globalfarmerdotcom

(This is a copy of the last blog on my site: Diaries of a Global Farmer)

Robert often reminds me what a privilege it is that we have
travelled, lived, loved and been loved in three distinct cultures and
continents. Since 2006 we’ve spent part of each year in Zambia, Switzerland and
western Canada.   The interactions with the people we met have
made our lives immeasurably richer. I hope I have become more tolerant, more
understanding of those different than I am.

I’ve posted weekly to this blog since January 2009 – four
years. That’s a lot of words. I chronicled our visits to farmers in Africa,
Europe and Canada. I’ve introduced my readers to individuals and communities
and their stories. I hope I’ve been able to foster a better understanding of
different cultures and peoples.

This last year has seen some changes in our lives. Our home
base has changed from Westlock, Alberta (Canada) to Schleitheim, Switzerland.
Two little grandsons have entered our lives. Robert’s father suffered a massive
heart attack and my mother a massive stroke. Both are still alive, but needing
care.  Many of my days in the last months
have been spent in the hospital (in Canada) with my mom, or in the care home
with my in-laws (Switzerland), or with the babies who are a year old now (also
Switzerland).

Add to that a book deadline I’m trying to meet. Alberta
Foundation for the Arts provided me with a grant to write the stories of some
of the women I met in Zambia who have inspired and encouraged me. I want to
share their stories, and also something about the culture, land and people of
Zambia as we have experienced it over the eight years we have travelled there
on short term work trips.

So I won’t be writing a regular blog for the Western
Producer for now. I have a new blog address, http//global-farmer.com which contains all my old blog entries, and will continue to post to it. The entries will most likely focus
more on the topics prevalent in my life right now – balancing elder care and
baby care with my own life, family struggles within changing dynamics (don’t
worry, my family, I won’t embarrass you!),  living with stroke or Alzheimers.

I might write about Beatrice, Mom’s nurse from Nigeria, that reminded me to laugh lots even if the
going is tough; about Mom’s Ugandan doctor, who talked about the importance of
the place of faith during rehabilitation; her South African doctor, who told
her it was okay to be mad at God. About the Tibetan nurse in Robert’s parent’s
care home who came to live in Schleitheim two years ago.

Culture and people still fascinate me. What makes us tick;
do the things we do? How does the migration of people, the intermingling of all
races and cultures change the way we live and think?

So I look forward to continue writing, and to hearing from
you. What are your stories? Sharing our stories seems to be the best path to
understanding each other.

Our neighbour wanted me to meet his visitors – a young
couple that will spend a year in Gambia on a mission station. The young man is a gardener,
and will be responsible for the large medicinal garden the station maintains,
especially the Artemisia. He doesn’t know anything about it – can I come and
tell him more?

The garden is five years old, and maintained after Anamed
guidelines. www.anamed.net/ I took the Anamed course ‘Natural
Medicine in the Tropics’ almost two years ago in Stuttgart, Germany. I was
interested.

“Are the locals growing the plants too?” I ask the young
man.

“That’s still a problem,” he told me. That the locals don’t
seem to understand the importance of looking after a plant that takes more than
a few months, of the concept of doing something year after year, the
continuance of the cycle. “They are lazy,” he was told.

I cringe. It’s a common enough comment, especially from the
workaholic Germans and Swiss. And from their vantage point a valid enough
statement. Actually, not just the Europeans say that. Often enough it will be
the Africans themselves that will say that of their own people: “They are
lazy.” “They are not committed enough.”

The young man goes on to tell me the mission is attempting
to teach the locals to grow vegetables to augment their meagre food rations.
But the locals are not catching on as the mission would like.

I think back to a conversation I had with Jessy Mpupulwa in
Mpongwe, Zambia a few years ago. I was discussing the importance of fruits and
vegetables in the diet, of the minerals and vitamins vital to our bodies. “And
I thought that the whites only ate so many fruits and vegetables because they
liked them!” he said. Jessy is a college educated man. If he didn’t see the
value of eating fruits and vegetables, why would his mostly illiterate rural
farmers do so? During the rainy season they had their tomatoes and cabbages,
squash and maize. Some only had squash and maize. Most of them grew some beans,
which they shelled and ate during the dry season to augment the staple maize
meal. In between seasons, there would be the ‘hunger months’. They’d always
lived like that.

My father grew up in the Emmental, in the Swiss foothills,
an area known for its stubborn farmers. He was never too interested in the
merits of food he wasn’t familiar with. I think of him whenever we are trying
to introduce new ideas to our Zambian friends. A people of long traditions and
little exposure to other ideas doesn’t easily change their way of doing things.
Neither do we, for that matter…

Diaries of a Global Farmer will appear at a new address from now on: http//global-farmer.com

It’s a keen wind blowing cold over the Smokey Hills in the Peace River region of Alberta. I press myself into the large round bale behind me, inside the bison (don’t say buffalo!) handling system of the Adam Ranch near Bezanson, AB. I’m thrilled to be here. Standing around me, their shoulders hunched against the cold, are bison ranchers from all over Alberta. Just before, driving into the ranch, we saw a picture out of the old days on the prairies: a dark herd of bison cows with their calves, a grove of poplar trees behind, the open meadow before.

This is the oldest bison ranch in Alberta, now operating 35 years. It saw the first boom and bust years of the bison industry and is here to enjoy the current boom. Standing there on the corral boards, Brian Olfert, manager of the ranch, doesn’t seem to feel the cold. Confidently he answers the many questions of the participants of the regional Alberta Bison Producers conference. The ranch runs 800 bison cows in two herds, one of 300 and one of 500. “We’ve worked many years to build up a strong herd,” Olfert says. A strong herd means less loss from disease.

Long known for working bison with horses, the Adam Ranch uses quads now. Horses can’t compete with a bison in speed or endurance. “Use a quad!” is the general consensus of the ranchers around me, and stories start to circulate of trying to chase bison with a horse.

I didn’t expect to see grazing corn on a bison ranch. Many are surprised to hear that, especially so far north. (I interviewed Sam King of Manning a couple years ago, who consistently grew grazing corn several hundred kilometers north of here.) “It costs a bit to put in, but the tonnes per acre outdo anything you’ll ever grow,” Olfert tells the group. We stop at the corn field on our way home. The warm summer and long fall without frost produced some nice cobs.
Silage bales aren’t your traditional bison feed either. “It changed the way we feed,” Olfert says. There is no leaf loss, with better quality. They aim for 30 pounds of hay per day per cow. Oats are mixed directly into silage bales. The bison are fed every day to reduce waste and get better weight.

“Do feed samples on your feed, guys!” Olfert admonishes the ranchers. The Adam Ranch uses a nutritionist. “They’re worth enough,” (the bison).

The heat radiating from the barrel heater inside the wood shack together with the coffee from the can on the heater drives the cold from our bones. Ross Adam sits beside the door in his big white cowboy hat and moustache. He says he keeps 30 longhorn cattle just so he can wear his cowboy hat to the dances. (Actually it’s to utilize the bush land, because bison don’t like bush and make a mess of it).

I’m glad I took the bison ranchers up on their offer to join them. It was a real ‘feel good’ day!

I was excited to bump into the Alberta Bison Producers who were holding their regional meeting October 19 and 20 at the Prairie Inn, Grande Prairie where I was also staying. They graciously allowed me to crash their breakfast party. We talked about some of their key issues.

They need more bison producers. The market is strong, consumers want to purchase bison meat, but the industry can’t deliver enough. “You risk losing market share if you can’t supply,” says Ivan Smith, vice-chair of the association and owner/operator of Big Bend Bison Ranch and Big Bend Market in Red Deer (www.bigbendbison.com/. “It’s just filling that need 52 weeks a year.”

“The consumer knows about the value of the product now,” adds Keleigh Cormier, who together with husband Pierre is project manager for the Alberta Bison Producers association (http://www.bisoncentre.com/). The education has been done – both by this and other bison associations, and by the health industry which advocates the advantages of lean meat, preferably grass fed. The bison has it all.

“We are ahead of the pack in terms of high quality product,” Pierre says.

This is quite a turn around from a few years ago. Smith remembers a time when producers gave the meat away for the price of cut and wrapping. Many producers liquidated their herds at that time. Those that made it through those lean years are cashing in now.

With an increased concern for both their individual health and that of the environment, consumers are looking for healthy high-value local products. That’s good for local businesses such as Smith’s in Red Deer, which saw an even bigger spike after the recent E-coli scare.

Bison is generally a higher priced meat product. That isn’t much of a deterrent anymore in Alberta, where average income tends to be higher than other areas of Canada. It’s not just Canadians that are eating bison though. Alberta Bison Producers chair Thomas Ackermann and his partner market bison worldwide (www.rangelandbison.ca). Ackermann told me an important customer is Coop Switzerland, where I shop regularly. I’ll have to check for his bison products next time I’m in Switzerland!

Matthew Toni is executive chef of Maddhatters Liquid Lounge and Crazy Cuisine, Grande Prairie’s premier nightclub lounge offering high quality lunch and dinner options (http://www.maddhatters.com/). Maddhatter’s lounge seats over 250 people. They regularly feature bison on their menu. May was bison month at Maddhatters. “We’ve never had a line up before 11:30 before,” says Toni. When word got around that the bison barley soup was sold out the day before, people made sure to be there early. That month the restaurant sold 5700 items that contained bison, using just over two whole carcasses.

Strong demand is good news in any industry. The challenge now is to meet the demand, before something or someone else does.

The group took me along to Adam Ranch, oldest bison ranch in Alberta. I’ll tell you something about that next week.

No, it’s not Remembrance Day yet. But it was a day to remember.
September 22 and 23, Bruce Coleman and five or six friends held an old time
threshing bee along the Alaska Highway south of Fort St. John, B.C. Two teams
of horses hauled the oats stooks from the 14 acre field to the thresher powered
by a 1927 McCormick-Deering tractor. Besides an opportunity to put their draft
horses to work, it was a day to show how things were once done, “what this
country was built up on,” as Bruce told me.

Those of us swallowing huge swaths of canola into big
combines, covering a quarter of land (160 acres) in a day, forget what it often
cost to get that land into production, what it used to take to bring that crop
in.  I remember well the first years on
our farm in northern B.C., in 1964/65, when my father cut the crop with a
binder (a machine that cuts the grain, gathers and ties – binds – it into
bundles that are dropped in groups of usually seven). A Russian we called
Rubberchuck manually stacked the bundles into a conical stook to dry and mature
before threshing. The stooks were taken home to a standing threshing machine
owned by a neighbour that took it to one farm after another.

As kids we worked day after day alongside our parents, picking
roots in fields that were cleared by a CAT bulldozer (earlier with axes), to
prepare the land for a seeder. I forget that too, when flying over the land
with the big machines now.

It took two days for Bruce and his friends to thresh the 14
acres. I didn’t ask how long it took for the horse drawn binder to cut the
grain, or to make the stooks by hand. The group invited lots of people to the
threshing bee, but others stopped in while driving down the highway, out of curiosity.
For some it was nostalgia of ‘better times’, for others something they’d never
seen. Some of those helping were in their eighties. “Those 80 year olds were
forking stooks!” Bruce marvelled.

The men that know how to produce crops the old way are all
turning 80 or more. “I’ve just got to hang around and learn all I can from
these guys,” Bruce says. “They’re not going to be around forever.”

Bruce and his friends have made hay on 100 acres for four
years now using horses and horse drawn equipment that he inherited from his
father. His father farmed with horses all his life, full time, near Olds,
Alberta. “It’s the way we grew up,” Bruce told me. “I really like working with
horses.” This is the first year they’ve produced grain using horse drawn
equipment. Gordon Meek of Bear Flats, towards Hudson’s Hope, B.C. used to grow
crops like that, but it’s become too much for him and Bruce’s group has taken
the project on.

I’m thankful for people like Bruce and his friends; like the
Ukrainian Village east of Edmonton (www.history.alberta.ca/ukrainianvillage/), and many others across Canada showing us
how things were done. It’s not just about nostalgia, about reminiscing of the
old times. It’s about remembering what the first settlers on our land went
through to make it arable, about giving the land with the respect due it.

When I tell someone Mom had a stroke, they almost all have a story of someone close to them who has also had one, often severe. Stroke is a very common ailment. In the Heart and Stroke Foundation booklet our family was given, it says that stroke is the most costly of all illnesses. One reason is that people often live years after a stroke, many needing part or full time care. Many people live for years after a stroke without being able to communicate or walk.

Is stroke preventable? Not always, but we can manage the risk. Mom has a heart ailment, so stroke was a very real probability. But high blood pressure, high cholesterol, overweight, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and stress are things we can control. Our age, gender, and family history are things we can’t. Check the Heart and Stroke Foundation website :  http://www.heartandstroke.com

Do you know what a stroke is? “A stroke is a sudden loss of brain function. It is caused by the interruption of flow of blood to the brain (ischemic stroke) or the rupture of blood vessels in the brain (hemorrhagic stroke). The interruption of blood flow or the rupture of blood vessels causes brain cells (neurons) in the affected area to die.” (From the Heart and Stroke Foundation website.)

How do you know if someone is having a stroke? Most often stroke victims will have sudden weakness on one side of the body or face. They often slur their speech or lose it. They may have vision problems, or sudden headache, or dizziness. These symptoms may be only temporary, even just a few minutes. They call those TIAs – transient ischemic attack, or mini-strokes. Please go to emergency, even with TIAs.

If you think someone might be having a stroke, ask them to do these things: raise both arms. If there is weakness on one side, they will not be able to raise one arm properly. Ask them to smile – is one side ‘falling’ inside of turning up? Can they say a simple sentence without difficulty? Can they stick out their tongue? (Tongue control is difficult if a person has a stroke.) If they have problems with any of these things, and show any of the above signs, PLEASE take them to emergency immediately.

There is a clot buster drug that can be administered that can dramatically reduce the effects of a stroke, but it must be administered within three hours of the stroke. This drug can only be used if the stroke was the effect of a blood clot. There are instances where even then it cannot be used, such as with my mother who was on various drugs for her heart condition that prevented the use.

Stroke is so common we should make sure we are well informed, and take all precautions to reduce our risk.

There’s a ‘pizza garden’ at the Fort St. John Public Works building – ‘slices’ of corn framed with pole beans, brussel sprouts with frizzy purple kale, some herbs, interspersed with bright red geraniums. The garden is one of several of the city’s Public Works department Edible Landscaping project. Tara O’Donnell, Community Development coordinator in Fort St John, told me that groundskeeper Sonya Runacres began adding fruiting shrubs and trees to the grounds about ten years ago. Three years ago the city introduced the Edible Landscaping project. I wrote about it last November in a blog: http://ww2.producer.com/blogs/global_farmer/wordpress/?p=1198

 

The project’s showcase garden is at the entrance to City Hall, where Tara works. She often sees parents showing their children the garden. “There are kids who have never seen broccoli except on their plates,” she says. “Kids love it. They get to be hands on.” The community is encouraged to harvest the produce.

“Fort St. John was once an agricultural community,” Tara says. “These are our roots.” The project shows the community ways of growing their own food; helps parents teach their children. It doesn’t take much, just a little imagination, a little knowledge, and a little care. The showcase garden demonstrates what can be done in a small space. By mixing flowers and veggies it can even be beautiful enough for the front yard.

Sonya Runacres says the project is making a difference in the city. She’s maintained a small vegetable garden at the Public Works shop for the staff. “This year I noticed that the business across the street put in their own little garden. They planted potatoes, onions, tomatoes and pumpkins!” She’s also noticed other businesses cleaning up their lots and planting either flowers or vegetables, or both.

In 2011 much of the project’s produce was donated to the local food bank. There won’t be much to donate this year. People have learned they are free to harvest. “Last year I had to pick all the apples from the trees at the Pomeroy Sport Centre, This year the apples were picked clean!” Sonya says.

Sonya tries to plant some of the more unusual vegetables. Many people never knew what kohlrabi were, but found they loved them. A summer student had no idea that brussel sprouts grew on stalks.

Sonya wrote me the benefits:
1. People get in touch with nature. They see that with a little work and planning you can grow many amazing things. With a bit of imagination the combinations can be very eye catching.
2. More and more people understand the benefits of “home-grown” vs “commercially” grown produce. There is just no comparison in taste.
3. The health benefits. People can see what is going into growing their produce; one cannot always be so sure from a commercially grown vegetable.
4. Even those who are not able to grow their own have the opportunity to go to the community gardens. The gardens this year were all sold out! The first time this has happened since they started a few years ago.

Here’s a story Sonya wrote me: “I was picking some strawberries and gooseberries at the PSC one night in August when three kids came by on bikes asking what I was doing. I told them I was picking strawberries to make some jam. They were excited about there being strawberries and asked if they could have some. I told them that everyone was allowed to pick them. I showed them where to find them (these are the alpine variety so they are small but extremely tasty) and they started picking some. They loved them so much they stayed for about 20 minutes just picking berries with me. The littlest one on the other hand was the smarter of the bunch… he just sat beside me and ate the berries out of my bucket!”

Yesterday I heard mom laugh out loud again – for the first time since her stroke more than a month ago. I’d told her that Chris Bargen was cutting the carrot tops in the garden with the lawn mower. I thought it was pretty funny too – I’d never heard of doing carrots like that. But he says his grandpa used to harvest carrots like that.

Chris and Leah planted our garden this year. It was their first garden together. I rarely planted more than half the area. They planted the whole thing. Four long rows of carrots, rows of beans, cucumbers, onions, peas, potatoes, lettuce, dill and pumpkins. Leah plans to eat from the garden this winter. I think more than just she and Chris will be eating from it! Helping her cut tops from too many carrots I told her, “You can always give some to the food banks.” She found that a good idea.

My African friends find it strange that we need food banks in Canada. We’re white, we’re wealthy. How can we have hungry people? We do. Right now, Farm Credit Canada is doing their annual ‘Drive Away Hunger’ campaign, driving a tractor and trailer through communities to collect food and cash donations. Our own town of Westlock isn’t on the trail, but our local bank is still collecting donations from September 24 to October 19. http://www.fcc-fac.ca/en/aboutus/Responsibility/driveawayhunger/index.asp

The FCC website says that there are 850,000 Canadians every month who use a food bank, 38 per cent of which are children. These food banks are dependent on the donations of businesses and individuals to keep their shelves stocked. I called 1-800-387-3232 and asked if they accept donations of carrots, potatoes, squash and beets from the garden. They do, I was told, but those wanting to donate should contact the above number and see if their local food bank is taking garden produce. Sometimes storage can be a problem.
Sister Eileen, who manages the Westlock Food bank, says she is happy to take garden produce. (They are not allowed to take jars of preserves.) So if Leah still has too many carrots after taking care of her friends and family, she won’t have a problem getting rid of them!
My own parents used to grow an extra row of carrots and potatoes to bring to the Bible School they support. I myself have grown extra lettuce for local summer camps.
Leah and Chris have enjoyed this garden so much – the planting, watching things grow, harvesting their food. Now they are enjoying sharing it with others. With a little planning, we gardeners could intentionally share more with others who really need it. Now that will bring another smile to Mom’s face!

September 19, 2012: Two weeks ago Keith Taylor’s spray plane crashed to the ground when it touched a power line while doing a custom spraying job. “God was watching over him,” said his wife Kari, and anyone who sees the plane wreckage would have to agree. His Dad Chris told me the Westlock doctor who sent him on to the Edmonton emergency didn’t expect to see him again.

But Keith was out there in his pickup today, watching the neighbours take his crop in. His internal injuries are healing, the broken ribs and bruised vertebrae will take some time, but he’ll be okay. “I should be at home,” he admitted, ruefully rubbing his painful back. “But this is too much fun!” Five combines were making short work of 240 acres of canola. Besides his Dad, his hired hand and two neighbours, the boss of the local Case dealership had brought out one of their big machines. Three men were running the four trucks to keep up with the hungry combines.

But the big day was yesterday, Monday, Rick Johnson told me. Rick has been organizing the work bees to get Keith’s crop off, 1500 acres of it. Nine combines harvested 540 acres of wheat in less than six hours. Five combines worked on one quarter with two grain carts and a bagger, while the other four, a grain cart and the trucks cleaned off the second field. “It was amazing,” Chris Taylor told me. “Everyone just knew what they were doing.”

Neighbours sent food and others helped cook, so the day was finished with a grand meal at the Taylor house. “You get a bunch of farmers together, and you get a lot of stories!” Chris said.

Jim Wiese was there with his truck. When Rick told him they actually had enough trucks he said, “No, I’ve got to be there!” A year ago the community did the same for him, when he was spending his days in the hospital with his wife, who was in intensive care after a serious accident. She’s doing well today, but he hasn’t forgotten what it meant to him to have that kind of support. Keith was one of the main players behind the effort in Jim’s fields. It was payback time for Jim.

“People started calling as soon as they heard about the accident,” Rick told me. Neighbours big and small and the John Deere, New Holland and Case dealerships offered machines and men to drive.

“It surprised me who came, and who didn’t come,” Keith said. One farmer sent two big combines and trucks on Monday. He wanted to come again today, but Keith told him to stay home – the farmer had enough of his own to do yet.

“It meant a lot just to have people call and ask how we were doing,” Kari said.

At 4:30 p.m. when I dropped by again on my way home from town, the canola field was almost finished. Once again, a community had rallied around those who were suffering and shown its compassion in a very hands-on way. Humans can be a pretty good lot at times!

Every morning, driving through the Beatton Hills on my way to the hospital, there is a golden cluster of poplars which was still green the day before. Fall colours are fast taking over the late summer ones; Sunday’s wind whirling the first leaves to the ground. I’m always surprised at the quick change of the season!

I’m the logical one to spend most of the time with Mom as the others are busy harvesting. But Saturday afternoon I traded my sister Maya jobs – she got to relax with Mom at the hospital, and I got to relax in the grain truck. I knew the truck – we’d sold it to my brother-in-law Franz Wenger when we rented out the farm – a tandem with a window in the box so you can see what you’re doing, and unload lever at the back of the box. Nice! Maya’s 11 year old daughter Iris turned the auger and tractor on and off for me (from the very safe vantage point of the tractor cab). She rode in the truck with me and we got in some special auntie/niece time.

Franz was harvesting about 45 bushels/acre of Intrepid wheat. That isn’t bad considering how dry it’s been here since June. Some crops here are doing better than expected – probably because it was too dry for disease.

At the hospital, we’re all learning patience. Mom has it the hardest – without speech or mobility. Everything has to be relearned – to swallow, to reach her mouth with a swab – all those things we never think of when we can do them. A nursing friend told me today that Mom is grieving big time. Grieving is hard work, and so is healing. No wonder she is often exhausted. And then along come her kids and try to get her to swallow another teaspoon of juice, bend her limp limbs and joints to keep them supple, sing songs to try to help her regain speech. She must get tired of us! Who knows? I don’t – I’m not good at reading minds.

Mom’s always lamented that she should have learned to operate a computer. Now she is the first in the family with an iPad, and has email and a facebook account. Who would have thought it! The iPad is not for fun. It is meant to be her communication tool. There are speech aid apps that allow her to tap on pictures to say what she wants. A cup means she’s thirsty. If she taps on the cup, the next page opens with a variety of drinks. Would she like milk, coke, coffee or a smoothie? Mom showed initial interest, but when it didn’t function right the first time, she got discouraged. It all takes time.

But the family can send pictures and emails and facebook messages, which we show her and read. Now that’s something she can understand.