well mother nature in these parts is readying herself to give us a wakeup call--few flakes today---my dad would be getting the sleighs out of storage, just in case they would be needed in a hurry, in doing so he would draw them out the lane and back just to remove the rust, and smooth up the metal shoes before the sleigh season starts.
Of course removing the sleighs meant moving all the harvesting machinery which always manage to make their way to the front line.
our sleighs had cross chains between the front and back sets, for those that have never seen a set of sleighs used in the bush, what I am referring to is the linkage from the front set of the sleigh that actually pulls the back set along, and being crossed as the sleigh turns (say to the right) it in fact will turn the front of the rear sleigh to the left so it tracks better--very similar to the modern all wheel turning on some types of feed handling equipment
some sleighs used a short straight tongue between the front and back sleighs, which had some advantages like if you wanted to back up--sleighs or horses by the way did not like reverse gear!!
The seasons as they rolled along seemed exciting to a youngster like me, couldn't wait to ready the axes, and crosscut saw, and head to the bush--but wait school work came first--#1--those dreaded --3--R's, well had to settle for weekends--
