holiday away, open or close up the cottage, or just get together with family. Youth away at college are usually home and everyone can enjoy seeing each other.

There were a couple long weekends that left me as a farmer very nervous. The May 24 long weekend came at planting time when farmers were trying to finish up cropping before haying and before planting deadlines when crop insurance expected you to have the planting finished. Then in the fall, there were two Thanksgiving weekends, one for Canada and one for the US. These were right in the middle of fall harvest. If a necessary machine like a corn planter, combine, corn harvester, tractor, truck or other necessary machine broke down the farmer might wait a week or more for critical parts. The machine company’s parts depots could be in the US or Canada and their employees, truckers and all other people between the parts depot and the farmer take long weekends off too.

When the weather is nice and sunny, farmers get very frustrated not able to work those long hours spring and fall while watching the weather network to see another wet spell approaching. That’s why some farmers keep thousands of dollars worth of parts in the shop.

In 2019, our Pontiac farmers endured a very wet and slow spring that slowed or even prevented planting of crops. That was followed by an extended dry summer when the crops that did get planted had a hard time growing or even getting that nice green growth colour.

Farmers had accepted that 2019 would just be a survival year and with global trade wars and the uncertainty of crop or animal prices a profitable year slowly became only a dream. Then came some nice rains in September and the lawns greened up. Farmers knew that the rains came too late to save the grain crops. Pasturing cattle had started to need supplemental feed that had been stored away for winter. The late rains helped green up the pastures and not as much dry hay had to be supplemented.

When farmers started cutting corn silage they were pleasantly surprised with total silage yield. Although corn height varied from three feet to 14 feet in the same field and corn kernel moisture and yield also varied greatly that corn silage that never got to have that nice dark green color yielded better than expected. Because distressed corn can also bring surprises it must be feed tested before feeding to animals so that the correct feed supplement can be mixed with it.

We have just enjoyed our Canadian Thanksgiving and have so much to be thankful for. Farmers are thankful for what feed they have to cut. We are all thankful for our families and friends who are our real treasures. We are thankful to live in the most beautiful and colourful part of the world, in a country where we have a right to vote and don’t have to carry a gun! We live in a country where we can enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner in peace that many people in the world can only dream about. Take time to enjoy the beauty of the place we live and take a little time to give thanks.

Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family

for generations. gladcrest@gmail.com

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