The Friday Evening Wind Down

T G I F ! What a week I've had at work. Not that the work of a rural postmaster is extremely hard. Usually it's pretty steady and sometimes, when the the truck is really loaded with heavy bags, it can be fairly physical, but this week has been a one-thing-after-another scramble. I've had to deal with everything from the furnace not working to the computer playing tricks on me and a conference call that went on forever, along with all the usual customers at the counter and mail to sort.

Not that I'm complaining. I really feel privileged to have this job. For a small town job it pays well and comes with a nice benefit package, but what I like about it the best is the contact that I have with the people of the community. If I ever won the lottery I don't know if I'd want to give that up. Oh well, with my luck (and the fact that I only buy maybe a dozen tickets per year) I don't think I have to worry about that.

Having had such a hectic week as this one has been, by this afternoon I had started planning what I would do when I got home tonight. It was going to be just like they do in the movies ... sit down and read the paper, pour myself a relaxing cocktail of some kind, order out for supper ... What an imagination I have!

What really happened was that I changed into a comfy sweat suit, started a load of laundry, and made myself some toast to curb my appetite until 7:30 or later when Glen will get home from work; supper is in the slow cooker. The drink would still be a nice relaxer, but I just can't bring myself to drink alone ... oh well, it would just be empty calories anyway.

I can't believe that February is almost over. That's two months gone out of the year already; where does the time go? The big day of March 7th is coming up. Will the United States actually open their border to Canadian beef? There are lobby groups down there doing their utmost to stop it - not because they don't trust the saftey of Canadian beef, but because they are in a position, or are trying to get themselves into a position, that they will be able to more money. There was an article in the Western Producer a while back that told of one of the big feedlots in Alberta about to sell out to an American company. The Canadians who owned it had to sell because the BSE crisis was breaking them, and it was the American's who had the money to buy them out. In no way can I picture that scenario being a good thing for the Canadian beef industry.

Glen has been keeping a close watch on calf prices at the auction mart. We have to sell our last year calves before this year's batch starts to arrive. There's just not enough pens out at the barn to keep everything sorted out and as they all get fed different rations, they all have to have their own place. That probably means we'll spend at least some time this weekend sorting cattle and getting them ready to load for their trip to the auction barn.

If I thought my workweek was tough, sorting cattle with a farmer who expects me to read his mind (and that of at least five cows at a time) will have me just as happy as heck to get back to the grind on Monday morning.

A little more sun, a little less snow

There's still a long way to go, but spring is on its way. It's not the cold and snow that get to me during winter, it's the lack of sunlight. There are a lot of people who head south for a week or two during the deep, dark days of winter to soak up the sun's rays. They're looking for the "soaking up the sun on the beach" kind of sun. I'm not nearly so demanding in the heat and sun tanning capacities of the sun - I'm just glad to see it over the horizon for more than 7 hours per day!

These days it is just getting daylight as I drive to work at 8:00 in the morning, and it's still bright out as I fix supper an hour after I'm home at night. As soon as the roads aren't quite so icey I've vowed to get out walking again, like I did a few years ago. I know that I need the exercise and the dog is in even worse shape.

The news tonight gave the encouraging news that the border will reopen on March 7th as planned. Although that doesn't make it a done deal yet, it is something to take into account in deciding when to market our last year's calves. Glen is debating the before the border opens vs. after question, and hasn't really come up with a definitive answer. It's just like playing any other market - no one has a crystal ball; we'll just have to make our move and hope for the best.

The new calves will begin to arrive in mid March. The cows all look happy, healthy, and well fed so we don't anticipate any problems. The bull we've been using for the past two years has been excellent, his offspring have been small calves (for easy births) but hardy, with a great ability to thrive and gain weight quickly. We'll have to buy a new one this year as his daughters are old enough to breed this year, and it's best to keep variety in the genetics. We'll likely be doing some shopping at the Redvers Ag-Ex and Bull Congress next month - the best big city show in a small town that Saskatchewan has to offer - or so say many of the exhibitors who come back every year.

The forecast is for higher temperatures for the rest of the week. We had some wonderful, melting days last week - just a taste of what will come. Not that I'm any fan of the mud of March, but it's what we have to go through to get to April showers and May flowers.

JANUARY IS ALMOST GONE

I know that they say that the older you get, the faster time goes, but this is ridiculous! Here we are at the end of January already and I'm not sure that I have anything to show for it. I haven't even been able to finish the book I started to read before Christmas. There are just never enough hours in a day.

Glen and I began an odessey last fall to renovate the larger of our two bathrooms. I took a week off in September to dismantle the closet and vanity, take the tub out, and tear out the old, rotten floor. From there I was at a stand still until some electrical work and plumbing was done, and since Glen is absolutely adamant that he can do as good a job as any highly paid professional I've been waiting on his talents ever since. First there was the harvest - that went on, and on, and on. Then he had to bale cattle feed. To be followed by the next job - hauling the bales home and stacking them. November's weather was the best we had all year so he decided that it was the perfect time to put in fence posts, so my project was put on hold again. I had thought December looked promising, but that was not to be either when my Dad passed away and we made the trip out to Calgary for his funeral.

Now, here we are at the end of another month. Glen has been taking safety courses so that he is qualified to run earth moving equipment in the oil patch. Our area in Southeastern Saskatchewan has a lot of oil activity, and with oil prices so high there are plans to open up a whole new oil field just east of us. Glen says he can work three days a week and it won't interfere with his cattle chores so he's raring to go run Cat. I think I've finally got it across to him that if he leaves the bathroom undone it may not be safe for him to return. This week he's finally got down to business ... we're not done yet, but we are getting somewhere. I can't wait until the ball is back in my court; the dry walling, painting and decorating are things I can do! All I want for Valentines is a long, hot, luxurious soak in my refinished antique clawfoot tub.

On the farm front we wait to see what will happen on the BSE roller coaster. First they announce that the border will open, and then they find another sick cow. "Not to worry" they say, "we knew about that one before our announcement", but then there's yet another BSE cow and it was born after the feed ban. The lobby groups in the States who don't want to open the border are having a heyday with this. The official government stand on both sides of the border says nothing has changed; the border will open, but we all wonder what will really happen. Glen and I are still of the opinion that the longer Canada has to get their packing industry up and running, the better, but with our little operation we can afford the time and risk. The same can not be said of the big operators in the beef industry.

Winter, not meant for wussies ...

40 below is a nasty number. Getting up at a quarter to seven when the sun hasn't even peeped over the horizon yet is another of my pet peeves. Put the two of them together - standing in your housecoat and peering out onto the deck where the thermometer is, and seeing that it is, indeed, 40 below, just like the radio announcer said, is one cruel way to start the day. We've had a couple of weeks of this now, and it's just lost all its charm.

To add to the fun, we've been losing vehicles to the weather as well. Mitchell's car's block heater is not working so it hasn't moved for almost two weeks now. Fixing that problem has been postponed until the temperature is condusive to human hands working without gloves on. We've been making do with my car between the two of us but then it died too. I guess punching through those semi-hard drifts on the way to work yesterday scooped the snow up into the motor, doing damage to the starter. The mechanic who fixed it said that if we could have got it started again the damage would have got worse, so it's just as well we left it sit in town last night. Glen came in to get us and took us back to town this morning, and then spent a good portion of the morning trying to fix it himself before he called the tow truck. $412.00 later we have the car back, but if it can't take that little bit of snow, I told Glen that I wanted something higher off the ground to drive! SUV's might be a luxury in urban areas, but out here it's another story. I'd have one too, if they didn't come with a luxury price tag.

So Far, So Good

Considering how long it took me to make up my mind to create a blog, I am very impressed with how things are going so far. I think this is going to work out very well.

This new year has gripped us by the throat here in Saskatchewan. At least thats what it feels like when I go outside and try to breathe air at minus 40 degrees. Wednesday morning I think they were saying that the windchill was more like minus 52. Of course, we prairie people never let on how cold it is - the weather is always played down. A tornado will be called "a bit of a breeze" and 40 below is "a bit nippy out there". We sound tougher that way, like we can handle more - just bring it on! I had to laugh the other day, an English family have recently bought a farm in the district and are spending their first winter here. They were in town early this week during a very significant snowfall, and I asked them what they thought of all the snow. The answer was that they had heard the forcasts calling for a snowstorm and they would have been very disappointed if nothing had shown up. I just laughed and said "You're already Canadian!"

It's been so cold all week that Mitchell's car has refused to leave the garage so he's been catching a ride into town to work when I go. I've always found that a moving vehicle is the best place to talk to teenagers and we've had some good chats. Yesterday's topic was where not to put your tongue or lips when things are frozen. We both had stories to tell.

The snow that fell last week is still sitting there, just waiting for the wind to come up. There's over a foot of it, and when it does blow no one will be going anywhere till its over. At least all the cattle have been moved back home for the winter now. They weren't so hard to move this time once we got them convinced to leave the shelter of the trees they were in. It was straight down the road and into the corral where the feeders were already full of hay. We aren't expecting any calves until much later in the spring, but it's good to have them here where we can monitor their diet and health easily in the deep, dark days of winter.

Starting 2005 off on a different foot

This seems a little bit strange to me, this writing a blog. I'm not even sure what b l o g stands for. But, it does seem like the next natural step I should take in an endeavour I started almost five years ago.

I'm one of the rare and lucky people who live on the Canaian prairies. Compared to the densely populated areas of the world, we enjoy the luxury of our nearest neighbours living a mile or two away - we can see their yard lights at night, and hear their dogs barking back at the coyotes in the summer when the windows are open, but otherwise we enjoy the complete privacy such distances allow.

My husband and I farm - a small family farm of 800 acres where we have been slowly changing over from grain farming to cattle farming over the past five years. For the first 15 years of our marriage we tried our hand at a huge grain farming business, but circumstances such as weather and debt load have seen us scale down to what some would call a less glorious way of making a living at farming. Actually, the more time passes, the more we feel that we are the lucky ones; our lives are simpler now, the bills are all paid, and while we own less land and older equipment than we did before, the point is that we do own it now.

Five years ago, when our area was flooded and seeding was extremely late, CBC Newsworld asked me to write a diary of our stuggle to put the crop in which they would then post on their website. I'd never tried anything like that before, but it was as if the offer was a gift from heaven. I have always felt that so many times the media distorts the stories they are reporting, sensationalizing them so that the true picture is warped to suit the reporter's take on things. It also is frustrating to have farmers portrayed as whining beggars - most of us aren't - but it's so often the ones that are that find themselves in front of the microphones. All we want to do is make a living at a job that has to be done if people are going to eat. CBC's offer was my chance to say all of that and I have found the opportunity very fullfilling.

With this new year, though, CBC has decided to end my column. On the one hand, I think they are probably right. A five year run is impressive, and I know I've been able to explain the rural way of life to a lot of people; but to go on forever would get stale from their perspective. On the other hand, I have had so much encouragement from other people - fans who sent Christmas cards from other countries to name a few - that I hated to see this avenue of contact end. A blog seemed to be the answer.

So, for what it's worth, my plan is to continue telling the world what it's like to farm in rural Saskatchewan - the people, the places, the work, and the play. Check in every week or so and see what's going on.