BLOGS

Summer is here, and I’m excited! I do enjoy certain elements of winter, spring and fall, and I am glad that I live in a seasonal climate, but summer is by far my favourite time of year.

It’s so nice to see everything alive and well after a long winter. The noises from the pond outside my office window have quieted down since spring, as well as the traffic from the nearby fertiliser plant. Now aside from the click-clack of my keyboard, all I can hear is the hum of a passing car and the birds chirping outside.

I just finished re-reading “Hatchet” by Gary Paulsen. I read it several years ago, but my son was reading it for his reading class so I decided to read it with him.

If you haven’t read “Hatchet,” you should. It’s a great book. It is about Brian, a 14-year-old boy whose plane crashes, and he is left alone in the Canadian forest for several months.

He only has a hatchet and the clothes on his back. He learns through trial and error how to survive. Of course, it is not a true story, but it is based on true events.

Sometimes I am struck by how fields keep their past. No matter how thoroughly a dead furrow seems to be disked before new seeding, you can still find it after every cutting.

I can look from the top of the hill and count the times I got the haybine stuck because the holes left by the wheels turn into island marshes that can be hard to get rid of.

Acts of good and bad farming are often still evident when spring comes again.

Most dairy producers I’ve talked to tell me they farm because they love the outdoors, they love working with animals, they love operating equipment and they love working in the fields.

Rarely do I hear it’s because they love producing a high-quality beverage for infants or the elderly.

Does that mean the quality of milk produced is not a priority of the farm? Certainly not.

My Wage
“I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.

For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid.”

—Jessie B. Rittenhouse