Golden days

You should see the trees these days! Outside my office window the maples are an array of brilliant oranges and the poplar leaves are discs of gold, set against the backdrop of a September blue sky and on a foreground of lush, green grass. It's a shame to be inside.

I've been trying to use this Sunday wisely - my way of making up for not getting to church this morning. There are so many jobs that don't get done with the day-to-day grind. Glen has been getting quite a few hours in at work this past week or so, but even though he does a ten hour day on a Cat, he still has to grind grain for the steers once a week, and feed them twice a day. He has more baling to do, if the weather allows, and all kinds of bales to haul home and stack, as well 100 acres of oats to harvest when they're ready. He has also been trying to get a last mile of fence up so that we can put our two herds back together in new pasture. The two bulls have never laid eyes on each other yet, and we want them to be well used to each other before they go into winter captivity together.

There is a lot of power thrown around when two bulls decide to fight. Neighbours of ours had a bull fight on their hands last week - the animals rolled through fence like it was built of toothpicks. Eventually they settled down - must have decided who was the toughest - and went back life as usual, but there wasn't much a puny human being could do in the meanwhile.

We use electric fence. It's not so labour intensive to put up or maintain. It looks flimsey compared to a three strand barbed wire fence, but it doesn't need to be a fort because one bite of that current and the animals won't go near it again. We had some trouble with our north pasture last week. Glen went to check and found that the solar panel that provides the electicity had been torn down and all the wires were off. He really couldn't think of how that had happened, but I'm wondering if the moose who likes to hang out along that creek didn't decide to play with it. One toss of a moose's head and there would be major damage done.

I spent this morning "doing apples", and I have the hands to prove it (the tannic acid turns your skin brown). Glen's aunt has been busy picking apples and giving them away for the last three weeks. I love these apples - I have trees of my own, but nothing compares to Granny's apples for baking. The trees they come from were planted close to a century ago and tended by a tiny little woman who I always think of as I prepare and preserve their fruit. I've tried to start my own from their seed, but so far, with no success.

I'm also trying to get the yard cleaned up before it gets any colder, and get ready for when the carpenters come to replace five windows next week. At least I have a good excuse to not wash windows this fall - not that any amount of washing has helped this past few years, the seals have all been broken and moisture has made a mess between the panes of glass. It will be so nice to have good windows again!

It seems strange now that there is just the two of us here. I moved Mitchell in to Brandon last weekend, and with that, Glen and I start a new part of our lives. The food bill is going to drop drastically, and I'll be able to cut back on the Internet package we use - I won't use a quarter of the time he did - but it's the little things that I've noticed that makes it feel different, like when it's bedtime, we turn out all the lights because there's no one to come after us. It's weird.

Late Mornings; Early Nights

I know that the days have been getting shorter since the third week of June, but , all of a sudden, it's dark by 7:00 and barely light at 5:30! In no time at all we'll be down to winter hours.

The short sunshine hours take a big slice out of a harvesting day. Even if the weather is clear and the sun shines all day, the dew on the grass makes the crops too tough to combine by the time the sun goes down, and it takes until noon most days to dry the windrows enough to go again. The only thing that stretches the conditions out longer is a strong, warm wind that keeps the moisture off. The more crop farmers can get off before September starts, the better.

We have our rye in the bin and Glen has been combining the barley today. Mitchell spent the afternoon cutting the last of the oats we grew for greenfeed (to be baled for the cattle) and I tried to give the lawn what I hope is the last cut of the season.

We had our house full to overflowing this past weekend with our son and daughter-in-law home with their three children ( a two year old girl and three month old twin boys). Jacqui's parents and grandmother from Australia were also visiting for the five days and on Sunday, after a triple baptism, we had a sort of "come and go" meal so that friends and family could come out to see the babies. I think, all tolled, there were 37 people here throughout the day. It was a good day, but it was really good to go to bed that night!

The last of the company left this morning and we got back to work around here. While the men did field work today I tried to think of what Mitchell will need for his first apartment as he moves out on his own this weekend. The fellow he's sharing a small apartment with is already moved in and has started tech school. Mick is going to try out for Emergency Services Training School but won't know if he's made it until early next year. Meanwhile he's looking for gainful employment; his last day at the local Coop grocery store was last Saturday.

Brandon is only 100 miles away, and I thought we might see a lot of this last kid on weekends, but with the price of fuel the way it is, we'll be lucky to see him at all. It is just obscene what it costs to fill up a fuel tank these days, and before you agree with me, think of a farmer's plight. A combine alone can easily burn $600.00 worth a day. Add to that the grain trucks that haul the grain, the tractors that till the soil, the sprayers and swathers - the fuel bill of an average sized farm climbs into the tens of thousands of dollars just to get the job done.

We always listen to the market report at lunch time - although what we hear probably gives us indigestion: in less than a minute, they speel off the prices of fuel and grain commodities; the fuel continually goes up and the grain prices are pathetic. I honestly wonder how most farmers are surviving these days. I know when I spilled a little diesel fuel this afternoon, I felt like I'd committed a crime.

By this time next week, Glen and I will be empty nesters. Over the past month, as he has been preparing to leave, I've been on a mental journey of my own. I am the first to say it's time for him to step out on his own, but I just can't seem to let him do it without non-stop advice and/or warnings. I have been living this "mission to mother" for so long I don't know how to shut it off. He'll be fine - and eventually, I'm sure, so will I.

There's no time like fall

Autumn is my favourite season - you just can't beat the sights and sounds and smells of this season. I know, I know, it's not technically fall yet; people constantly remind me that the first day of fall doesn't happen until the third week in September, but they're only fooling themselves - summer is fading fast.

The crops are in all different stages of ripeness. We finished harvesting our fall rye yesterday and Glen spent today out cutting 80 acres of barley and then went on to start a field of oats. With the heat we had today it won't be long before we'll be combining the barley. Everything will be ready at the same time from then on.

Glen tried an experiment this spring. He's got about 200 acres that he sowed with two different kinds of seed. On about 120 acres he sowed fall rye with the cover crop of oats so that when the oats were harvested the rye, which would still be green, could provide fall grazing for the cattle. As he cuts the oats he is quite pleased with the successful growth of the rye underneath. It will need a good rain to really do well, but it's more to eat than the cows would have had with just the oats stubble. On the remaining 80 acres he planted perennial grass and alphalfa - next year's hay field. This, too, has done well. I can see this fall is going to involve a lot of stringing fence wire, and with the last of our kids leaving home in two weeks time, it also looks like I'm about to enter into an outdoor fitness program/ marriage compatibility test. We haven't really worked together since the kids were old enough to help - this could be interesting.

Or, maybe he's mellowed over the years - it was just him and me today, and it was kind fo nice. He hauled in the last truckloads of rye and went off to swath barley. I had planned to do house cleaning all day to get ready for company on the long weekend. My plans were modified a bit when I discovered that one of our deepfreezes in the basement had given up the ghost a day or two ago. Thank goodness I caught it when I did or we would have lost everything in it. As it was, a good portion of the meat was not thawed out yet and could be saved, but all the baking, vegetables, and stuff like frozen pizzas were off to the garbage before they started to stink.

My day was busy, but I still had time to go out to the field with lunch, and fresh cookies and coffee later in the day. We have neighbours going full bore; their trucks roaring past our place all day long - all night too, if the weather allows it. There was a time that we farmed like that too; with every year that goes by we're more glad we don't run in that rat race anymore.

My house smells like apple pie - made with fruit fresh from the tree. The seed pods on the carraganna are popping in the August heat. Suppers are daily feasts of corn-on-the-cob, new potatoes, and fresh garden cucumbers. And when the breeze is from the east, the scent of this year's hay crop fills the yard. I enjoy all the seasons, but I love autumn the best.

Summer winding down

This is the first day in ages that I've had time to even get near my computer. It's a busy time of year, and this year seems busier than most.

We travelled to Calgary last week to attend my brother's wedding. They had a wonderful day - the weather was perfect and lots of friends and family were able to share the day with them. There was a little bit of suspense for a while at the church as the bride was 20 minutes late getting there, but everything turned out fine. That city is growing so fast that I think it expands overnight. City planners just can't keep up with how to move the exploding growth in traffic numbers. It's a great place to visit, but Glen and I were more than glad to get back to the quiet backwaters of rural Saskatchewan. At least life's pace doesn't make a person dizzy out here.

Glen works part time as a Cat operator for a company that does oilfield maintenance in the area. This spring one company has opened up a whole new oilfield just a few miles east of here, just into Manitoba. It's amazing how many wells they've drilled over the past months, and they haven't been easy holes either. There has been so much rain that preparing well sites (scraping a level work area and building a dike around it to contain any spills that may occur) has been next to impossible at times. I'm sure that the work would have been put on hold till things dried up except that the price of oil is so high that they can afford the extra costs involved. As well, the crude coming from this field is premium stuff and much easier to refine. Glen and I own the mineral rights to three quarters only 10 miles west of the action, and we dream of them some day moving the action this way. We have two more kids to put through school - how those oil dollars would help with those bills!

A few days before we left for the wedding one of the drilling rigs southeast of here hit a pocket of gas and water on the way down. Once a hole had been poked into this formation, the pressure it was under forced the gas and water to the surface in a 20 foot geyser. No one was hurt, but they couldn't stop it either. There was another well blowout at Brooks, Alberta last week that erupted in fire and sour gas killing one worker - as far as blowouts go, this is more the norm, but the emergency crew that came from Alberta to seal this one off said this was dangerous enough too. At least when the escaping gas is on fire you know where it is and that it's being burnt off. With this well they had to rely on moniters to tell them what they were dealing with.

The crew that Glen works for weas there around the clock "squeezing" the lease (pushing up dirt and mud to build a wall that edged the water away from the work area so that the crew could stop the flow. The rig never did hit the ground, but with the instability of the ground around it, it developed a 15 degree lean. They had it tethered to a huge winch truck which was anchored to a Cat. Glen was super impressed with the professionalism of the crew from Alberta and was pretty disappointed that he had to leave for the wedding - he wanted to see the job through to the end. He says that if he were 30 years younger he'd be off to sign up for that kind of work in a flash. I think it's a testosterone thing myself.

Since we've returned he's been getting ready for harvest. The rye is almost ready to cut, and he's trying to decide whether to cut barley for green feed, or not. When he planted it he planned to combine it for feed grain, but it was so wet this summer it never got sprayed for weeds so it is a mess of all kinds of vegetation. It would make better bales than grain, but we already have enough feed up to last us two years, and from the amount of bales we saw on the trip out west, there won't be a market for hay sales either. He's still debating what to do.

And I'm two weeks behind in yard work: holidays do that to a person. Guess I'd better get back to work here.

The Dog Days of Summer

I know that the expression of "dog days of summer" comes from the position of Sirius, the dog star, during the summer months, but we've been having more than our usual share of dogs this summer.

Like any normal farm we have a large breed dog to discourage animals like skunks and raccoons from moving into the yard, and to act as a guard dog in our absences. We have a fondness for Black Labs; the one we have now is our fourth or fifth in two decades. He is big and old but usually good tempered. Our daughter has recently got herself a small terrier pup who just wants to be friends with everybody. Our dog is not impressed and tries to stay out of Fred's way as much as possible while they are out to the farm.

We've been Fred sitting since Wednesday while Sandy attended a wedding in Saskatoon. He's a pretty high maintainence job compared to a farm dog - I don't dare let him out on his own. He'd either run off and be a coyote snack by sundown, or he'd push Chubby to justifiable puppycide. I don't want to have to explain either to his owner. She should be back to pick him up in the next hour or so and we can go back to normal around here.

Glen is off to bale greenfeed this afternoon, Mitchell headed up to the waterslides at Kenosee Lake with a bunch of friends, and I've got the place to myself. I love it when that happens. I'm trying to catch up on the laundry that has been piling up while our water system in the house has been slowly dying.

On the farm we don't pay a water and sewer bill, but that's not to say that these things come free. We have our own well, but we had to locate a source of water and pay to have it dug and installed out of our own pocket. Same goes for sewage - the whole system is installed and paid for at the owner's expense. Once it's paid for, of course, it's clear sailing - that is until something goes wrong. There is no calling up the municipal service provider and saying "Come fix it." It's go figure out what's wrong, buy what you need for repairs, and in our case, Glen does the work himself.

Our old well caved in over a year ago, and although a new one was dug and we had plenty of water, the dirt and sand that got into the system at the time has created havoc with every single aspect of our water system. Friday was the big day when Glen and Mitchell tore out everything - pressure pump, pressure tank, and hot water heater - and put all new in. It was a long, hard day, but what a difference! You don't know what a luxury it is to take a shower and have the water temperature and pressure stay the same for the whole time. Glen was teasing me that it was kind of boring, but I can live with that kind of boring.

They went the extra mile and rearranged the water system appliances and set them all up on stands so that any maintainence needed will be much easier to do. It was a huge job and took both of them all day from 9:00 in the morning to almost midnight. With the hard work and the heat of the day their goal was simple - to be able to shower before they went to bed.

There are a lot of cattle out there ...

We spent this past weekend building a deck and set of steps onto our son's house just out of Winnipeg. You wouldn't believe the mosquito population there is on the prairies at the moment - and Winnipeg is widely accepted as the mosquito capital of Canada. Trying to work outdoors with hordes of blood-sucking insects decending on any exposed flesh was an ugly experience! And the weather! It was so hot ... and so humid ... we prairie dwellers just aren't built for humidex factors. Wind chill in the winter time we understand, humidex in the summer is like speaking Greek. What I do know is that I never want to go through that again. At night we set their big portable fan so that it blew directly on the bed and threw the covers on the floor.

The mosquitos and the humidity are both due to all the rain we've been having. Who ever is in control of the tap up there just can't seem to get it turned off. There is STILL water laying in the yard. I can't cut almost half of what I normally do in our yard, and everywhere that water sits still mosquitos thrive and multiply. I was talking to my sister in Calgary this morning, and even they are complaining about the mosquitos this summer. Calgary is usually pretty well bug free.

There is another population that is much higher than it used to be. On the trip in to the city, and again on the way out, I was struck with how many cattle there are these days. I have read somewhere how much the Canadian herd has increased by since BSE - I can't remember the percentage but it was impressive. Even knowing that, seeing the countless animals in fields along the road we travelled was still thought provoking. You have to wonder where we are headed? I firmly believe that Canada will come out of BSE ahead. Absolutely ahead of where we were before BSE, and I'm betting ahead of the USA when all the dust settles.

True, we've been unable to sell our cattle into the states, but that has forced us to finish our own animals, butcher our own animals, improve the testing we do, be ready to show our results to demanding markets, and step up production on all fronts. It has involved a lot of growing pains but we are way ahead of the game now. No one on this side of the border believes that the recent proven case of BSE found in Texas was their first, it's just the first one they couldn't deny. It leaves them looking like they're playing a defensive game - I think Canada has building a good solid offence for two years now.

Life and Death on the Farm

Sometimes living this close to Nature has its draw-backs. While we get to be first hand witnesses of Mother Nature in her bounty - the birth and renewal of the land each spring, and the new generation of babies, be they calves, colts, puppies or kittens - we are also on hand at the other end of life when things are not so sweet and wonderful. I think it gives us balance, and makes us a more thoughtful people.

Friday afternoon our neighbour phoned me at work to say we had a cow in trouble out on the pasture. They had driven past and at first thought she was already dead, but then had seen her move and had gone in to see what could be done. The problem was a labour gone wrong, a calf half born and dead, and the mother not far behind. He had been unequipped to help her and had tried to find Glen to tell him of the problem, but there was no one around.

I knew where Glen was - running CAT building an oil lease a dozen miles away - but with no cell phone reception there was no way to ask him what he wanted done. We've talked about lots of other scenarios that might come up, but never this one. What was the right thing to do?

As work was really slow, I was able to drive out to where Glen was working, thinking he could probably spare the hour that was needed to do what ever was needed, but when I got there the big trucks were just starting to roll in. They were about to tow an oil rig in through the mud and would need all four CATs to accomplish to job. He couldn't leave. His advice was, if she was that far gone, put her out of her misery. "Go home and shoot her" he said.

I grew up on a farm but never had any interest in guns. Dad had one, of course, to use against skunks trying to set up house under his grain bins, or raccoons destroying Mom's garden, and for times like this when an animal needed to be put down, but I had never had anything to do with it. I couldn't spare any more time off work so I went back to town and hoped that she was already gone. Having the vet come out to take a look at her was going to cost more than she was worth. With what BSE has done to cattle prices, a guy just can't afford a vet call unless he's sure that the animal can be saved and go on to be profitable. The neighbour's evaluation hadn't even hinted at that being the case.

I came straight home from work and went directly to the pasture to see what I could see. My heart sunk when I saw she was still moving - poor girl! The boys went up to assess the situation and soon it was all over. Glen had spent the rest of the day trying to figure out which cow it was. I hadn't thought we had anybody up there that hadn't already had her calf, but he said there was one. As far as he was concerned though, she was a long way from being ready and should have been big enough not to have any problems. As it turned out, it was a young heifer who we didn't even know was pregnant. Glen went up last night to bury the dead one and take a good long look at the rest to see if there were any other surprises to watch for. He thinks we're safe with the rest, but he'll keep an eye on them anyway.

It's never easy when something dies. You try to take care of your animals as best you can, but sometimes "taking care of them" means taking care that they don't suffer.

Water ! Water ! Everywhere ...

I think most people's idea of the prairies is barren and dry grasslands. If they were airlifted into our neighbourhood this month they would have a hard time orienting themselves. Oh, we have grass - that much is true - but at the moment it's lush green grass, and it harbours a mosquito population that is right off the charts.

It's much closer to the mark to describe the prairies as a place of extremes. We can have bitter, bitter cold in the winter and blazing heat in the summer. Likewise, dry in any season is not uncommon, but we can also get tons of snow in the winter and plentiful rains in the summer. Then there's this year - I think we passed "plentiful" a couple weeks ago, and are now well past "soggy".

We travelled to Dauphin, Manitoba last weekend for a family wedding. It's about a 4 1/2 hour drive northeast of here and the whole trip showed us water laying in the fields and ditches. There was crop under water and fields too wet to seed or spray. Due to family circumstances (our daughter-in-law went into labour) our trip took us into Winnepeg the next day to see a gorgeous set of twin boys born seven weeks early but doing very well. As we travelled east it was hard to believe that the land just kept getting wetter and wetter. There was field after field where the farmers had driven through the mud trying to create a run-off path for the water with the tracks of their tractors. If it had worked I'd hate to think of how much water had been there when they started. There was still water laying everywhere, but now it had a double set of ruts every 100 feet or so.

And the mosquitos! Public Health agencies have been educating us for years about the dangers of having stagnant water laying around for mosquitos to incubate in. With West Nile Virus a proven threat on the prairies we've heard even more about it lately. I wonder what they think we're going to be able to do about it - if there was a way of getting rid of the excess water, the farmers would have done it long ago.

The other aspect to prairie weather is the force it's delivered with. In the winter it's blizzards - cold, howling winds, and blinding snow that can go on for days, and in the summer this is the place to see thunderstorms second to none. I'd never given this much thought until, a few years ago, I was talking to a girl I went to school with who now lives in B.C. She was home to visit her parents and was so happy that her teenaged daughter had had the chance to witness a thunderstorm the night before. She said it was something she really missed, living where there was lots of rain, but seldom any storms. I'm sure I would too - I love the noise and the light show of a big storm. I guess prairie poeple are of the extreme nature too.

Plans For An Ark?

We saw the sun today - it's been like forever since it's shown its face. We are just 50 miles northeast of Melita, Manitoba where they got from 5 to 12 inches of rain in one day and small tornados touched down last week, and only 12 miles southeast of a 7 inch rainfall happened last Saturday afternoon. Compared to these places, we would have to consider ourselves high and dry, but if this is dry I'd sure hate to be them.

Most of our yard is under at least a few inches of water. I have cut grass up around the house a couple of times this spring, but the lower area where my garden is, (this year it looks more like a duck pond) is nothing but over long grass and mosquito habitat. The sump pump in the basement has been running steady for weeks, and the creek which normally only runs in the early spring with snow-melt runoff is flowing again.

The gravel roads are a mess of potholes and slippery mud and huge places in the fields are under water. Glen had just finished fertilizing 80 acres to plant flax in when this flood started, but if (or when) it ever dries up enough to be able to seed that ground he'll be implementing "Plan B" which is to plant a much faster maturing crop like oats, or something he can cut for cattle feed. If it goes that far "Plan C" is a fall seeded crop like fall rye or winter wheat. If he didn't have all that expensive fertilizer in already he'd probably go with summerfallow.

We gave up watching the Weather Channel because it was never good news so i don't know what we can expect this coming week. I know that I have bedding plants that are going to rot in their trays if I don't get them out soon. I did get some in the ground on Monday night. For some reason that night the mosquitos left me alone and I worked as long as I could before it got too dark. I don't look forward to the next go round; with all this water and a few warm days the bug population is exploding with every passing minute.

At least the cattle have been moved out to pasture now, and Glen has spent two days trying to track down the drain on his electric fencer. He's got it up to 3/4 strength now - not that it matters - the cows have all tried it when it was really putting out and they remember it's not something they want to touch again. By Sunday night our new bull will be delivered and cattle duties will be done, except for the odd check, until late in the fall.

And the Rain Comes Down

Once it's "farming time" in the spring, when Glen can actually get out and work in the fields, the daily schedule of chores and meals becomes a thing of guesswork. During the winter our evening meal is usually around the 6:00 mark, but the rest of the year it can be anywhere from 5:30 when I get home from work, to 8:30 when he gets done whatever he was doing. It makes planning meals a bit of a challenge, but we survive.

Tonight it was decided that supper would be best at 7:00. Glen had some temporary fenceline he wanted to move so he went off to roll wire for an hour or two. This left me to figure out which of the jobs I had to do would best fit into the same time frame. Two weeks ago I visited my sister's greenhouse and came home with a trunk full of bedding plants which have been waiting on the deck for their place in the sun ever since. Monday evening had been an absolutely perfect night to work outside and I had weeded for two hours before supper and at least an hour afterward. All I needed was another day like that and I would be ready to put the plants in, so I decided that's where my time was best spent.

It didn't take long for me to rethink that one! All it took was a walk across the lawn to pick asparagas and my evening plans were modified to something I could do inside - away from the hordes of mosquitoes that weren't there two days ago. I bee-lined it right back to the house and started cooking. The plants would have to wait.

As it happens, the Weather Channel's prediction of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall rolling up from North Dakota was right on the mark, so even without the bugs I wouldn't have lasted long. Although most people are done seeding, there are still a few acres left to be sowed. Glen has about 80 acres of flax to put in, and then maybe 60 of grass for pasture land. It sure would have been nice to get this rain on the land after the seed was in the ground, but we'll get done eventually.

I'm told that this weekend we will be "working cattle". This means bringing them all into the big corral and sorting the herd. That sounds pretty tame to what really takes place ... we have two bulls now and since the youngers cows and heifers are daughters of the older bull, they have to be sorted out to go with the new bull, so first we cram them all together and then split them into groups in different pens. There's anxious cows calling for their calves, calves bawling for the mamas, yearlings bucking and kicking up their heels in the confusion, and a farmer who expects me to be able to read his mind. The whole preformance is very upsetting for the cattle - and it usually takes our marriage a while to recover, as well.

To make things a little more tricky this year one of our pens is full of feeder steers. These are last year's calves that we ended up keeping too long thinking the border was going to open. Now we won't get our money out of them unless they are up to butcher weight when we sell them. Glen has heard about a small packing plant which only buys unmedicated animals and is trying to find where it is and if they are looking for a supplier. We aren't registered as organic farmers but there are only two animals in our herd which have been treated with drugs. If there's a market out there that will pay a premium for that kind of meat, we can certainly supply it.

A Holiday Weekend ?

As I turned out of town tonight on my way home from work I met the first in a long line of campers headed out for the long weekend. There was a time when I would have felt anger and frustration at the sight. Why did everyone else get to take a weekend off? Farming ties us down for every holiday all summer long. In May we're still seeding, the 1st of July we're spraying, August it's either swathing or combining, and September it's harvest for sure. I would feel cheated for myself and the kids, but the farm always came first.

I guess I've mellowed with age because when I saw the campers tonight it was with no emotion at all - they were just the type of traffic that was going past. In fact, it took me a minute to remember that it was a holiday weekend. Those people heading off to campgrounds were welcome to them - I was quite content to keep the home fires burning instead. I wonder when my attitude changed?

We hope to get some seeding done in the next day or two but rain threatens again. It's not real late yet, but it sure would be nice to get the crop in the ground. My garden is nothing but swamp and I think I may just not plant one this year. I put the seeds into mud last year and it was a total disaster.

We've had a young city girl from Quebec staying with us this past week. She is a participant in the Katimavik program and is spending nine months discovering different parts of Canada. It's been a great learning experience for both of us - to view our country through another person's eyes. By the time her billet ends on Monday she will have bottle fed a calf, hunted for baby kittens in a hay stack, toasted marshmallows over a fire in our front yard, feasted on chicken wings at a local bar, and been treated to a day in the city to visit a Wallmart (because she hasn't seen one in SOOO long) to name a few of her experiences. So far she has been most pleased to have avoided woodticks - for which she is very thankful.

I'd love, someday, to go visit her in her home town. It would take more than a long weekend for that, but it would be more the kind of holiday I would want to take at this stage of my life. Maybe that's why the campers didn't bother me today - I have developed a different taste in holidays.

Still no Sunshine

It's the weekend again. I had hoped to get out into the yard and get to work on lawn and garden, but it's barely above freezing this morning. I think it looks like another inside kind of day.

Our main calving season is over for the year. There are still cows to calve but it will be later in the summer. If a farmer has a choice, he would rather have it all done within one month but there are always the stragglers. It's much more efficient to have the whole calf crop all the same size and weight when you go to sell them in the fall. This year we have four or five smaller ones from last year we have to keep separate from the older ones, and next year it will be the same. A major factor in why we have the late cows is that they are old and should have been culled from the herd, but with BSE they are in kind of limbo.

We have had all kinds of moisture in the past week - some of it in snow. The grass is growing now, at least, and the weeds are taking over my garden. Twice in the past two weeks Glen has said he will work it up and both times it has been too wet by the time he got to it. Last year it never did dry up until June and I should have just skipped the year; it was a disaster. I don't grow the huge "family feeding" garden anymore, but we still love to have the fresh vegetables when they're in season.

Some of the neighbours managed to get some crop in before the weather turned sour on us, but Glen has only just pulled his seeder up to the quonset to get it ready to go. We only have 480 acres to sow so it doesn't take long - if the weatherman co-operates. As soon as seeding is done we'll be busy fencing again. We plan to have at least another two pastures enclosed by fall.

All in all, we have a busy summer ahead of us - we have family weddings in June, July, and August, and our son and his wife are expecting twins in early summer. This morning I'd just be happy if it would just warm up enough to make it feel like summer was even going to come at all.

May Day

It's the first of May. In a perfect world it would be sunny and warm, the grass would be green and the trees would all be leafed out. Here in the real world it's cold, windy, and very little of anything is green. It has tried to snow all weekend long, although thankfully, it hasn't been too sucessful at it.

Some of the neighbours have been out planting their pea crops; it's something that can be planted early, although I'm not sure if this is because the plants are resistant to late frosts or that they need the extra time for germination. Peas are a crop that has become popular lately - since Glen and I have started moving away from growing crops, and more towards raising cattle.

I don't think there have been too many grains sowed yet, although, now that it is May things will really get rolling this week. Glen knows what he will be sowing, but is still deciding where he will put what crop. There will be a lot of work to do this next month as he wants more fence finished so that he can sort out his herd a little better and not put so many animals on a pasture at a time. So far it has been a pretty dry spring and we don't want to put too much stress on the plant life in the pastures. You have to let the grasses get a good head start before you let the cattle out to eat it. You want the animals to graze it, not kill it.

The latest government checks have started trickling out to post office boxes this past week. This is the money announced earlier this year to put money in farmer's hands so they can put their crops in. I wonder how much good it will really do. There are so many problems to do with the whole farming scene.

Low grain prices, bad weather, and insane crop input costs make a person wonder what the heck he's going to do. Sure, Ottawa is sending out some money - and it sounds like a lot in the announcement - but once it's all divided up, will it be enough to make a difference? With the price of fuel today, it will cost Glen $280.00 to fill the tractor's fuel tank every day. Hopefully, we'll be able to plant what crops we sow in five or six days, but our farm is small. What about the guys with ten times as much land? Think of what their bills will be. And that is just fuel - what about seed, fertilizer, chemical treatments?

I'm not saying that the government should be responsible for putting the crop in, because I don't believe that. Farmers don't even want that. But, on the other hand, if the agriculture industry is going to survive, we need our farms and our farmers. This week alone, I've heard of three of our younger neighbours trying to find someone to rent or buy their land. They are struggling to take care of their families and their futures - for them it means their farms have to go. I wonder how long the agriculture industry in Canada will be able withstand an almost constant exodus of it's "ground force" people before there is nothing left?

Not Another Election, Please!

The story about possible cases of BSE in the states has again dropped off the news media radar. I really don't know what to make of it. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who would like to hear more, but there has been absolutely nothing for almost a week now.

The news story that just won't go away is the mud that is being unearthed at the Gomery Enquiry. I don't know why they're making such a fuss about it all. Has there been one thing come up that we didn't expect to hear? Is there even one Canadian who thought that the Cretien government was lily white? I guess, if there are points on which I was a little choked, it was the amounts of tax payer's money that was tossed around to pad the bank accounts of certain people. It is no wonder that polititains are held in such low esteme - they are hardly worthy of anthing more than scorn and contempt.

As bad as the Gomery coverage is, it's the spin-off story that has me really angry. All three opposition parties are circling the carcass, wonder when it will be safe for them to sweep in and force an election. They are not the least bit interested in what is good for the country, they just want their turn at the trough. Will a second election in less than a year do us any good? Will it change what happened in Quebec years ago? What do they have to give us that will ensure it will never happen again?

I hope that the polls keep telling them that Canadians want to hear the enquiry out. The Opposition leaders are all being very careful to sound professional and reserved, but give them half a hint that they could win an election and we'd be in the middle of a free for all again. If the pollsters call me, my answers won't be vague!

Most Interesting News

The National News tonight was most interesting. Last week there was a little blurb of a story where a former veterinarian with the USDA (U S Department of Agriculture) had come forward - in Canada - to tell of suspicious cases of downer cattle he had witnessed during his career. Cases he felt sure were BSE and that he had requested tests for but had, for one reason or another, had never received satisfactory results for.

When I first heard the story, many things went through my mind. The first thing was simply "That's no surprise to anyone." In the two years BSE has ruled the Canadian cattle industry, we've had plenty of time to think about how it is that we, with the size of the Canadian herd should have four cases, and they with their much larger herd should have none ... well except for the ones that they knew they could trace back to Canada, that is. I didn't know how it could ever be proven, but it seemed mighty suspicious that Canada was to blame for everything.

The next thing I thought of was who was this vet? And, if he did have information to blow the lid off a very serious cover-up in the U S Ag Department, was he safe?

I waited to hear more about it in the passing days, but the story seemed to drop off the map. Not so much as one word for four or five days. I began to wonder if the poor guy had been in a mysterious car accident, or something, but tonight the CBC had lots to tell. And I'm sure there'll be plenty more to come.

The story is mind boggling. If, indeed, the USDA falsified test results and hid cases of BSE, how many cases were there? The cases this vet is citing both took place in his jurisdiction in New York state; were there others? Where? How many? Were the herds they came from investigated? Or destroyed like those in Canada were? Or, was it all business as usual?

And if it was business as usual, where did the meat from these animals end up? That thought is just plain scary.

I'm sure that we haven't heard the end of this now. The US has a lot of explaining to do. If it is proven that they have been using Canada as a scapegoat while hiding cases of their own, they won't have a friend left in this world. Their credibility will be nil. And any potential markets they had for their beef will evaporate. Somehow it's easier to picture countries buying beef from a country who is known to have BSE, but is honest about it and has a superior animal tracking system to keep on top of new cases, than them wanting to buy from someone who has been proven to be dishonest and untrustworthy. If the American public decided they don't even trust their food supply, their problems will only get worse.

I guess we'll just sit back and watch how this unfolds. Two things, though, have to be said:
First - honour and integrity are not dead in this world, there's at least one guy - a retired vet from New York state - who understands the difference between right and wrong and is willing to show us uncommon courage to set the record straight.
And second - well, sometimes a bad thing turns into a good thing. Thanks to U S policy the Canadian herd has been held totally separate from the American herd for the past two years.

That Springtime Scent

Those TV commercials for laundry detergents or fabric softeners that tell us that they've managed to bottle the scent of spring always make me shake my head. I'd be willing to bet that no one will ever manage to capture the smell of spring - sure, they can make your laundry smell pretty with perfumes, but the real scent of spring? Not a chance.

That's not to say that you can't bring the smell of spring into your house. Today, not only did I have all the windows open, airing out the winter blahs, but I hung my laundry on the clothsline for the afternoon and then carried it all back in and folded it in the living room. The house doesn't smell like flowers - there are no flowers anywhere near blooming in Saskatchewan in April - but the whole house smells FRESH. The perfect ending to a day of fresh laundry is a bed made up with the same kind of freshness. I've put in a long, physical day, and I'm not far from that perfect ending.

This past week has been phenomonal. Seven days ago it looked and felt like winter. There was snow everywhere. Mother Nature must have decided it was time to turn up the thermostat because in less that one week the white stuff just disappeared. One morning the world was white, the next day there were patches of brown showing through, and after two more days, the creeks were going into flood mode. Tuesday morning we had a lake in our front yard. Water drains toward our corner of the quarter section we live on, and if the culvert under the road south of us is blocked, it takes no time at all for the to water back up and threaten to contaminate our well. We were pretty relieved later that morning when the pressure of the water managed to push through and it started to drain away. As of this morning (Saturday) the waters have receeded to our usual spring creek trickling between the house and barnyards.

We spent a few hours at an auction sale this afternoon. Glen was kind of interested in a tractor, if it would have gone cheap enough, but mostly we went because it was a beautiful day to be outside and to visit with friends and neighbours. By the size of the crowd, it would seem that everyone had the same idea.

The weather forecast is saying that we may have rain or snow tomorrow. It hardly seems possible after today - I even got a bit of a sunburn today! But, even if we do have one more turn with the white stuff, it won't last long. We don't have flowers to prove it's spring, but the birds are back. We've seen robins and meadow larks and kildeers; the crows have been back for quite a while, and great wedges of Canadian Geese fly north over us every day. I guess that means it's time to dig out the humming bird feeders - they'll be showing up next.

Sunshine on Good Friday

There's an old saying that whatever weather you get on Good Friday is what you'll have for the next forty days. Not very scientific, but we always note what the weather is - and it's usually blowing up a gale. But today is clear with bright sunshine and blue skies, although the temperature leaves a lot to be desired. It's still well below the freezing mark, but the weather guys say that it's supposed to start climbing on Sunday. Let's hope they've got that right.

So far we've only had one calf that didn't get dried off fast enough and ended up with frozen ears. Many farmers have their cows calving in January and February so that the animals they sell in the fall are larger and worth more money, but Glen isn't into babysitting frozen, wet babies at forty below zero so we aim for the end of March. We were supposed to start calving on the 19th of March but somehow a few of the cows jumped the gun. I think we had five babies by then, and since then it's been fast and furious. I think all the first time mothers (heifers) have had their calves - unassisted and doing fine. The older cows don't need as much watching; in fact, Glen is having trouble just trying to keep up with his records of whose is whose because two or three new ones can show up between feedings. He took his record book out with him yesterday to help him sort out Mamas and babies. Our herd sire is a black angus bull and his colouring has come through very well - with the exception of three, all the babies out there are black - and running and jumping and playing together. It's hard to keep track even after they've had their ear tags attached.

This week we've had our daughter-in-law and Jennifer, our two year old grand-daughter staying with us. Grandpa Glen takes her out to the barn when it's time to bottle feed the calf and after the little guy has drained the bottle she lets him suck on her fingers. There are lots of kids who would probably be intiminated by this, but she can't wait to go again. It's a funny feeling - that smooth, warm, slippery mouth sucking on your fingers. All little kids should be able to visit a farm and see the animals.

We still have our last year's calves. Glen says, if he has to, he'll feed the steers out and sell them for butcher in the fall. The heifers we were going to keep anyway to expand our herd. We did ship four of our old cows last week - they were too old to produce another calf and were just costing us feed, so when the neighbour said he was going to take some of his to the auction and had room for some more, Glen sorted these out of the herd and off they went. We got the check for them yesterday - before BSE it would have been over $4,000.00 but not anymore ... $1,250.00 was what we got and we're glad it wasn't less.

Leaning Sideways

Spring in Saskatchewan! For anyone who has never had the pleasure, spring out in the middle of the Canadian prairies means wind ... make that WIND, the lower case letters just don't convey power of what's going on outside tonight.

There was a cartoon in one of the farm papers a while ago that featured a "You Are Now Entering Saskatchewan" sign in the foreground, and in the distance everything else in the drawing had a lean to it: trees, barns, bale stacks, elevators ... even the sign wasn't quite on the square. One picture is worth a thousand words ...

Not that everything is bent over, of course, but we do withstand our share of wind. Luckily the snow is all crusted over with ice because we've had some warm, sunshiney days lately so there'll be no blizzard conditions out of it, but it's going to be a noisey night with the wind howling into the yard just outside our bedroom window. A few years ago, before we took the old shingles off and replaced them with metal roofing, we had some really noisey nights when the wind started slapping the shingles up and down. Now, with the metal roof the windy nights are quite tame, but when it rains or we get hail - that's another story!

Glen has been busy these past few days being a nursemaid to two new calves born Monday afternoon. We weren't expecting any babies until the end of the month so the cows hadn't been moved into the barns. We try to keep the immenent births under a roof and in fresh bedding, but these guys were born outside in the wet snow, so they had quite a few strokes against them when we found them. They were wet, cold, and weak from being a little premature, and their mother just doesn't know what to make of having two babies. To top that all off, Glen had to go out with a big calf sled and haul them back to the barn, take the babies into the heated well house to dry them (with my hiar dryer) and rub them down. They were too weak to get up and nurse so we mixed up formula for them, too. The larger one is up and nursing off his mom now, but the little guy, although he's come a long way since Monday night, is still getting bottle fed. Glen has named them Dumb and Dumber.

We got caught not selling our last year's calves before the border was due to open. Glen figured if the prices were good before, they'd be better after. I don't know what he was thinking, no one was surprised when the border stayed shut - disappointed, but not surprised - so why had he hung on to the cattle that were ready for market? I have a feeling that we'll have a long time to think that one over. There is a lot of ill will toward the Americans these days. The R-CALF guys are buying cheap Canadian cattle, having it processed here and are selling it in the States, but their case to stop the import of live cattle from this country is that it is unsafe. We all grew up watching the cowboys in the white hats - the John Waynes - show us how to be noble and good, everything that America was supposed to stand for. It speaks volumes now that they appear to only stand for greed.

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.