Good Fences vs. Bad Fences

Just when you think you might get a relaxing Sunday afternoon, you are on your way home from church and check over at your small hay field and see someone else's 200 head of cattle eating on your bales!!!!! Needless to say that is the end of relaxing.

You get home and phone that neighbour and find they aren't home so you hunt them down at the golf course. You also listen to a message that some friends, who own 10 acres of the same piece of land, informing you that they had to chase cows that morning out of same field and that the fence is destroyed and so are many bales.

Now you get to move that tractor and tractor-trailer to that field to save at least a few of the bales and by your count there are a minimum of 8 hay and 2 fescue straw bales unsalvageable. Now these bales are not those little tiny square type bales, these are huge solid big round ones that probable cost about $30+ to purchase.

So who is the "you"? Well, I guess it would mean Ronnie and I. Those poor cows are always out because they are hunger. The farmer doesn't have enough land to feed them. They are on the road, and in other neighbours fields as well. I totally understand and appreciate the expression "Good fences make good neighbours" because it is so true. The fence does not belong to us because we do not keep any cows on that piece of land. The fence has about every 4th post broken or falling down and it only has smooth wire on it, so the cows just walk right through, although there is an electric fencer on it somewhere which is a little of a deterrent but if they are hunger enough they will just risk getting zapped in order to eat.

The grass is always greener........

Why Are We Doing This?

As most of you know, we get the majority of our income through farming. We live on a farm/ranch that includes over 5000 acres of land. We own 6 quarter sections, or 960 acres, the government lease that we purchased has 20 quarter sections or 3200 acres and we rent about 6 quarters that is another 960 acres. We have approximately 200 head of cattle. (One can never be to sure about the number when the animals are out in the pasture or lease for the summer because some end up dying.) And of those 200 about 150 have calves.

Don't get me wrong here, because I loved raising my boys on the farm and actually life was pretty good until the BSE or mad cow crisis occured. This knocked some of our income back by at least 1/3 and maybe even close to 1/2. Yes, it has slowly started to rise again and last year we received about $1.50 average per pound for our calves. What do you pay for a pound of hamburger in the store? Or how about that steak? We recently sold some open cows. (Cows with no babys or ones that aren't pregnant.) We received about $0.35 per pound average.

Recently Ronnie and I have been in earnest discussions about the state of our farm. Can we possible continue at this rate? Then there is the grain farming. Last year's input costs were equal to the cost of our new truck and we could have paid cash. This is no tiny truck. We got a farm truck. It is a one ton, 4x4, extended cab to fit the family truck. As you all know the cost of fuel has once again skyrocketed since last year as well. This year's input cost will be at least equal if not more then last year and we only put 1/2 the fertilizer on the we should have!

I wrote a letter to our lovely new premier and received the same little form letter that we always receive. Thankfully, Ronnie has always grain farmed with his family and this cost sharing of equipment has always helped as well as they all help each other with the input. Where do we go from here? I told the premier that the family farm is dying. I will not allow my boys to farm. Ask a school kid where they get milk, cheese and meat from, they will tell you the grocery store.

Okay, now I am done with my rant.

On a lighter note, we spent about 4 lovely days a Lesser Slave Lake in northern Alberta. The weather was beautiful and the bugs were few. Tyrell came and joined us on the weekend and did some fishing with his dad and some friends. We had a good feed of Walleye one night.

Just for you Sandy!! Love ya.