Well, another beautiful week with only a little drizzle on Wednesday morning to break the weather. A little shower like that helps fill the crops and brings them closer to harvest. A lot of canola has gone out of flower. It is a strange crop this year. One field will be laying over like it is growing a heavy crop. The next field is standing poker straight, still a good crop but looks like less yield. I don't know the history of groceries provided, but that could have some bearing on the final yield. We would hope, if you spent the money, you got rewarded, although in farming, that is not always the case. Some times you spend the money and you just spend the money, the Big Guy doesn't send you a reward. That's just the way it is!
The wheat looks alright but not as heavy a crop as a person would expect with all the rain. Oat crops are looking heavy but they all need to hurry hard to miss the frosts. Every oat crop I've seen is still grass green.
There are some good looking barley crops in the country, but I wouldn't hazard a guess on their yield. I tried never to grow the stuff. Whenever I am around barley everything runs but my feet. My nose runs, my eyes run, I hated the itch. I do appreciate those who grow the stuff because there is nothing better than a cold beer in the shade on a hot day. Without malt barley there is no beer.
I got along with oats much better, they were itchy, too, but it seemed like a different kind of itch that I could tolerate. I have grown hundreds of acres of oats. One year, Ronald and I had 100,000 bushels. That was many hours for me on top of railcars as we shipped producer cars and my job was on top of the car telling them when to move the car ahead. The guy on top of the car had to wear a heavy skidoo suit and a balaclava. We had two bins at the track and had an 80 by 10 inch auger set up on the angle to load from the bins into the rail car. We had two electric 10 inch augers on the bins that we would unload into the swing away. We also hauled with two tandems at the same time. The most cars we loaded in one day was six. It was a very long day! We started before eight and were done after 10 p.m. in the dark. I had no problem sleeping that night. I don't think the rest of the crew did either. After that, I made sure I never ordered six cars at one time ever again.
We never made much money on the oats. It was just something we did because wheat wasn't moving and we could sell all the oats we could grow. We found the safest place to ship them was to Thunder Bay. They had feed mills down there that just use an amazing amount of oats. They didn't pay much, but they always paid.
I got an education from a sharp American buyer, who got eight cars of oats down there and then tried to avoid paying for them. It took me four months to get paid and never got all the money contracted for. You soon learn who you can trust and contacts may not be worth the paper they are written on. It was a very expensive education. I still hate contracts to this day.
This week has been an off week at the farm. I spent the week going to funerals and the chiropractor. Wednesday, Big Hat and I went on a drive up to Pierceland and Goodsoil. I wanted to see what happened to my D8H from my sale. Big Hat warned me the road was rough. I haven't been up that way for years. I went to Paradise Hill and then north on Highway 21. The first half is alright, not the best pavement I have seen but after Little Fishing Lake, it is gravel and the washboard was unreal. Big Hat and I were having dinner in Goodsoil and two RCMP and three conservation officers came in and were having dinner. After dinner, I went over to the RCMP officer and said I wanted to report a missing person. He got all serious and then I said it's the grader operator on Highway 21. We both had a good laugh. The RCMP told me he had been missing about a week! I have my suspicions it was longer than that. It was a long way home, some at 15 mph. At suppertime we stopped at Little Fishing Lake and Big Hat cooked us supper. We had back bacon and eggs and toast. It was great to stop bouncing and the supper was excellent. Then we continued on home, got here about 10 p.m. It was an enjoyable tour and I really enjoyed myself in spite the washboard. Never did find any trace of my D8H Cat.
In the sport world, Rider Nation is in mourning as Calgary really put it to our boys. John Cornish was on a mission, getting four touchdowns. The Roughriders played well but the Stampeders played better. We have to wait until next time!
Joke of the week: The teacher was giving a spelling lesson. She asked little Johnny to spell the word "straight." Little Johnny spelled it correctly and then she asked him if he knew what it meant. "Yeah" says Johnny "It means no Coke, and no 7Up."
