GROUNDHOG DAY

As ridiculous and unrealistic as the expectations of Groundhog Day are -that winter could possibly be over in another six weeks - even the most practical of western Canadians are cheering on this myth for 2009. It's nothing too unusual to have a cold snap or two per winter, but this never-ending 30 to 40 below grind has worn us all down. Although the sun is staying up longer, and today the temperature is a little bit better, the wind is howling across the prairies making the outside world a very inhospitable place to be. We really want some little rodent not to see his shadow tomorrow just for the hope it would give us that winter is on the wane.

Last fall we planned a great escape from the cold and booked a tropical holiday in Cuba for the middle of January. It was a great plan, and the money was spent, but we managed to be there for one of the coldest weeks they've ever had, I'm sure. We were there with some of my family and had a good time, and not every day was too cold for the beach because I did manage to get sun burned, but it was pretty darned cold considering how far south we had traveled. You always pack for one cool-ish day, just in case, but when half the week calls for long pants and warm jackets you start wondering whether someone moved Cuba when you weren't looking. Mind you, if we Canadians were cold, you should have seen the Cubans. They were nearly frozen.

The coldness of the winter has kept Glen busy feeding cattle. Food is their way of staying warm - their calorie intake is what keeps them alive so the calories have to keep coming. Other winters the routine is to feed bales maybe every second day - possible every third day when it really warms up - but I don't think that there's been a day that he hasn't had to feed in the last two months. If there's a bright side to the price of oil being so low which is causing the local oil industry to seriously bottom out, it's that he has not had to work all day on an CAT only to have to come home and feed cows in the dark. He is in the middle of a land-clearing job this week, but oilfield work is rare. I heard this week that out of 79 rigs in the area ( a lot of which were brought in from Alberta last summer) only twelve are drilling now. That's a lot of men off work. It makes me glad that Mitchell works in the agricultural retail field. His wages are not even close to what rig workers earn, but at least it's still coming in.

The town of Redvers was an interesting place to live this past week. Sunday evening a water main cracked because of the ground frost and the system lost over 60,000 gallons of water before it was detected and shut off. Then began the hunt for where the actual crack was. The water, of course, had taken the path of least resistance to the surface, leaving the site of the trouble pretty well concealed. Add to that the fact that it was 40 below and the ground was frozen solid six feet down, and you can see it was a painfully slow dig. The water went off at 11:00 on Sunday night, was briefly turned on Tuesday evening for people to stock up on "flushing" water, and for a few hours Wednesady night once they had uncovered the break and done a temporary fix while waiting for parts needed for the permanent repair, but we didn't get full water service again until Friday morning. Anyone who had farm connections left town, and those that didn't were looking pretty dishelveled by the end of the week. Now they are on a boil water advisory because dirt got into the system during the repair. What is it they say about a bit of adversity? Makes you stronger? Builds character? In Redvers this week, it sure made people smell stronger.

It is good to put January behind us though. A person doesn't want to be wishing their time away, but a little bit of warmth would be a welcome thing. The seed and nursery catalogues have started to arrive, and the girls and I were dreaming over them yesterday. Warm sunshine. Green grass. Even dealing with mosquitos doesn't sound like such a bad thing when the north wind is howling steady outside your door in January.