It Can Snow Now

It's not that we want it to snow now, but Glen finally finished his last 40 acres of oats Tuesday night so percipitation in any form wouldn't be as unwelcome now as it would have been last week. There are still a few others out there trying to finish up, but the end is definitely in sight. I'm afraid the northeastern quarter of Saskatchewan's crop land can't say the same thing. They got tons of rain at summer's end and a lot of their crop is still in standing water. A couple of guys from this area were through there last week to go moose hunting and said the best thing that could happen for farmers up there is a hard freeze with no snow. Then the ground would be firm enough to hold the machinery and they could get the crop off. I don't envy them the job. In 1985 and 1986 we worked under the same conditions - it was terrible. People literally pulled combines apart trying to get them unstuck.

Glen's next big project is to get his calves weaned. Every spare minute this fall he's been putting up fence so that he can let the cattle graze on the crop stubble. He's down to putting the gates in and we're ready for another one of those fun family rodeos where we move, sort, and separate cattle and nobody's on speaking terms for an hour or two afterwards. I don't know why it has to be like that, but it makes life interesting.

I've been noticing in the farm papers lately that quite a few of the stories featured are using the words "farm crisis" again. It's too bad that they can't find something else to call it because once people have heard the same thing over and over so many times, they get immune to it. "Farm crisis" isn't a cliche and shouldn't be treated like one. The people who grow the food in this country should have earned respect for their work, not derision or indifference.

One farmer who was interviewed compared his returns on the crops he's grown over the past 31 years. The prices he's sold different grains for were all down, in some cases by more than half. On the other hand, what he pays for fuel is up over 80%, fertilizer is triple, seed - the same. It doesn't take Eintstein to figure out how their finances look. How can they continue? They can't. Who's going to take over? Nobody in their right mind.

The writer of one article pointed out that the people who were in trouble had off farm income and had diversified their operation years ago to stay viable, and yet, it isn't enough. A few years ago I was at a seminar where a speaker from rural Saskatchewan got up and said that in 25 years this province would be down to maybe a dozen towns outside of the main cities. This was like a kick in the stomach to me, although I can see we are certainly headed in that direction, I didn't want to believe it could happen in my lifetime. I'm not so sure any more.

I have this pet theory of my own though: Saskatchewan was settled when the government offered fantastic deals on land out here - as long as people came out and settled it in person. It took this land from a barren, undeveloped prairie to a bustling place of commerce in one generation. There was a farmer and his family on almost every section of land and a town with full services every ten miles! Give it another hundred years and I predict that they'll be offering homesteading rights all over again.