April Showers, May Flowers, whatever

The old saying of April showers bringing spring flowers is of course true. Even though some of our showers were snow the first crocus flowers are showing in the few acres of undisturbed prairie sod on my land.

Those showers sure left the fields wet though. That and the 15 inches of rain in thirty days that I got last summer all add up to an almost impassable field. As I found out yesterday trying to do some fence checking and repair with the trike. It was impossible to get to some parts of the field without driving through water. That and the weight of the fencing trailer brought me to a stop . Some time later, leaving deep, water filled ruts behind me I continued on my way. Trikes going to need a wash.
It is an unusual spring with colder than normal temperatures. Slow drying and no field work done at all. Some years I have been close to finished planting by this date (May 7).
The next picture shows the wierd clothing combination required for this weather. The wide brim hat to protect my pale anglo saxon skin from sun burning and the heavy coveralls to protect me from the cold wind.

With all the water around this spring maybe I should be getting out the fishing rod like the lazy farmer was recently.

Winter Project Complete

At least I hope it is done . I think I have set a record for the longest elapsed time to replace a head gasket on a Massey Super 90 Perkins diesel engine. I drove it into the shed late last October with half the cylinders mis-firing through a burnt head gasket. It was a learning process and there were a good many times I wanted to drag it outside and put a for sale sign "as is" on it. Many days were just too cold to work in the un heated shed and the ever increasing cost of heating oil made me reluctant to start the furnace. Had my doubts if it would ever run again but in late April the Perkins cranked over and surged into life, smooth as a brand new tractor. History tells me that these engines have a weakness for burning head gaskets so I guess I was lucky to get nearly 20 years use out of it before it failed. If it last another 20, well maybe it won't matter to me.

2 Auctions In 4 Days

I haven't been to that many farm auctions in two years but this week I made up for it. Came home nearly empty handed from both. Well there were a couple of items that I will try to explain later. For now I need to get busy at some real work before it rains/snows again. Freezing right now.
A bit of video from the latest farm auction. Enjoy the typical sights and sounds of a farm estate auction in Sask. in April.

April Snow, Again!

Well it is snowing again. If it was this bad yesterday I would not even have set out to the auction sale to deal with mud and snow. Who knows, I might have bid online instead, in the comfort of a warm house. And bought those items that I lost interest in yesterday. I didn't need it but that rusty IH Loadstar would have been a great parts truck for my "inventory". The cab and engine bay was infested with signs of a healthy population of mice, rats, maybe squirrels? Dealing with that mess and the risk of hantavirus toned down my enthusiasm for resurrecting this old beast and dragging it 40 some miles home over muddy roads.

As wet as the above picture looks, today would be far worse with everything covered in wet, melting snow.
 The local radio is filled with reports of dangerous highway conditions this morning due to the slush and snow. In a normal spring I would at least be planting potatoes in the garden if not field crops.
Maybe great uncle Jack was right when he commented that Sask. gets 9 months of winter and 3 months of poor sleighing?
One of the auctioneer's comments yesterday, "every year we plant and harvest a crop so come on and bid boys!" And they did.

A Day At The Auction

Well not a whole day. About 5 hours counting driving time. And that was plenty considering it was trying to rain at 39 degrees and that wind was so cold  that by the time I had stood around an hour my hands would have been too stiff to hold a pen to sign a cheque anyway. The raincoat and insulated coveralls helped or I would have never lasted . Slogging through the muddy quagmire that parts of the yard had become helped warm me up for a bit but eventually the cold took away my enthusiasm for what bargains might appear.
The lineup at the food trailer never seemed to get any shorter so by 1:30 I got into it for a late "lunch". Wouldn't you know that was the time the auctioneer was selling one of the few items I actually considered buying way across the muddy yard. Not wanting to give up my place in line after a long wait I could only listen with interest at the bidding. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise because moving machinery out of that yard in these conditions would have been a major undertaking at any price.
Seems old horse pulled machinery is bringing big money if you just put some green and yellow paint on it. A binder for $1200, 2 furrow plow for $900? And that old steel wheeled D tractor looked and ran well but probably sold for ten times what it brought new in 1929.
Roads were "interesting" to say the least. The place was hard to find and I had to go a long way around by the highway rather than risk dead end or impassable short cuts that would have saved a lot of miles had the conditions been dry. Interesting country in the Touchwood Hills.

Good Friday, Bad Weather

The long slow approach to spring continues but today we took a few steps back to winter. Heavy wet snow most of the day with a strong SE wind blowing it around. Mild enough that there is wet ground and water under the snow. Looks like I washed the Blazer too soon.
Glad calving is done as this wet weather is actually harder on calves than the cold dry weather. Much healthier for them to be on frozen dry ground in the cattle shelter than being soaked by wet snow melting on their backs.
In the good news department, got two semis of wheat hauled out this week. The window of opportunity was rapidly closing as it warmed up and that wheat needed to get out of the yard before the driveways got too soft for a loaded truck to get out. It needed to be an early morning before the frost came out of the surface of the ground. Although I am not normally a "morning person" we had those two trucks loaded and on their way by about 7:30 in the morning thanks to the grain vac. For those unfamiliar with such a machine, just imagine a really big vacuum cleaner powered by a 100+ horsepower tractor. It is noisy, very fast, and will pick up anything that is not fastened down, including  loose fitting  mitts and gloves .
I think you have to have spent at least a few years breathing grain dust and shoveling grain into a grain auger, to really appreciate a grain vac. .  

Today, Good Friday, this wet snow is a setback but not unusual for April in Sask. It may be my imagination but it does seem to have been a long winter.

Family History Mystery

One of my grandmothers has become what the genealogists refer to as a "brick wall". We know her name and where she came from but beyond that she is mostly a mystery in spite of many hours spent searching the net. 40 years previous, one of my aunts did the same search, without the benefit of the internet though. Snail mail between Sask. and England took a long time and money was spent on postage and genealogists to no avail.

Although we have the names of Mary's parents (George and Kathleen Mary Lane)  there are no supporting documents to show her origins. She always stated her place of birth as Margate, Kent. She had a sister, "Nellie", who died as a child. She was an orphan by the age of 15. She worked as a domestic, later in restaurants and resort towns along the south coast of England before coming to London. A postcard she sent to her friend Kate Goff in Canada shows the Railway Hotel in Broadstairs , Kent, where she was working at the time.

At some point in her early working years she met and became friends with Kate Goff. Kate came to Canada in 1910 with Karl Hobetzeder. She wrote and convinced Mary to come to Canada also. Kate thought that Mary might be a suitable wife for her cousin, Jack Goff who farmed just a mile away. But that did not happen and Mary married Kate's brother, Tom Goff in November of the same year she arrived. 

Mary came to Canada on the Virginian arriving July 1st, 1911 in Quebec. From there by train eventually to Saskatchewan. I don't know but am assuming that she lived with Kate and Karl (who had been married December 28, 1910) until she married Tom Goff on November 27, 1911 at the farm home of Arthur and Daisy Nevard (Winstanley Grove) on NE24-24-14.

One of the first creatures she noticed in Sask. was the prairie gophers which she thought to be rats.

The friendship between Mary and sister in law Kate (Goff) Hobetzeder dissolved sometime in the late 1920s. Unkind words and angry letters were exchanged and for the last 15 years of her life Kate never visited Mary and Tom's farm even though only less than a mile away. The actual cause of this rift is not known.

It was through Kate Goff that Mary Lane came to Canada. Kate and Mary were friends in England before Kate came to Canada with Karl Hobetzeder. They settled about 3/4 mile from where Kate's brothers, Tom and Alf homesteaded. In fact Kate and Karl lived with Tom in his log house their first while here in 1910. Kate persuaded Mary to come to Canada thinking she would be a wife for either brother Alf or cousin Jack Goff. As it happened, Mary married Tom Goff.

Mary Elizabeth Lane

The Virginian was a 12,00 ton steamship owned and operated by the Allan Line out of Liverpool, England.  Mary purchased ticket #60876 on the 23 June 1911 sailing of the Virginian from Liverpool, one of 789 adults and 174 children on that trip.  The ship arrived at Quebec at 9pm on the 30th of June and passengers cleared Customs on 1 July.  Mary was listed on page 8 of the ship's Second Class passenger list

May seems to have traveled alone.  She is listed as 25 years of age, able to read and write, English by birth and travelling to meet a cousin in Headlands Saskatchewan. Her occupation is listed as ‘domestic'.  Mary was booked to continue her trip West from Quebec on the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR).

(reference : National Archives of Canada microfilm #T4778