Sometimes you just can't win

[cowman]

My neighbor retired from the pig business last year. He was just getting too old to do the work. He had survived the disaster of 98 by pouring money into his operation from his investments. He rented out the barns but suspects his renter will give it up when the price crashes this fall. The government got the majority of the money when he sold off the pigs. The renter is having a very hard time finding any barley right now.
Now my neighbor tells me he took a real beating in the stock market over the last six months and bailed last week. He watched his assets shrink about 30%! He still farms about 400 acres but he suspects his crops are a writeoff. He is very frustrated and not a happy camper! He says he will sell out, give most of the money to the government, and move to town.

[rodbradshaw]

Cowman
It must be frustrating for your neighbour as he has worked all his life to build up assets to get caught in a double whammy.

Neighbours are silaging and it is running about 3 ton to the acre on the early seeded crops, they looked not bad from the road. People east of Innisfail are cutting barley for feed in hopes of having something to sell. This has been a weird year. Carrots are none existant, so much for diversification.
Rod

[cakadu]

Our neighbor was telling us that this is the driest he's ever seen it - even in the 30's and he's been around for almost 83 summers now. With all these things coming at a person, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel or find something to be grateful about at the end of the day. I guess I think about the speaker I heard recently when I went to Moose Jaw. She was a lady that came from South Africa to rural Saskatchewan and saw it as an entrepreneurial goldmine. She has revitalized a small town - girouxville I think it is - and it is doing great guns.

She told us about how she had everything she could ever want in South Africa - BMW, gated house, servants etc., but she didn't have the one thing she truly wanted and that was safety and freedom for herself and her family. We here in Canada and North America don't have any idea about what it's like to walk out and wonder if today is going to be the day that your life is ended by someone else's war. If nothing else, we can be grateful for that. Her message was you need to change and move on in order to get ahead. You've got to think about making alliances that you wouldn't consider before. I really enjoyed what she had to say and she presented it in a very unique fashion.

Sorry to hear about the carrots, Rod. I went to the market the other day wanting to pick some up and lo and behold, there were none. I thought it was because of the poor conditions. There was a news story last week about the Millarville farmers market and how tough it was on market gardeners this year. No where near as much produce to choose from and higher prices because of the scarcity.

Does anyone know how the saskatoon growers are doing?

[cowman]

I often wondered how the vegetable growers were making out. I would imagine potatoes would be taking a beating. I talked to a farmer last year, who was harvesting his potatoe crop(I was really impressed by this operation), and it was a poor crop. A lot of small potatoes. He said they only got 5 inches of rain...I wonder what happens when you get 2 inches like this year.
And yet this year the gardens have really done well if you can pour the water to them. A little water and all this heat can really produce! Too bad we couldn't get some irrigation for these more valuable crops.
It would seem to me that the drought compensation package didn't address the vegetable grower very well. I think they only get the $7 deal like the grain guy when they in fact must have a lot more bucks tied up in that crop.
I think a lot of people in the drought area are really confused and frustrated right now. They see the end of their world as they know it. For many it is an end of their operations that they spent a lifetime working at. I guess the important thing is to realize that there is a life after farming and it just might be a good thing in the long run. Only through a lot of pain do we ever truly learn anything.

[rodbradshaw]

Cowman
It is amazing how the potatoes are hanging in and if we could get a rain this weekend we might be able to get as good a crop as we had last year. The vegetables in the dry land area of Central Alberta are suffering and no one could have predicted this dry of a year.

Neighbours were in Innisfail Auction mart yesterday to watch cows sell and it was a little unnerving as cow/calf pairs were bringing less than weaned calves last year. Even people with money can not buy these cows as there is no feed reserves and one doesn't know how long this feeding seson is going to be.