The Peak of the Agricultural Year

FTLComm - Tisdale - August 23, 2000

The dust and smoke from the asphalt batch plant located at the town land fill site wafts across the horizon as the morning sun drives up the temperature. Perfect harvest weather as 31 degrees is expected this afternoon and those crops not already finished are getting the final energy to ripen. Between the town and this intersection a sea of wheat stretches out toward Louis Dreyfus and Harvest Valley beyond that. Even though this is just a side road with the highway

just a mile away this road needs to be maintained and the RM patrol is cleaning up this road making sure there is gravel on the surface to protect the road base and tidying up along the edges. As I came up to this obscure location I was following a large truck from Harvest Valley Wheat Pool loaded with a big plastic tank, behind it was an RCMP 4x4 and this grader. I pulled off to the side to watch the grader which is equipped with one of Capital "I" Industries mulchers, hoping to see it in action when along comes another Harvest Valley truck this one towing a grain tank trailer.

There is a lesson in all this. This is the peak of the agricultural year with grain being moved, alfalfa being harvested, swathing in progress and some combining already underway. Everything, every activity relies upon safe dependable transportation. This road even though it is only a mile from a paved highway is busy at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning, it has to be in good shape to handle the traffic and the traffic is vital to the agricultural industry. As I pulled up to this intersection I had met two farm pick up trucks was following a service vehicle and a large working truck, this truck came by and the grader was busy looking after the road, all within three minutes.