do but look after their team of horses, invariably trouble would break out.

One year there was constant trouble with one man. He was a big man and a bully. At last Dad was at the end of his patience. He had tried reasoning and verbal reprimands, but it got to the stage where the bully was very defiant.

At last Dad went to him and said he knew if it meant a fight, he (Dad) would not have a chance, but he made this proposition: if the bully could ride a certain horse, Dad would acknowledge the bully was the best man, but if he could not ride the horse, what Dad said would be law.

Dad rode the horse first and the pair rode around the knee-deep mud corral. When the bully got on the horse, with one buck, he went headfirst into the mud. Very irate, he mounted the horse and again was thrown into the mud. After several more attempts with the rest of the crew taunting from the sidelines, the bully acknowledged Dad was the best man.

Little did he know that the horse he tried to ride was Dad's horse and would let no-one but Dad ride him. While my Dad did not have a degree in psychology he was a master psychologist.

In those days grain was hauled by horse and wagon. After the wagon was loaded from the threshing machine, there was the trip to the elevator.

Elevators were built along the railway lines so that most farmers would have no more than 10 miles to haul grain. Usually those hauling grain were the older men or youngsters too young to haul sheaves to the machine.

If the grain was to be stored in the bin, one strong man would unload it. Later there would be grain augers to move the grain from the wagon to the bin. Now two people can harvest fields of wheat that in the early days took 15 or 16 men.

As a child harvest was very exciting, but to the housewife and the farmer it was days of hard, hard work.

Hard, but satisfying.