Reading Time: 2 minutes Most of us barely know what our forelock is, let alone how to tug it when we bow to the lord and lady of the manor. Nor do we know how incredibly close we came to having a landed aristocracy in Canada. All of us do sometimes wonder, however, if we could be evolving back […] Read more
How low must we bend?
The unexpected house guest
Reading Time: 4 minutes Donna heard a knock at the door and frenzied shouting. “Are you home? Can we come in?” Donna’s daughter-in-law Elaine was carrying her toddler under her arm. The little boy looked happy to see his grandma, but Elaine was red-faced and frantic. “That chimney! We’ll get rabies! In our own home.” Donna had never seen […] Read more
Surfing for perfect pork
Reading Time: 3 minutes I have a tech-savvy neighbour, Sully, who jets across the continent every week advising corporate moguls about social media in the Age of Information. Quite frequently, Sully and his gorgeous young wife Sophie take a drive up the Petunia Valley Sideroad (which we affectionately refer to as the off-ramp of the information highway) and join […] Read more
Machinery Guide
Reading Time: 3 minutes dynamic tire corporation galaxy ag radials The Galaxy line of agricultural tires are imported from China and compete on price. The company says they compete on performance too. The Galaxy line features many farm tires, with the Galaxy Ag Radial R-1 tractor tire offering a highly versatile multi-angle design. The Galaxy Ag Radial has a […] Read more
Carry the load
Reading Time: 4 minutes When Elaine stepped inside the Hanson Acres cleaning plant she found three generations of Hanson men all focused on the same thing. Her father-in-law Dale was balancing at the top of a six-foot ladder, trying to hold on to one end of an eight-foot iron shaft as he pulled it out of the fanning mill. […] Read more
Reading about you on Bay Street
Reading Time: 2 minutes I sometimes play with the idea of Country Guide publishing a series of business books based on the strategic insights we glean from the farmers in our stories. By that I don’t mean business books FOR farmers (really, that’s what we’re trying to do with every issue of Country Guide.) I mean business books for […] Read more
In for the long haul
Reading Time: 4 minutes Cousin Allison’s wedding dance had reached the point where the women were discoing to Village People songs, small kids were roaming the hotel ballroom like a pack of wolves, and Allison’s father had cut off the flow of free liquor. “I got to the bartender just in time,” said Dale Hanson’s nephew Mark, almost spilling […] Read more
Debt load
When times are good, should you pay off debt? Or should you take on more debt to add productive assets, parlaying the strength of today’s commodity prices into growth?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Rémi Lemoine: I think one of the most important things it tells us is that the issue of farm debt is very complex and can’t be boiled down to simple, almost philosophical, statements like “Pay off debt during good times.” You also can’t read too much into numbers that cover the entire industry or entire […] Read moreMachinery Guide
It’s no wonder farmers put such pride in their combines. There’s no feeling like the harvest season when every thing is working smoothly. Besides, today’s combines are beautiful feats of engineering — and as the new breakthroughs in combine technology show, they just keep getting better.
Reading Time: 3 minutes massey ferguson 9500 series Massey Ferguson introduced their Next Generation axial combines in August 2011, saying the new 9500 Series combines are the most productive and efficient combines they have ever offered. The 9500 Series consists of three models, the 9520, 9540 and 9560 from 313 to 460 max horsepower. At the heart of the […] Read moreWe all make mistakes
Reading Time: 2 minutes For this issue, contributing editor Anne Lazurko interviewed McGill’s Henry Mintzberg — arguably Canada’s foremost business prof — in search of insights for managing a farm, which Mintzberg does have. But instead of telling us how farmers should copy all the good things that his corporate clients are doing, Mintzberg had a different message. Don’t […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
