Submitted by
Kathryn Groshong
An agriculture theme was discussed during the Town and Country Women meeting, held at Souris Gardens Condo social room on April 12, with Dorothy Dennis as hostess. There were nine members in attendance. All members took part in discussing the topic. The thought of the day was “spring is when life is alive in everything”, as quoted by Christina Rossette.
The club women’s creed was repeated. Margaret Lukey, president of the club, quoted Oprah Winfrey: “I know for sure your journey begins with a choice to get up, step out and live fully.” Kathryn Groshong, secretary, read the minutes of the March meeting. Edith Jacobs, treasurer, gave the financial report. A donation was sent to Camp Easter Seal by the group.
The lap robe project is a popular one and they will be collected at the May meeting and distributed to nursing homes in Weyburn. The roll call was an exchange of plants or something pertaining to plants or a garden, which resulted in a nice display and kept with the afternoon’s program of agriculture. The following are some thoughts during roll call:
Prairie farmers are going to have to adopt to climate change because they are going to face more of it than most of the rest of the world, according to Ian Mauro of the Prairie Climate Centre in Winnipeg. The prairies will see even more extreme temperature increases than the world average because they are located in the centre of a continent and not moderated by oceans. That will be bad for many crops and cropping systems, but farmers need to learn to adapt with other varieties because major changes are coming. They can play a vital role in feeding the rest of the world.
Alec Boury, at age 18, experienced homesteading south of Gull Lake, a grain buying career at Trossachs and Cadillac with the Wheat Pool elevators, was a Sunday school superintendent and eventually a minister at Griffin and taught courses at the Prairie Christian Training Centre. Of these different vocations he felt his life with the church was the most meaningful to him and to others.
Remember when farmers took grain, driving horses and wagon loads of grain four-and-a-half miles to town where there were three grain elevators? Now they must take their truckloads of grains many miles to grain terminals. There is a saying: “one thing you have to accept is change.” Farming has certainly changed over the years.
There are seven different species of bees that have been placed on the endangered species list. Climate change is at the root of the problem. Pesticides, habitat loss, increased temperature and precipitation extremes are all factors harming bees. Earlier winter thaws and blooming flowers are also a factor, as well as parasites.
Bees are essential for the pollination of wild flowers and our agricultural crops. We can’t live without bees. There are protective programs to help bolster their numbers and education is needed about their vital importance. This is a problem for everyone and a wake-up call for people to do whatever they can to help save the bees.
The Saskatchewan Party government budget cuts of $4.8 million to libraries was a disastrous blow and a step backwards for the regional library system in Saskatchewan. It is the finest system anywhere for serving the rural municipalities and small libraries throughout Saskatchewan, as well as city libraries. Many of the volunteer workers knew that it wasn’t easy setting up the rural-based regional libraries in the province in the 1950s and seeing it develop into a first-class library system and wouldn’t like to see those libraries get lost.
Editor’s note: the funding cuts that were announced for libraries were recently restored by the government.
Drainage woes plague the province of Saskatchewan. Drainage is going on without rules, resulting in flooding contamination. Where once water quality was fine, a recent test showed that well water was ‘no good’. There were decades of illegal drainage reported, which has increased farm production, but is not so great for harmony in rural Saskatchewan communities.
Canada is the largest producer of green lentils, accounting for about 75 per cent of the world population. The top four exporting countries are Canada, United States, Australia and Turkey.
Following the meeting, a potluck lunch was served to the members, along with cake for Fred Groshong’s 95th birthday. Other lunch guests were Evelyn Hansen and Darlene Molberg.
