Brian Baker recounts several stories of the daily life of a farmer in Innisfil in the 1940s and 1950s, including the use of work horses, threshing parties, children's chores, herding cows across Highway 400, the community combine, and baling hay. The horses, a black and a roan, were purchased from a Mr. Brown who lived east of the 400 highway and who guaranteed the horses could pull farm equipment. The family also purchased a Ferguson tractor from Graves Brothers on Cundles in Barrie. Threshing and barn building would often be done as a community so wives would prepare meals for their husbands. Brian also describes how children on the farm all had assigned chores, and how there was a 4-H club but he himself never participated. He remembers being able to herd cows across the road that is now the 400 highway, as well as borrowing a combine to combine clover seed and alfalfa seed, which was mixed in with feed for cattle. He also recalls how he helped stook oats, wheat, and barley out in the field by hand, and recalls Bill Kell helping him tossing bales of hay into the family barn. Bill's family now rents the Baker family's farm, where they grow corn and beans.
