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We’re done! We finished combining at 1 a.m. this morning. As I drove the combine home from the field, rain drops began splashing on the window. Just in time! This morning we had several short downpours.

The weather report had that ‘s’ word in it for this week (snow), so Loren was anxious to get those last 270 acres of canola harvested. We had four combines out there yesterday. They made short work of the job. Beat, who ran the grain cart, did a lot of guessing in the dark, trying to figure out which combine lights were from whom. Loren’s combines have radios, but the two ‘guests’ didn’t. Michael worked up quite a sweat trying to keep up with trucking the canola to the bin. It took us less than four hours to harvest a 170 acre field of canola, which yielded an average of about 40 bushels per acre.

I’ll miss working with the guys. Loren had a great crew again this year. There’s my ‘tribal cousin’ Beat Fehlman, a 36 year old friend of our son Mike in Switzerland who wanted to experience a harvest season in Canada. At the beginning of September Beat expressed despair that we would ever get all those acres of grain into the bin. It’s been a real experience for him to be part of that. The others were pretty patient with our Swiss gibberish on the radios.

Michael Kikkernik, a 23 year old neighbour’s son and a driller, was home due to the economic slowdown. He continually amazed me with his quick sense of what needed to be done and his ability and desire to work hard. And I still haven’t figured out the answer to his last riddle.

Alan Moes often came by after his work as grader operator for the county was done and sat on a combine or truck. He was there to help us finish last night. Alan used to farm and loves to be part of the harvest. Michael’s Dad Ken was often there to lend a hand for repairs.

Then there’s Loren himself. Loren never got excited when one more person came home with a machine that didn’t work – Beat got excited enough for both of them. The poor guy was so frustrated one day when the baler broke down the third time. Loren reminded him that it was only a machine, and they only break when they’re being used.

Loren and I spent countless hours on the radio discussing farming, God and life in general while combining together on those many acres.

I learned to do things I didn’t think I could – combine green lodged grain without plugging too much, unplug, and back the combine up a narrow farm lane. There was no discussion – Loren just expected me to be able to do it and I did.

It was a good season – both for the farm and for me. I love combining! But I am glad it’s over for the year.

My Dad just called from Cecil Lake, B.C. (Peace River area) to tell me they had several inches of wet snow over night. Some of my family is still combining – that will effectively put a stop to that for awhile. No one likes snow this early.

What a busy two weeks we have behind us! Farmers in this area (Westlock, Alberta) are either done or wrapping up combining. Robert and his crew finished Saturday night. I’ll be busy most of this week yet – we’ve got some canola and barley left to do. My boss, Loren Koch, is scrambling for bin space – a good problem to have. As we read and hear of poor yields across western Canada, we continue to be very thankful for this harvest.

Sunday afternoon I had an exciting phone conversation to Zambia with Eva Sanderson. Eva will be a familiar name to anyone who followed my blog through our time in Zambia February – April this year. A 63 year old black Zambian, Eva was very involved in politics at every level. She has now turned that amazing energy to agriculture. I was privileged to help her organize the first trips to conservation farming field days, motivating small farmers in the Kitwe area to begin farming with more sustainable and profitable methods.

Out of that initial enthusiasm there has been some significant action. Trips were made to several more farms and cooperative groups to see what is possible in Zambia. Relationships were formed to potential markets in India. A core group of interested farmers, men and women, are in the process of forming a new cooperative.

Eva’s experience with cooperatives, which is also our experience, is that they function best when members work individually on projects and plots and come together to learn, purchase inputs, and market products. One of the projects planned is to grow bird’s eye chili peppers. Each member will plant one lima (one quarter hectare) of chilies. They have the market secured, which will also provide the seed and instruction on growing.

What excites me most about what is happening with this group is that is it entirely Zambian made and led. I was there to help at the beginning, but I wasn’t in charge. Eva assures me that my support at the time was vital to making things happen, but knowing her, it would have happened anyway.

Outside support from government and non-government programs is very important in Zambia. The Norwegians strongly support the conservation farming method with money and staff for education and research. Other NGOs have done much work with agricultural methods and teaching in Zambia of which this group is now profiting.

But it is when Zambians themselves take charge of their future; when they organize themselves and do the work and give leadership – that is what we all work for. Very exciting indeed!

One of the perks of combining for Loren Koch is supper meals on the field. Terryl, Loren’s wife, is a great cook and we enjoy hot roast dinners and pie for dessert. I doubly appreciate it – I used to be the one making meals besides running a grain truck or combine and, it seemed, hundreds of other things.

While chewing on golden ears of corn on the cob from the garden we reflect what a blessing this crop year has turned out to be. Despite a late cold spring, frosts almost every month, and drought in June the crop has matured on time and is yielding generally well – little of this ‘half of a crop’ many predicted. The warm weather these last weeks made such a difference.

Loren had one field of hard red spring wheat that was particularly drought stressed which only yielded 35 bushels per acre. I reminded him that where I grew up (Peace River area) 30 bushels was a decent crop of wheat. It’s hard to believe now. The next field of CPS wheat yielded 70 bu/acre; a pretty good crop.

Thursday, September 17, we all stopped our combines to attend the funeral of Tony Moerman, a good friend and fellow farmer. Tony died of lung cancer at the age of 74. When we visited Tony a few weeks ago, his greatest wish was still to spend at least a half hour driving Iman’s grain cart (he was the grain cart operator during harvest there the last few years). He never made it.

Shortly before the funeral a light storm dropped a few milimetres of rain. Some felt it was Tony making sure we could relax and take time to remember him.

The morning after the funeral Iman, Robert’s boss, had quadruple bypass surgery. Iman is only 52, a very fit man, with three young children. But family genetics are against him.

Tony’s death and Iman’s surgery reminded us that there are more important things than big fields and bountiful crops. Let’s live life to the full each day, take time for our families, friends and ourselves because we don’t know how much time we’ll have left. Our businesses are important, but that’s hopefully not all we will be remembered for.

The community rallied together to support both families during this difficult time. Even though many are themselves very busy with harvest, folks took time to visit, women took the time to make a funeral lunch, and to provide suppers in the field for Iman’s harvest crew

The weather report for this week is again sunny and warm. We thank God for that and pray for safety for people and machinery as we head into another very busy week. There shouldn’t be too much crop left out there by Saturday night!

Monday, September 14, 2009:

It’s a beautiful morning, and the weather report is sunny and warm for the whole next week. That means I’d better get my lunch packed – and snacks enough to go until late! My boss, Loren, likes to combine way into the night. It’s hard to go home when he’s still at it – but enough sleep is important for a safe harvest. Everyone needs to know where their own limits are.

Robert’s boss, Iman, is scheduled for open heart surgery on Friday. It’s not an ideal time of year for a farmer to be out of commission for six weeks. He hasn’t been feeling good for some months then ended up in emergency a couple of weeks ago. They did lots of tests and realized things are serious. So he doesn’t have much choice.

Iman was telling me there are a lot of good people in this community. So many people have told him – “just call me if you need help”. I think this is when rural Canada shines – when there’s an opportunity to help a neighbour in crisis.

Iman’s got a good crew, so he’ll be all right. The hard part for him is to stay ‘put’ and watch everyone else run around doing his work.

The combines are running full speed again since Saturday. A lot of crop should come off this week, which would be good. Farmers continue to be happy with their yields, considering the severe drought at the beginning of the crop year.

We took three days off last week during the ‘rainy season’ and drove up to Manning, where I had a couple of interviews to do. Manning is about 100 kilometres north of Peace River, Alberta. We were sure impressed at the farming that is done that far north. There are some big grain operations up there. We visited one farmer with 14,000 acres. He’s harvesting 3,700 acres of canola, straight cutting all of it. Variety and the right combine header have lots to do with that.

I spent some time with Sam King, a cattle farmer that annually grows 60 acres of corn for winter grazing for his 250 cows. He’s done this successfully for 12 years. Corn that far north!

Blaine Calkins, Pioneer seed rep for that area told me the best corn grown in the Peace River area is in Fort Vermilion, about another 200 kilometres north of Manning. He thinks it is because the days are so long during summer that nights don’t cool down as much and the corn never stops growing.

Well, there’ll be no combining again today. After a longer period of hot dry weather we’re getting what is often the September weather pattern. Some rain is followed by a few days of sun – just enough to get a person into combine mode again – and then another rain. The old timers like to tell us that in this area most of the combining used to be done in October. Let’s hope this year isn’t one of those!

Some of the early crops came off last week. I got a good day in on Thursday – enough to familiarize myself with my John Deere 9600 combine again. It was a beautiful day – one of those where you think there’s no place you’d rather be than where you are – combining golden barley under blue Alberta skies.

We were taking off a neighbour’s organic barley. There was a good bit of chickweed underneath in one part of the field, so I quickly figured out how to use the header reverser again and to learn to listen to the rumbling underneath me.

Farmers seem to be pretty happy with the yields coming off. They’re definitely not spectacular – 40 bushels of peas/acre, 60 bushels of barley, 50 of wheat. Our area likes to see 70 bu/acre peas, 100 bu/acre barley, and 80 bu/acre wheat. But with this year’s weather patterns, we’re all just happy to have a crop there.

Yesterday I took a friend Diana and her two daughters on a tour through rural Alberta. It’s an annual ritual we started last year when Diana’s mother was here from Argentina. There are so many interesting roads and places close to us that we’ve never seen. We packed a picnic lunch and headed east. Valleys, rocky fields with bison and then again wide grain fields spelled each other off. The bush is just beginning to take on that yellow tinge of fall.

We are our lunch in the centennial rose garden of Mr. V’s, a tree and plant nursery and berry u-pick near Boyle, Alta. Then we spent quite some time wandering through their plantings of berries and shelterbelt trees.

Besides a sizeable u-pick operation of raspberries, saskatoons, and strawberries there were choke cherries, Nanking cherries, sand cherries, black currants, buffalo currents, champagne currents… Along one hedge there were various apple trees laden with fruit. We consumed a veritable fruit salad just tasting!

Mr. V’s has many fruit and ornamental trees and perennial plants that can’t be easily found otherwise. Check them out on their website at http://www.mrvs.net . I bought an American Linden tree, to commemorate Diana’s mom, who died in July of cancer. In Switzerland, a Linden tree is often planted in memory of someone.

Harvest is sneaking up fast! The first canola fields are swathed. Some swaths look pretty skimpy. Other fields look quite decent from the road. The yield monitors will tell us the truth (if calibrated right).

Robert and I will both help our neighbours again with combining. I’ll be running one of Loren Koch’s John Deere 9600s while Robert gets to run one of Iman Koeman’s John Deere 9860 STS combines, with auto steer and the whole thing. Robert will help Iman for the whole season, starting with swathing.

We did that last harvest season already. We always enjoyed having breakfast together and comparing notes from the day before. It was a new experience for Robert, to be in bed sometimes before I was – or for me, to send him for groceries to town because I was still combining and they were done. When we were farming ourselves, he was always the last off the field.

I asked Loren this morning when he thinks we’ll be starting. “I’ve got some wheat that could be ready early next week,” he said.

Wow! I’m not ready for that!

The crop year was quite a bit behind when we came home early in June. It’s caught up a lot through the hot drier summer, and with some good rains in between there will actually be some crop there to harvest.

Loren is silaging our neighbour Clifford Cyre’s canola crop this week. Clifford got a heavy hail on it about a month ago that pretty well stripped the blooms at the time. The crop bloomed again after that but it would never mature by harvest time. Clifford was going to plow it under.

I asked Loren if he thought it would make good feed. “We’re not sure,” he answered. “We’re doing it because it’s cheap and it’s a short feed year.” He says every plant put out six new stems and has small pods now. He figured there should be oil in the pods already.

The green matter should have protein and with some oil for energy, it could make good feed. He’s sending in a sample for feed analysis and will decide then how best to fit it into his feeding rations. I’ll be sure to ask him later how that turned out and let you know.

I went out there tonight and rode a few rounds with one of the truckers. There’s quite a nice canola swath there, lots of tonnage, and an amazing amount of pods considering that the plants were completely bare after the hail.

The silage chopper kept six truckers driving all out the 10 miles to the farm. I think Loren might be getting more feed than he thought!

Robert and I are ‘up north’ again for a few days – my brother Fred asked us to come and help him put up his second crop silage. I got to do the raking with a tractor without a cab. I could take in the whole rolling Peace River scenery and let the sun tan my skin – just like in a convertible.

It was a beautiful weekend for the North Peace Fall Fair yesterday. The annual fair was an important part of my summer as a child growing up. I remember spending the morning digging potatoes and carrots from my own garden, agonizing over which four potatoes would look best together, which six peas curved just right so the judge would give me first.

That’s one of the few things that haven’t changed much since I was young. Now it’s my nieces and nephews that steam up the kitchen baking bread and cookies for the junior exhibitions, or spend hours grooming their calf until the hair lies just right for the show ring.

Poor Stephanie! She’d worked so hard the evening before to get Wanda looking perfect. When she went to get the calf the next morning Wanda looked like she fell into the manure pit.

So it was back to work all over again. I was there to watch her in the show ring. She did alright for a first time. She didn’t get first, but not last either.

My three sisters competed with each other for the best canned pickles, saskatoons and raspberry juice. They’re carrying on the legacy of our mother, who taught us how to preserve the bounty of summer, and then to show it off at the fair.

Fred’s wife Madlene won third at the women’s nail driving competition, Fred tried his hand at hand sawing logs, and everyone enjoyed the tractor pull and heavy horse pull.

My rancher sister Helen and husband Dave Harris served beef-on-a-bun and ran out of beef just as the crowd dispersed. It was a very successful weekend for everyone!

And Fred got his silage pit covered late Saturday night. So he’s happy too. He’s especially happy at his second cut grass. He got more the second time from one field than the first cut.

Cecil Lake was a happy exception to the drought plaguing so much of Alberta and the Peace River area of B.C. They received enough rain at the right times so things look pretty good.

I’m happy for them after the massive drought they had last year. Everyone needs a break now and then.

How quickly the cereal fields change colour. They hardly head out, a sea of waving green heads and then the fields start to show shades of yellow. Some barley fields are already ripening off.

I see farmers making silage out of barley originally designated for the combine. We had some heavy hail go through the area some weeks back. There’s been a lot of green regrowth since. There’s plenty of second growth too in fields where the drought left crops thin.

The different levels of crop maturity are going to make for some difficult decisions come harvest time. Do you put more money into desiccating a crop that’s already much smaller? With this year’s crazy weather patterns many fear an early frost.

Loren Koch and Tim Kubinec both think there’s only half a crop out there. I think they’re comparing the crop to the last two bumper years we’ve had. Other farmers think we may be surprised at what’s there when it comes to harvest.

The rains we’ve received since early July have turned pastures green again, even though they’re still too bare. Most cattle farmers feel they’re going to make it through the summer somehow. There have been some decent hay fields after all especially where there was alfalfa.

Dennis Primeau was cutting an interesting silage mix last night – it looked like a blooming field of canola underseeded to alfalfa. Dennis told me the canola was entirely volunteer. “It (the canola) came a bit heavier, I ended up with more than I thought,” he says. He always seeds his alfalfa straight, which usually gives him a good cut the first year. Normally the alfalfa is 18 inches when he cuts it. This year, with the late rains, it’s only a foot high. He rolls it into silage bales.

Reint Boelman has a beautiful field of sunflowers near his house. They started the sunflower fields a few years ago to decorate for their son Reint’s wedding. They’ve grown them every since. This year they used about 600 blooms for their son Neil’s wedding last Saturday.

The sunflower seeds are used on the farm and mixed into the feed ration for the dairy cows. “They really like it. When you are combining they come and lick your coveralls,” Reint’s wife Meike says. “It seems to be better for production and reproduction.”

I’m sick of saskatoons – I was wrong about supply not keeping up with demand (at least in our area). Robert phoned the Neerlandia coop about windows and Bert, their salesman, asked him first off, “Can you use saskatoons? I’ve got so many…” It’s almost like zucchini! How did those blooms make it past those May and June frosts??

My fingers are blue, and I’m sure my lips are too! It’s saskatoon berry time in western Canada. I’m at my friend Sharon Rottier’s U-pick filling my pails and my mouth at the same time. Those berries are sooo good!

Saskatoons are wild blueberry-like berries that grow across much of midwestern Canada and USA. U-picks with domesticated versions of the berries are springing up all over the country, with supply not yet keeping up with demand. For good reason:

Saskatoon berries can be considered as one kind of “Superfruit.” The word “Superfruit” refers to fruit which contains high sources of antioxidants. From a nutraceutical perspective, antioxidant rich fruits have anti-cancer, anti-aging, and anti-heart problem effects on the human body. The benefits of antioxidants have contributed against cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases, and act as a protective guard to our immune systems. (from www.prairieberries.com)

Fifteen years ago Sharon went to a course put on by Alberta Agriculture. Their goal was to promote saskatoons to the point where anything strawberries were put in (pies, ice cream, pastries etc.) saskatoons would be used too.

A neighbour started a U-pick shortly after and when Sharon visited her, she thought “this is fun – someday I’m going to do this.”

Sharon planted 300 saskatoon bushes about 10 years ago. The seedlings came from the Saskatoon Farm south of Calgary, Alberta (www.saskatoonfarm.com). She has three varieities – Thiessen, Smoky and Northline, which she picked because they remain a shorter shrub. She has too many memories of thrashing through the bush as a child, trying to reach these high branches and getting all scratched.

She’s been getting a serious crop for about three years now. “I think we’re up to 60 pails (this year) already and we’re having fun,” she says. There are still a lot of berries out there. As of yet she is advertising by word of mouth only.

A four litre pail of berries, picked yourself, costs $8.00. “If I was a real business person, I could make more money,” Sharon admits. But the patch helped purchase a dishwasher last year.

“It’s a way for me to connect with the community,” Sharon says. She likes to take the time to meet with her customers, invite them in for a purple milkshake when they are done picking.

What’s a purple milkshake? – you put a lot of ice cream, berries, milk and ice cubes into a mixer and you have it. Vary it according to taste.

“In the winter it’s so fun to make saskatoon rhubarb pie or crumble. Once frozen it works best to add rhubarb to the saskatoons to bring out the flavor,” Sharon says. She likes to use the following saskatoon pie filling recipe, often canning supplies of it for the winter:

Makes 2 pies:

7 cups saskatoons

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/2 cup tapioca

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and add water to almost level with the fruit. Let stand 5 minutes. Slowly bring to a boil. Pour, hot, into sterile jars and seal with new lids. Process in water bath for 15- 20 minutes.

So get out there to one of the U-picks in your area, pick a few pails of the succulent velvet dark berries, eat a whole bunch and make sure you freeze or can some for those long winter months! Your body will thank you, so will your family and friends. And you’ll support our local farmers.

English roses frame the Country Coffeehouse of a South African woman, robotic arms milk the cows on a Dutch dairy farm, an African dromedary kisses those who pet him – it was quite the safari!

Last Wednesday I joined over 60 others to take part in the 24th annual Westlock County Agricultural Services Board (ASB) tour. This was my first time on the tour.

What amazes me is that for 24 years they have found an average of six businesses or other spots of interest to visit in this county. That’s 144 places. Bert Seatter, one of the councilors, told me they have enough interesting places for another twenty years. And some people say that Westlock is a boring county.

It was a beautiful day. We began it by wandering around Mel and Jean Primrose’s wonderfully landscaped yard. Mel entertained us with his many inventions and collectable antiques.

Decked out in white disposable booties, we toured the Jonk Farm potato fields. While his mom Renee talked to the group about potato foundation seed, I chatted with Theo. They grow 75 acres of seed potatoes, which they sell to California, Manitoba, New Brunswick and to growers in Alberta. Their seed is started from tissue culture out of a lab from Edmonton. Theo also crops 2000 acres in grain, some of it seed oats.

The Boelman family installed two robotic milkers on their Yoke Dairy Farm last fall. They milk 106 purebred cows, which come in to milk 24 hours a day. Each cow wears an identification collar with chip which is connected to the computer.  Boelmans say their milk quantity has increased substantially since they installed the robots.

The Funny Farm is operated by Jonathan Jesperson who has been an entrepreneur since he’s 12, buying and selling exotic animals of which he now has 600. He’s well known around Alberta for his petting zoo – you can hire him for an event where he’ll bring from five to 100 animals. His main attraction is an African dromedary (one humped camel) who loves to slobber over you with a kiss. It was a scary moment when his “tame as a kitten” buffalo bull, Rodney, attacked the draft horses pulling the wagon. Jonathan whistled to the bull which promptly turned and ran to him.

A tour through Susanna Fourie’s Country Coffeehouse, just out of Westlock, provided a welcome respite from the heat. I’ve often meant to stop in there with a friend. Now I am sure I will.

Westlock Landscaping Supplies did a great job of marketing that day. Few of us knew it was there. They have a great array of special plants and landscaping items such as carved rock or statues. I heard a lot of people say they will be back soon.

The last stop was at Little Anchor Farms  Ltd., who set up a liquid fertilizer plant this last year. Terry and Angie Rimmer are very pleased at how it is working. They also have two corn planters for rent, one of which is set up for use with liquid fertilizer. Corn is still a relatively new crop for our area with its short number of frost free days.

The tour cost $20. That included coffee and juice with muffins before starting out, an ample lunch, and ended with a steak barbeque. They say it’s never been rained out, so as the Africans say about something good: “it can’t fail.”

I’m impressed with what goes on in my county. I’ll be sure to look out for the tour next year!