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Thanks for great harvest:
We dumped the last loads of grain in the last light of day, then took our combines home to a hot supper in the warm house. What a wonderful end to a great season. The farmers in our area could sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with full bins. They have a lot to be thankful for! Both Robert and I combined an excellent crop for our bosses, and the neighbour’s fields looked the same. From what I saw and heard, canola crops were between 50 and 60 bushels/acre, and CPS wheat crops around 80 bushels/acre. “This is God’s country,” one farmer told us when we came to Westlock. I think so!

Thanks for family:
Being finished with harvest before Thanksgiving meant we could join my family in Fort St. John B.C. for the holiday meal. 28 of us crowded into my sister Helen’s place. I give thanks for this wonderful, sometimes crazy family.

Thanks for a small harvest:
The farmers in Fort St. John are finished with harvest too, but their bins are only half full at best. While much of the Prairies were drowning in water, the Peace experienced a major drought. They’re thankful that they could harvest the crop dry though. As my brother-in-law Peter Zingre said to us, “it’s still better to be able to harvest a small crop than to leave it out in the snow.”

Thanks for life:
But a good crop isn’t that important anymore when I think of my friend Joanne. She’s been battling cancer for a year now and was admitted into hospital Thursday before Thanksgiving, to palliative care. You wonder what she could find to be thankful for. She’s very thankful for the excellent and loving care given to her in the hospital. I know too, that she’s thankful for the friends and family that are there for her and for her young adult children. To all of us who know her well she’s been a real role model in how to deal with the hard stuff of life. She never minimized it, and did her fair share of crying out to God: “This isn’t fair!” But she never lost her ability to be grateful for all she did have.

She taught me what a privilege it is to be able to get up every morning on my own strength; to be able to take care of my own needs. My aches and pains, and petty little cares are exposed as just that – petty. I have so very much to be thankful for.

The 33 miners in Chile, their family, friends and the whole world are thankful for their ascent to freedom today. What a wonderful story!

Alanna Koch, deputy minister of Saskatchewan agriculture said, “They used to say, Saskatchewan is the place to be from. Now it’s the place to be.” Koch gave the opening address of the Canadian Farm Writers’ Conference in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan which I attended September 30 to October 2.

Driving from Westlock, Alberta to Moose Jaw we saw both – the place to be from and the place to be. Many weathered empty farm sites tell of those who once farmed there, raised a family, and are gone now, somewhere else. We saw some pull-type combines and old swathers at work – far more than I think we would see in Alberta. Periodically along the road a lonely group of older machinery stood in high grass, beside a faded ‘for sale’ sign. People are moving out.

But others are moving in. There’re some big farms out there – long rows of huge shiny steel bins, three or four new John

Deere combines moving in a cloud of dust through a mighty wheat field. We visited Simpson Seeds Inc., a multi-generation pulse and specialty seed company that is in a strong expansion phase. Art Pruim told us of coming from British Columbia to start up a dairy farm, going from 180 cows to 350 in just eight years. Alliance Grain Traders began with one man in a basement with a business plan and now, 10 years later, is the world’s largest lentil processor and exporter. This is Saskatchewan.

While Alberta’s beef herd is shrinking, Saskatchewan’s is growing. The Bay Street traders are stopping off in Regina now on their way to Vancouver. Saskatchewan is a place to be.

Saskatchewan is not just for the big business people. Mortlach is a very small town with a population of 300. But people are coming from Calgary, Alberta to live there. The owner of the candy store is from Wales. Just a good half hour outside of Moose Jaw, the people of this town have done a fantastic job of revitalizing their community, of making it a place to be, not a place to be from.

I went home to Alberta with a new image of Saskatchewan. I could almost see myself moving there!

“Exposure is everything,” Pastor Jessy once told me. He was referring to his Zambian small scale farmers that rarely travel out of their region; many can’t even read. Exposure wasn’t something I thought of much until then. We have so much access to media – to print, television, internet.

But the importance of exposure was brought home to me again last Thursday. I went on my first media tour, hosted by Alberta Milk, Alberta Beef Producers, and Beef Information Center. My invitation came as a member of the Alberta Farm Writers. I’ve been writing farm related articles for several papers for several years now, but I’ve never spent a day with my peers. My Barrhead writing club friends aren’t farm writers, and none are journalists.

It was so inspiring to be with like minded people! I seized the opportunity to ask questions I’ve wondered about – questions pertaining to writing style or to interviews.

I learned much about the farming industry too. We toured Bill and Angela Feenstra’s dairy farm east of Olds. Not just grain farmers are high tech businessmen! Feenstras use a webcam to keep an eye on their cows, which they can access from anywhere. Collars with monitors tell them exactly what each cow is up to.

Olds College fed us a wonderful roast beef dinner, then gave us a tour through their meat processing training center. They are leading Canada in the development of a national training program that will hopefully encourage many young people to take up this career.

At the Harvie Ranch southwest of Olds, against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, Will, Cole and Scott Harvie told us of their work producing the some of the best breeding stock of North America. Julie Harvie then presented the Cattlemen’s Young Leaders development program, pairing young farmers between the ages of 18 and 35 with a mentor in their particular field of interest.

I was just impressed with the passion these people bring to the farming profession. They are excited about the opportunities ahead. Meeting Rosie Templeton, one of the Cattlemen’s Young Leaders, made me believe there is a good future for our young people.

Not just the small scale farmers in Zambia need exposure. We all need to get out and see, not just read about, what is happening in other places and other sectors of the farming industry.

Now I’m really ready to go to the Canadian Farm Writers Convention in Moose Jaw this weekend!

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a 7-day weather report like todays: sunny, and warmer! I’m almost scared to check it again, just in case ‘they’ change their minds. Farmers will be happy – it was pretty disheartening after just three days of combining to get that half inch of rain again. There’s a lot of crop still out there.

Rod Fisher of Westlock Terminals said last week the wheat would all be feed. Yesterday he told me, somewhat surprised, that the hard red spring wheat held up better than he thought. Loren is hoping his wheat will at least make a no. 3.

We’re hearing reports of some excellent yields – some are harvesting 100 bushels of CPS wheat per acre. I know some guys did some forward pricing at excellent levels. So it looks like the farmers in this area will survive another year.

We ran into some trouble with the grain bagger last week. Mike Kikkernik, who runs the grain cart and bagger, was quite upset when he got a tear in the bag for the second time, wheat spilling out on the ground. It seems that with the cold weather we had, the bag was not stretching as easily as usual. No one likes wheat on the ground – the bag can be repaired, costing time of course, but the biggest issue is that even a few wheat kernels attract deer, rodents and coyotes behind them. That means more holes in the bag.

Loren plans to empty those bags as soon as possible, putting the grain through the dryer.

Saturday I plugged the unloading auger. There was nothing for it but to drain most of that two thirds full grain tank to the ground. I was thinking of all the bread I could bake with that pile, and then told our crew that in Zambia, soon as the field was clear, that grain would quickly disappear.

One Zambian farmer told us that he would go check on the combine operator in the field. It could happen that as soon as his back was turned, the operator would call his ‘friends’ on the cell phone, then the next full hopper would unload to the ground. Within a short time that pile would be gone to the last kernel and no one would be the wiser. He began hiring young high school boys to sit at the edges of his field as monitors, to call him when they saw something suspicious. (Could they be bribed from the other side too?)

I guess, seen from a hungry villager’s point of view, what’s a hopper or two or three to a rich farmer who has so much? That villager doesn’t understand what makes up a farmer’s financial records, that often as much as comes in quickly goes out again. It’s totally beyond their comprehension.

The golden grain fields have taken on a shade of grey. “It’s all going to be feed now, I’m afraid,” says Rod Fisher, from Westlock Terminals. It seems such a shame – what little wheat came off before it started raining September 5th was mostly a No. 1.

I rubbed some of Loren’s hard red spring wheat out in my hand yesterday. The result wasn’t encouraging – dull yellowish colour, some shrivelling, etc. No, it won’t make No.1 anymore. It’s the same story over much of western Canada.

Loren Koch (that’s the farmer I combine for) is getting a roller mill in. He plans to combine his barley as high moisture, roll it and bag it. The barley was planned for cattle feed anyway. He’s also planning to bag high moisture grain as it comes off the combine. It’s easier to put through the dryer later, in the winter, he thinks. Dealing with the grain dryer, which is slow, and combining at the same time is too much of a hassle.

At least he has options. That’s one of the benefits of using a grain bagger. The air tight storage in special grain bags means fungi and insects can’t survive, so grain can safely be bagged at high moisture rates. Bagging first and drying later means the extra cost of the bags (aprox 7 cents/bushel), but it gets you started faster and keeps you going longer in the fields, and this year that could turn out to be the deciding factor.

“We me nid cha mache wa me wot, mue me mache wa me cha!” (Swiss for: If you can’t do what you want, do what you can!) Ernst Spengler said that, kneeling in my garden digging potatoes during a lengthy period of rain during harvest. Ernst and his wife Ruth came to spend September with us a few years ago. He had long dreamed of helping with harvest in Canada. It was a September like this one, more rain clouds than sun. When they left we only had half the harvest off.

Farmers are doing what they can. Some are setting up grain dryers that haven’t been used for a few years. One neighbour is taking out fence lines on land he recently purchased. Machinery is getting repaired, grain bins swept out, yard work done that’s been put off for months. Every cloud – even a persistent rain cloud, has a silver lining.

We’d give that silver lining up at a moment’s notice for the gold of sun though.

It smells of hay or silage, and the swath I leave behind almost looks like it too. I’m combining Theo Feitsma’s organic barley. To his credit, the organic part has nothing to do with the green matter. Feitsma’s got hail on their crop about a month ago and he figures about 20 bushels/acre are on the ground. Much of that germinated and is growing nicely. Because the barley’s been mature for a while already (weather wasn’t cooperating to combine) some of it isn’t much taller anymore than the new growth – a bit of a challenge to cut. Well, I’ve always liked a challenge!

This December Feitsmas will finally receive certification as organic dairy producers. Due to strong demand Alberta Milk was calling for organic milk. . “We have a healthy lifestyle, and I thought it is a shame if I don’t take that opportunity,” Theo told me. He hopes to see a 25 cent/litre premium over the regular milk price.

To have milk certified as organic, cows must be held on an organic basis for one year. They must be fed all organic rations. Treatment for disease and other problems must be carried out according to organic standards.

Feitsma’s produce much of their own feed so crops must be organic too. Farmers have to abide by organic rules on their fields for three years before they receive certification as an organic grower. No herbicides or fungicides, or fertilizers on a chemical basis are allowed.

“It’s a huge change,” Theo said. “I was not aware that it was so complicated. Every year you learn, but it takes a lot of years before you find out what is good for your farm.”

Because of the dairy cows, Feitsma’s have manure for fertilizer. That helps. Theo is thinking of intercropping peas with barley next year. The two can easily be harvested together, and work well in the dairy ration. Right now his crop rotation is barley – oats – barley – alfalfa. Peas or faba beans would help bring more nitrogen.

Being dairy farmers has made it easier for the Feitsmas to transition to organic production. They can grow more legumes – alfalfa for hay or silage, peas and faba beans for feed. There are always options for a crop – if there are too many weeds they can silage it instead of combining.

As Renata, Theo’s wife said, they can always go back to standard farming if it doesn’t work. But for now they’re feeling confident they’ve done the right thing.

* * *

Last night it rained again. The weather report is all about showers and cool temperatures. It’s hard to be patient with all that crop ready to go out there!

It’s wet outside, cold and raining again. Robert reminds me it’s often this kind of weather the beginning of September. Quite a few farmers got a start at combining last week – the dust was flying in barley fields, some peas were harvested and even some wheat. It will be awhile now ’til anyone gets rolling again.

The first combines I saw in the field were threshing almost empty pea straw. A few days before, a hail storm pounded most of Brian Hnatko’s probable 50 bushel/acre pea crop onto the ground. That’s pretty discouraging. There seems to be more than the usual amount of hail storms going around the area this year. On Thursday night friends had to take shelter on their way to town – golf ball size hail damaged some house siding and wrought havoc with most mature grain fields.

I sent Robert’s Swiss cousin Lisbeth out for salad. She came back with a colander overflowing with the beauty and bounty of the garden – dark red beets, bright orange and yellow (yes!) carrots, green snowpeas, red onions, herbs and lettuce. It was the makings of a salad fit for a king.

Such a bountiful time of year – and so short. I want to cram each day to the full. Maybe that’s why we get the urge to can and freeze all this surplus – so as to extend summer into our long winter nights, when we open a jar of Saskatoon sauce or make a blueberry pie.

Yesterday Robert accompanied me out to the bush to pick blueberries and cranberries. Robert’s not a berry picker, but I wasn’t going alone – it’s bear country. We drove to the sand hills and then took the quad out on the trails. Crown land, it’s mostly swamp and low hills covered with blueberry and cranberry bushes, and in some places, berries. Crimson cranberries on glossy green foliage remind me of Christmas. That’s what the berries are for – wild Cranberry sauce for friends for Christmas, from Robert and Marianne Stamm (he did pick some too!).

Lisbeth’s garden Salad: (sometimes I add feta cheese, or nuts…)

lettuce leaves – whatever is available, preferably a mix. Top with:

Thinly sliced carrots

sliced red onions

Snowpeas cut into bite size pieces

Finely chopped zucchini and/or cucumbers

Sliced tomatoes

Coarsely grated beets (add to salad just before serving)

Top it all with fresh chopped herbs – parsley, chives, dill and edible flowers – calendula, nasturtium, pansey.

Serve with her special Jann dressing: (Makes about 1.5 litres)

400 ml vinegar (cidar, balsamic, herb – a mix is great)

2 onions, mid size

2 tbs. salad seasoning such as Aromat, can use seasoning salt, with Dash, etc.

2 heaped tbs. mustard

4 tbs. honey

Herbs as desired (oregano, parsley, paprika, pepper, etc)

600-700 ml oil – Lisbeth uses a mix of olive oil, nut oils, canola oil, etc

Mix for a few minutes in electric mixer. She adds a raw egg just before it’s finished.

Putt, putt, putt, putt… the tractor strains to pull the ever heavier load. Perched on the rusty steel seat, the farmer in blue jeans and straw hat stretches to pull the lever on the old John Deere one cylinder model. The crowd cheers, protected by umbrellas and plastic covers. A little rain doesn’t stop the old timer’s tractor pull at the Westlock County Fair, held August 20 – 23, 2010.

In the show ring beside the tractor pull, horse and rider proudly show off their skills, donning yellow slickers to keep dry. In another show ring carefully groomed cattle stand by their owners, waiting patiently for the judge to choose the champion.

I take my company to the exhibition, where I’ve entered some photos. Two sport the red second place ribbons. I’m happy – there’s some excellent competition. On the table beside are vases of perfect zinnias and marigolds. Styrofoam plates show off six green beans, or four potatoes grown and prepared by children, or ambitious adult gardeners. We check out the lavishly decorated birthday cakes. Chocolate fudge and cookies remind us we’re hungry and we head for the concession stand of the local Youth for Christ group.

There’s hardly a larger town in rural Canada that doesn’t hold a fair during the summer – often beginning with a parade down Main Street. There’ll be a rodeo, baseball tournaments, a midway, and exhibitions of arts and crafts and the best the garden and kitchen can offer. Some of my nieces and nephews make their best money of the summer at the fair.

Agriculture fairs are held all over the world. Many of our farm friends in Zambia take part in the big fairs at Kitwe and Ndola, using the opportunity to showcase their products and to win prizes. Others are there to offer farmers new ideas and technologies. Stanley Ngulube first heard of and bought Moringa seed at the Ndola fair.

The Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth (RASC) is a confederation of leading national Agriculture Show societies all over the Commonwealth. It encourages the interchange and development of sustainable agriculture, forestry, fishing and the rural environment throughout the Commonwealth, working with and through the leading national Agriculture Show Societies. (www.commagshow.org)
Members come from developed and developing countries alike – the Calgary Stampede, Northlands of Edmonton, and the Canadian Western Agribition are members, as is the Agriculture and Commercial Society of Zambia.

Every second year, the RASC holds a big show and conference in one of the participating countries. This year it was in Edinburgh, Scotland. In 2012 the show will be in Lusaka, Zambia. I plan to be there!

Before Mike Samson of Tawatinaw, Alta., died, he dreamed of building a house for his wife Lisa. Mike had terminal brain cancer. The doctors told him he’d have another six months or so to live. Determined to build until he died, he dreamed of sitting on the veranda with Lisa.

Mike was doing some work for Brett Seatter, a friend from the nearby community of Dapp. Knowing Mike wouldn’t be able to finish the house, Brett decided to help. Mike and his wife Lisa had started coming to Cedar Creek Community Fellowship church. Brett approached the church board and they voted to support the building of the house, organizing labour and equipment.

On June 28, 2010 Mike passed away suddenly after a major seizure. The foundations weren’t even poured yet. It would have been an easy and understandable decision to abandon the project at this time. But those involved decided they would go ahead for Lisa’s sake, and to honour Mike’s wish.

The building of this house has become so much more than a house for Lisa. It’s the story of how a community comes together in the face of tragedy. The volunteer help has come from boundaries far beyond that of the church or immediate community. The stories of business and individuals offering their help are deeply moving.

There’s Dave McElhinney: Dave runs a construction company in Medicine Hat. Organizing a framing crew from the Dapp area, he came up the 650 kilometres from Medicine Hat and spent a week putting up the walls and roof of Lisa’s house. For Dave it was “pay it forward” time. Dave spends much of his time and money on water-drilling projects in the dry desert areas of northern Kenya. To show his support, a business friend decided to help Dave build a new house, something Dave had only dreamed of. This was Dave’s way of honouring that friend.

Businesses gave equipment for free – TPH rentals from Westlock asked no money for the tamper, Polak Farms donated a tractor, and Feitsma Farms a skidsteer. I’m sure there were many more. Family and friends made hot meals for the working crews.

Men and women, young and old could be found working and laughing together at the site. The project is making a profound impact on Mike and Lisa’s immediate family and community – “Why would total strangers come and help us?” It’s also affecting those taking part. The youth nailing down shingles and carrying timber are learning to understand the value of taking time to help other people – one of life’s most important lessons.

If you’d like to follow the story of the “house that’s built on love,” you can check it out on Facebook – Mike & Lisa’s House. Anyone can access the page.

The world is still a good place to live in.

My parents came down from Fort St. John, B.C. and we spent some time on the nearby Hutterite colony picking berries with the women.

I’m sure my ancestors were hunters and gatherers. I’m never happier than in a berry patch with the sun on my back (and mosquitos whirring about me) – my mother likewise.

The Sunniebend colony grows long rows of tart black currants, sweet raspberries, and dusky saskatoons for the colony pantry and to sell at farmer’s markets. I’ve spent some happy hours picking alongside them to fill my own freezer. There’s a lot to be said for working together as a group. Time flies as we chatter and sing, sharing stories of my life and theirs.

They ask me about life in Africa, how people live, about our work with the farmers. I ask them about colony life, their customs.

“There must be tensions in such a large group at times”, I say. We’re sitting around the crackling campfire now, the raspberries safely in pails in the cold storage.

“Yes, you could cut the tension with a knife sometimes!” one of the women laughs.

“You have to have broad shoulders,” another says. There aren’t many secrets when people live continually so closely together. But while I am with them, I don’t feel any disharmony. The girls are relaxed, enjoying a bit of free time after a long day in the garden.

Life isn’t all just work. On Saturday the girls from another colony came to help pick black currants and raspberries. At three we broke for afternoon coffee. The girls gathered together in the shade of a big poplar tree, one brought out her guitar and already we had an informal singsong, my Mom in the midst of them.

“Come to the wiener roast on Sunday night,” they insisted. And we did, bringing along some fireworks our Swiss relatives left with us. The excitement on the faces of the kids was worth every minute. The little girls wear long dresses; hair tightly braided under headscarves, the little boys in black pants with suspenders. But they are children like any all around the world. They chase each other, tease, cry, and scream with pleasure when an especially brilliant rocket goes up in a shower of sparks.

I never go home without a bag of warm buns, fresh picked peas, a jar of the black currant juice they just took out of the big kettle, or some pickling cukes. I am richly blessed – not just by the gifts, but by their friendship. I am honored that they feel the same.

Almost, when I am together with them, picking berries, sitting around the fire, drinking coffee at the kitchen table, I think I could live like this. But I’m too independent, too much my own woman. I’ve lived out in the world too long.