Its Official

Just read that our area has been declared a disaster zone due to the poor harvest conditions that left a lot of crop in the field for winter. I don't know if it will make much difference long tern as the days of government handouts seem to have ended and we are usually on our own to sink or swim. What grain is left in the field is , or will be, poor quality and not worth much. Adding the cost of drying that low value grain is hard to take.
I'll be ok but I can imagine those with big operating loans coming due might be a little stressed.
Its winter. The crop that is left I'll forget about til spring. It will be dry to harvest by then. What the deer don't eat anyway .
Harvest disaster in Sask.

Boating On Former Farmland

In case you miss it on facebook, here is my latest youtube video. It was a cool Sunday afternoon but the sun came out for some impressive sky views. We truly are the land of living skies. The land under this lake used to produce a lot of grain before nature claimed it back with high water levels over the past decade or so. No fish here that we know of but maybe its time to introduce some?

Trike Driving and Tree Cutting

A small job gets bigger sometimes. I'd found this huge poplar tree that had leaned over almost horizontal in the field the other day while I was spraying the crop for weeds. A victim of last week's terrible winds. I decided to get it cleaned up while it was fresh in my mind or else I would forget about it till harvest time and have to drive around it with the swather. Headed out through the wet field with trike and chain saw and got a good start but came to a standstill. Got the saw jammed in the cut and there was no way I could pull it out. No tools so I headed home for a hammer and wood chisel. Of the various wood chisels I own, I could not find one. Settled for a dull old steel chisel and nail hammer which was a poor choice. I ended up making another trip home for a hand saw which turned out to be a better option. I got plenty of exercise using a hand saw on green wood on a hot summer day to release the chain saw bar. With the heat and the clouds of fuzz flying off that tree I felt like I was being tarred and feathered by the time I was done.

Between the crop I flattened out with the trike tires and then my size 13 work boots I probably lost more crop than if I had just left the tree in the field and drove around it at harvest time.

Threshing at Motherwell Farm

A new year of ramblings begins.
I shot this video on vhs back in August of 92 at the Motherwell Farm's annual threshing demonstration. They re-enact the process of threshing grain just as it was done when the farm was a working farm circa 1911. Of course they can't push the old Hart Parr tractor too hard and with a limited amount of grain sheaves to work with , they have to make it last for a couple of days worth of demos anyway. This time they got perfect harvest weather. The kind my Dad used to talk about with the blazing hot sun, grain dust, and a seemingly endless supply of stooks to be hauled in from the field to the thresher.
No slackers allowed here as the hungry thresher had to be kept running to capacity blowing a steady stream of separated straw out the blower and a stream of clean grain into the bin. When it was all done, Dad's wages went towards paying the threshing bill. After a few years of this I guess the army looked pretty good with 3 meals and a dollar a day when he joined up in 1941.