Westworld Alberta
Issue link: http://westworldmagazine.ama.ab.ca/i/80542
roadside Strange Herd by Cheryl Mahaffy >> photo by Darren Jacknisky Many a traveller stops to gawk at these 18 painted threshing machines, lined up in a fi eld 20 kilometres south of Smoky Lake. Ex-farmer Metro Presisniuk started collecting the threshers – which date from the 1930s and '40s – on a lark 15 years ago and parking them at his family's cattle farm. "When you drive down the highway or country roads, you see threshers all over the place," he says. "I thought, let's get them together . . . . I got most of them for free." Once the apparatus of choice for separat- ing grain from chaff, threshing machines were supplanted by combines over the 20th century. Metro's brother Stanley took over the farm 10 years ago. He used some extra paint from his Edmonton sign shop to coat a few of the machines in silver. Pleased with the results, his family spray- painted the rest bright orange, yellow and green. Accolades rolled in. One admirer sent a card proclaiming the collection "farmer's art," and the family has received photos and notes from as far away as Quebec and Vancouver. Now faded to pastel, the threshers are due for a refresh, says Stanley. Each will take about four gallons of paint. "It's a great landmark for us," he says. "I don't have to give any- body my location – just mention the machines." 62 WESTWORLD >> SEPTEMBER 2012