The weather has been dampish with little sprinkles to good showers. With the short days and cloudiness, the land just doesn’t dry up. This would not be a problem if you were all done fall work, but there are always little jobs to do and it would be helpful if the weather was drier. In all, it has been nice for this time of year. Last year under global warming we had snow by now. We are all expecting snow any day now. Just normal weather and “PHEWFT” to the global warming experts. Chicken Little ran around crying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” too.
On the Hult Farm not much is happening as the farming season is over. Curtis has been loading ethanol wheat out of the elevator. The bale-hauling man has not been down to get the wheat straw bales as the fields are too wet. There was actual rain in that area and he didn’t want to be stuck. Well, we don’t want him stuck either. Mud and ruts and a tow job, who needs that? It’s one of those deals where a person says to himself, “Self, there will be better day.” As Davey Johner likes to say, “Some days she is just too wet to plow.”
Son Ron has been busy. He has the blade on his tractor already. He has been around the farm cleaning out water runs. He even got a couple of oil patch tow jobs. He has been pumping water off leases in preparation for spring. This is unusual to be pumping off leases this time of year. Environment Canada made the oil companies put dikes around all the leases in case of a spill. This causes more problems than it solves. When the water cannot get away, the land gets soft and the trucks are continually getting stuck. The towing is passed on to the oil companies. In the old days we could farm right up and around the teardrop the well and tank make. Now we can’t get in there with the dikes and the mandatory permanent anchors for the service rigs. So the land grows weeds. The oil companies have to spray this area. More expense for the oil companies. We seem to have lost the common sense approach to handling problems. That is what happens when you get a bunch of do-gooders in suits involved. I liked the old system better. Oil company guys and farmers got together and worked things out.
Son Ron went around after seeding this year when it was dry and worked up seven or eight slough holes. We used to do that in the past. He then seeded them to barley. He has the slough holes swathed and is waiting for the material to dry. With this weather it is not happening. Now he is trying to get them baled. He has made 60 bales already and is not done. He said if the weather is below freezing it bales well, but if it gets warm it jams up. We have done this in the past with good results. He will have to feed these bales first. He will have a large amount of the feed that he needs for his cow herd from these small slough beds. His cows will be well off this winter as he has about 30 acres of corn and about that many acres of barley he is going to use for swath grazing.
In my hills, the Kitscoty silage balers are done and starting to move equipment home. They are to be commended as they took on the toughest hills and got ‘er done! No other bales are gone and there is still some baling left to do. The baling that is left will have to be done tough and soon or it will still be there come spring. My mother tells me it is raining in British Columbia and I know in a couple of days it will be coming here.
In politics, the love in between the media and Justin Trudeau is continuing. Trudeau has made some social media popular moves as he stopped Canada Post from removing anymore home deliveries that were going to community mail boxes.
He has made all the civil servants happy as he has brought back the long form census. Now they will have more material to Big Brother us. I don’t care, long form, short form, I plan to only give my name, rank and serial number, just like a prisoner of war. A lot of the stuff on that census form is stuff that is none of their business. It is my business and I plan to keep it that way.
On election night I was dismayed about the actions of Robert Fife of CTV. He was anti-Harper including sniping from off camera at one of the panel members who was a Conservative. If your reporting is not fair and unbiased, do you have any credibility? I am writing a letter to the CTV and the CRTC to voice my displeasure at the actions of this man. I would urge anyone who felt the same way to do the same.
Another political happening was U.S. President Obama announcing he would not approve the Keystone pipeline. I heard with my own ears the president of United States, leader of the free world smack talk about the pipeline. He referred to our oil as dirty oil. He said they did not want to import from areas of the world with unstable governments. Canada, you say? He said that to import the oil would result in climate change that would make parts of the world uninhabitable. Ehh? Where? Personally, I don’t feel we should give the Americans any more cheap oil, or eastern Canada. If we are going to export this stuff let’s get top world price.
Joke of the week: Fred and Barney go into a bar. After hours of drinking, Barney falls off of his chair and passes out on the floor. “Well,” said Fred, “there is one thing about Barney. He knows when to quit.”
