Best Ever - Harvest Finishes Near Weekes

FTLComm - Weekes - Sunday, September 16, 2001

Over a month ago I asked Robert Lindenback how the crop was coming along and he told me then it looked like this year it was their turn. Robert and Tom farm some 3,200 acres North East of the village of Weekes and Saturday evening when these pictures were taken there was a little less than two hundred acres of flax out in the field and every thing else was in the bin or shipped to market. The right combination of planting at the right time, rains that came when needed and warm enough weather has made this "the best year ever" as Tom explained that just a bit more rain and things could even have exceed the already outstanding harvest of 2001.

Their wheat crop ranged around the fifty bushel mark per acre as did the barley crop which all went for malt and an expected final payment of between $3.50 and $3.75 a bushel While this barley crop alone will see close to $100,000 in revenue operating expenses paid out during September would exceed that much money. Canola crops brought in moderate yields of about 38 bushel and as this flax crop is coming off it looks to be both of high quality and plenty of this valued seed. Weather for harvest has been perfect and they were close Robert did not think they would be able to finish up today but would go into Monday but harvest would be over by Tuesday. Each year the bins have been steadily added to increase the storage on this farm. This year's excellent harvest weather eliminated the need to use the year old drier system which has been a crop saver in wet years.. But this storage capacity indicates the shift from farming as it once was to the form it has now taken with grain elevators located more than an hour a way and this year the farm grown on here will be shipped by the farmers themselves from a CN rail siding half an hour away. Below is the farm yard of the Lindenback brothers as seen at 6:30 Saturday afternoon in a panorama QuickTime VR. If you do not see this image horizontally you must download Quicktime (it is free and simple to install) and it will enhance your computer's ability to utilise this and other multimedia items, including movies, and sound.