The weather is great, I hope spring is finally here. By the time you read this, the rain I had marked for May 18 and 19 will have happened. The hoar frost rains I mark usually come a day or two earlier than the date I mark down. Now I see the weather forecasters are saying rain for this weekend. That's fantastic! Where was their forecast two weeks ago when I started saying it was going to rain or six months ago when I marked down a rain for this date? Forecasting moisture on the May long weekend is a no brainer. It always rains on May long! On more than one occasion, when our teenagers and everyone else's went to Turtle Lake for the May long weekend, it snowed, and lots of it. The young people had a great time partying it up as it snowed and the only people who worried were the mothers.
On the home front, my man Chris K has taken on the seeding of the wheat. I am temporally wounded as I injured my knee getting into the tractor cab. I am having difficulty walking, which is really inconvenient at this time of year. I am guessing three or four more tanks and Chris will have the wheat done. I have made arrangements with son Ron to seed the canola with his air drill. The land is working up really nice and looks black and smooth just the way I like it. I am looking forward to harvest.
On this weekend I want my weekend warrior Cole to learn how to pick rocks with the rock picker. He has to grasp some operational concepts such as if the land is shiny black, stay back. The most hateful words during spring is a phone call where the guy says "I'm stuck." Riding the clutch is a no no. The clutch is all the way in or all the way out. Don't turn on the hills, straight up, straight down. Jack knifing the tractor and rock picker is a no no. It is a rock picker not a dirt picker. Spots on the window mean you have a hydraulic leak. Stop! Check it out! Watch where you dump the rocks. You don't want them rolling back on the field and dumping them on some poor cowboy's fence, which would be really bad! If you get a rock stuck in the picker, you are not allowed out of the cab with the tractor running. That hydraulic drive reel has killed people. Go back to your truck and pull it out with a logging chain. Be careful when picking rocks going downhill. If you have the reel running too fast you can put a rock right through the back window. That would not be good! All these little things are second nature to those of us who have spent countless hours picking rocks. To young guys who start out, knowing nothing, it is all stuff they have to learn.
In this area, the air drills are running as people are getting their crops in. The zero tiller guys have finished spraying the non-existent weeds and now they are seeding. These guys who love to spray will be back spraying again just as sure as God made little green apples. They spray and spray and spray and then complain if the weeds develop immunity to the spray they are using. Some spraying is necessary but common sense tells me that working the soil is something that is good management. There are no weeds that have immunity to the cold steel of a cultivator shovel.
In Ottawa, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair was in the hot seat defending his party against allegations that they misused $1.8 million of taxpayers' money to pay for staffers working the election campaign. They are also accused of sending out election fliers using their free parliamentary mailing privilege. This is a clear abuse of the postal privilege. The staffers worked out of the NDP's Montreal party office. This is more taxpayers' money than all the senators took together. Tsk, tsk, tsk, NDP you have been bad. Here is a thought. Pay the money back!
In other Ottawa news, the government has indicated there are big changes coming to the temporary foreign worker program. What this means, no one knows. All I know is from my life's experience, when a bunch of suits start making decisions for you, it means trouble. I am dismayed that Jason Kenny is letting the civil service wreck this program. The unions and their friends in the civil service have been searching for some reason to kill this program. The response of cancelling TFW for restaurant workers is like killing house flies with a sledge hammer. They found two or three people abusing the system and they cancel the whole program? That is really what you would call overkill. Where are the replacement workers if you cancel or gut this program? Get real, there are none.
The Temporary Foreign Worker program has been a great success. It allowed companies to hire people for vacancies that could not be filled from the local work force. The people who came, came to work. They show up every morning, they don't come drunk or strung out on drugs. They are smiling and happy, they are happy to be here. They are a pleasure for any employer to have on staff. This program needs to keep running.
The weakness of this program is that too soon the two years are up and the employee you have trained has to go home. There is also way too much red tape and government hold ups in the process. The solution is to offer them permanent residence. Why would you not? The workers are here, the employers are depending on them. The workers are making money, paying a high rate of tax, The companies they work for are making more money, which means they are paying more taxes. Everybody wins.
When does common sense count for more than the union lobby? As far as I am concerned the union guys can get on their horses, get out of town and ride back to Ontario or wherever they came from. They have no solution. All they are just dogs in the manger trying to keep everyone else out. What a small, chintzy role in life those guys play.
Joke of the week: A young rookie cop stopped a speeding woman. "Could I see your car registration please?" "I don't have one," said the lady. "Can I see your driver's licence?" "I don't have one," she said. "Why were you speeding," he asked. "I have a dead body in the trunk that I have to get rid of," she said. At that the rookie called for backup. Soon an older experienced officer arrived. "Can I see your car registration," he asked. She slowly got out the registration and showed him. "Can I see your driver's licence," he asked. She slowly got out her driver's licence and showed him. Next he asked to look in the trunk. It was empty. "What goes on here," asked the older cop. "The young guy told me you had no car registration, no driver's licence and there was a body in the trunk." The lady said, "Oh, what a liar that guy is. Next thing you know he will be accusing me of speeding."
