Check the calendar..

[kato]

I don't think it's right. The page says middle of March, and the thermometer says June.

It's 21 degrees today, the snow is gone, and my studded winter tires are making an awful lot of noise on the highway.

This time last year we were looking at snow piled all over the place, and they were lining up super sandbags along the roads to contain the floods that were on the way.

What a difference a year makes. I guess there is no such thing as normal any more. The so called normal temperatures for here today are a high of zero and a low of minus 10.

Go figure.

[burnt]

Same here! The tundra swans are back full force migrating north, no snow left, got up to 20C again today, still 13C at 9PM. Spring peepers are singing their hearts out in the swamp across the road.

The cows are just laying around the field, soaking up the sun and eating very little this week.

Much too warm for mid-March.

[grassfarmer]

So I think you could say the EU played that one
pretty well! Ban on hormone treated beef going into
the EU remains but they will allow in an increased
amount of hormone free beef, at a time when north
America has greatly reduced beef supply. In return
the US lifts the retaliatory sanctions placed on EU
goods. Fair enough outcome as the hormone
treated stuff was never going to be saleable in the
EU if it were labelled as such.

[rkaiser]

"The volumes of hormone-free beef exempted from taxes were put at 20,000 tonnes that year and are due to be lifted to 48,200 tonnes by August 2012, of which 45,000 tonnes for U.S. beef and 3,200 tonnes for Canadian imports."

And due to the fact that American companies own or influence the only potential beef for this trickle of tax exempt beef that could potentially come from Canada, guess who wil continue to drive the price of this quota up where Canada Beef or Prairie Heritage are challenges to compete. Especially now that the brothers Nil have their own "Natural Beef Program"...

[gaucho]

No worries Prairie Heritage is doing just fine.. just a clarification... Canada and the US do not own this quota it is what was allocated by country from the EU into a pool that anyone can deliver against provided that the cattle meet the criteria for the high grain fed period and federally employed graders. In the end it is the importers who will decide where they buy their product from and where they will allocate the quota... Australia and Uruguay can also deliver on this... provided the cattle have been on 100 days of high energy rations. We are at 2.5 containers per month now and will have it to a container per week by late summer... you need to educate the European buyer first about what Canadian Beef is all about and more importantly sell the Heritage Angus Brand. Slow steady is much better than trying to blow your brains out on natural beef like what Spring Creek and Nilsons is doing in Canada.... Like Randy's other post the Canadian consumer is not willing to pair the full and fair price that thsi beef needs to be sold at.

[grassfarmer]

That's another advantage you MB folks have over us
kato ;o) Just in the last couple of days are we seeing
some grass peeking through the snow. It's sunk to
about 6 inches and is hard and crusted, with lots of
drifts behind windbreaks. We haven't been above 8C I
don't think and overnight we are still in the -5C to -
10C range so it's a nice slow controlled melt. Just
what we need as we were very dry here in the fall. I
understand a lot of Alberta is brown and snow free
but not in this corner of the prairies.

[kato]

We've been technically in a drought since last August. That drought came on top of absolutely saturated soil, though, so the damage hasn't quite kicked in yet. If we don't get some spring rains, it could soon be an issue.

The weather has become very extreme lately. It seems to come all at once, and there's no mixing it up. Last winter it wouldn't stop snowing. Last summer it refused to rain. I guess this is what they call climate change.

It has been a nice winter for the cattle, though. Weighed the feeders today, and it seems the gains are up a bit from last year. Haven't done all the math yet, we need a bit of a rest first. Oh the aching feet......

But we did weigh them without mittens, toques, and big parkas, like we usually need this time of year.

[ASRG]

My conditions are pretty much like grassfarmers. Fair bit of very crusted snow. Was very dry here last fall east of Penhold Alberta.