This has been a colder week and then at the end a brief warm up. We have had our freezing rain. Driving is more tricky with lots of black ice practice. Front wheel drive vehicles are just amazing in how they can travel like the dickens but can’t stop or turn. There have been a few people on their roofs before they realized what was going on. Slow down out there, people. Life is for living, don’t blow it on a big hurry up hurry for nothing.
I have marked Feb. 18 as a trace of hoar frost so come Aug. 18, we will see.
On the home front, Jaco had serviced the Ford tractor and it is back in machinery row. When it was in the shop I suggested to him he could get a spray can of Ford blue paint from Keranda and touch up some of the faded patches. You know what you could imagine if the Energizer bunny got a can of blue paint. It was the wrong color and it just goes on and on and on. I don’t know what we will do with it but it is not going to stay like that. Midnight Blue is not Ford blue. Geezzzz. Did you not notice the difference? Lord love a billy goat.
We have the air seeder tank in the shop now and Jaco is modifying it so we can mount it above my grinder and pelleter. Airhead says he will come and lift it up for us. It has been three or four years since I started this project so I would like to see it done while I am still here to see it. When I have had help we have done a little each year. The stand that holds the grinder and pelleting machine is in place. The grinder and pelleter are all wired in. There are bins built in the elevator to hold the grain to be processed so that is all done. We need the air seeder tank in place so we can install the augers to move the grain from the elevator to the grinder. The air seeder tank will meter the grain into the grinder. Then I need a system to take the pellets away. Lots of work to do yet but every day we are closer.
I was talking to Lloyd Holmes from Paynton the other day and I asked him how RM of Paynton was doing about getting the ferry running again. He was shaking his head as he told me there was $4.1 million allocated to fix the road. That was two years ago and the road may not be open this year. The road to the ferry is slumping away and they had to close the road. I am interested in that road because my wife’s family have a cabin at Turtle Lake. When we come home instead of turning west south of Livelong, I turn east and go a few miles east before I go south. It is a scenic drive and eventually you come out at Paynton Ferry. I like that road and have been across there many times.
Lloyd went on to tell me that there are springs in the hills and the road runs beside a coulee that drains to the river. They have dug the old road out about 20 or 30 deep replacing it with good clay but the road is still slumping. Lloyd said the engineers will not listen to anyone and will not fund anything off the road allowance right of way even if it helps improve the road. Before they put the ferry in there the community wanted it back up river about three miles but the government engineers put it where it is anyway.
In 1956-57 Barbar Construction hauled the gravel for Highway 5 across the river on an ice bridge. In talking to Kevin Garret, the reeve, he said the Barber trail is still there and the trail is not slumping. He said the engineers have come up with a plan to fix the current crossing. They plan to put weeping tile drainage by the road. I know that works because they had to do that in two places on Highway 21 south and it is OK.
I was intrigued by this ice bridge over the North Saskatchewan. I would have been about 10 years old at the time. I was talking to Keith Paton and he told me he worked on the ice bridge and hauled gravel over it. He said that his friend Gerry Stephenson knew more than he did. I phoned him. He is retired and lives in Edmonton. He told me he worked on the project. One of his jobs was to go to Maidstone to Barney and Frank Dacus’s store and haul groceries back to camp. They had 75 to 100 people working there. He said the food was good at camp and he gained weight.
He also towed a four-wheeled water wagon that he had to back in and fill at a railway tower at Birling. He said on the ice bridge they had ties that were froze down at both ends that you drove on to get on the road across the river. The bridge was two or three feet thick of ice over the river ice. It was wide enough for two trucks to pass. When he got to haul gravel they used the big Auto Car trucks. They worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, six hours on, six hours off. You could make four trips a shift.
They also hauled gravel south of Paynton through the reserve for the highway. Barbar Construction also hauled gravel from south of Waseca for what was then called Highway 5. It is now four lanes and renamed Highway 16. Barbar hauled all the gravel for the highway from Lashburn to Bresaylor. They might have done more but that’s all what I know of.
Gerry Stephenson told me that when he was done hauling gravel he got a job in Lloydminster hauling fuel for B/A. One of the places he hauled was to Andy and Mike Viglas at Waseca. He would stop at the café there for meals. One small world, eh!
Joke of the week: The farmer had 200 chickens and he needed some roosters. He shopped around and ended up buying only one. Randy, a purebred Leghorn rooster, was very expensive. The farmer took Randy to the farmyard and told him “Now listen Randy there are 200 chickens here, you need to pace yourself”. Randy said “yup, yup, yup” and off he ran as hard as he could. He did all of the chickens three or four times. He found a pen of ducks and he did all of them three or four times. Then he found a pen of geese. He did all of them three or four times. He was even on top of all the pigs and cattle. The next morning there was Randy, laying flat on his back in the middle of the yard, buzzards circling overhead. The farmer fearing the worst went over to him expecting to find him dead. Randy was very much alive and had one eye fixed on the buzzards overhead he said to the farmer “Ssssh, get out of here, they are getting closer.”
