Another wet year

FTLComm - Tisdale - Wednesday, May 31, 2006

For those of us who have lived long enough there are memories of the early 1950s when it wouldn't stop raining in the fall and we had heaps of snow in the winter followed by more spring rains. It was good for the ducks and geese but our roads were destroyed in some areas and farmers were unable to plant and if they did get a crop in the ground they were unable to harvest the huge yields. But, it was good for the ducks. It would appear that we are once again in a similar cycle as the run off slipped away farmers got out there and did their best to put in the crop.

did their best to put in the crop but with the exception of a few north of town half of the fields in this area will go unplanted in 2006 while to the east of us from Bjorkdale to Hudson Bay there was little or no planting whatsoever. It began to rain in earnest last week and stuck with us right through until Tuesday when the sky lightened up a bit and today there was a healthy helping of sunshine while nasty thunderclouds prowled around the area. The rivers and streams are swollen once more and the poor little Doghide just can't

contain itself as it has spread out along its banks and some of the Riverside golf course is no longer riverside but river itself. The real punishment is that the price of grain, both cereal and otherwise are moving up steadily as poor crops in the US and China have already pushed the July futures on wheat close to $5 US a bushel. With this rise in price more wheat will be planted and the value of other crops is expected to climb right along. Farmers around Porcupine Plain were gathered together today to talk about their loss

and the pitiful response from government and government programmes. Everyone in the industry is going to need help and patients to deal with banks and living through a year with little or no return after a record year nationally with agriculture showing such poor income in the past two years. On the right is a QuickTime VR looking at the sky over Tisdale at 4:00 this afternoon. You might find this better if you zoom in a bit. QuickTime is needed to show this image so if it does not show up download the latest version.

Timothy W. Shire

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