Reading Time: 2 minutes The black swans of 2022 have helped reveal the true value of our farms and of the products they produce. The questions that this raises have an easy answer Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about agriculture is how rarely we stand back in awe of it. For instance, in the paragraph on top, I shouldn’t […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Who can say you don’t deserve it?
Hanson Acres: Feed the world, sure, but these three too?
Sometimes life on the farm invites all stragglers to stay and stay…
Reading Time: 4 minutes The truck was empty so Jeff shut the auger off just as his wife Elaine came his way. It was late winter and she had her cross-country skis on, dodging the loose gravel that showed through the snow. Flora, the German shepherd puppy, ran alongside. “Finally finished cleaning the Thompson’s lentil seed,” Jeff said. “Great,” […] Read more
Hanson Acres: New friends, great food, and then a long road home
No matter your age, sometimes there’s a twist at every turn
Reading Time: 5 minutes “Good game!” Dale said as he and Donna and their new friends Phil and Marlene took seats around the plastic table next to the pickleball court. Dale and Donna’s first three weeks in Yuma had been a bust. Trouble with the furnace back home. Good friends not returning for the winter. They found out their […] Read more
Editor’s Note: What will you read tomorrow?
Reading Time: 2 minutes It rarely gets said in print but it’s true. One of the things Canada gets right about its agriculture is its farm media. We did it well 100 years ago. I’m convinced we still do. Now we’re asking, where do we go from here? I’m not talking only, or even mainly, about Country Guide when […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Summer in the new Canada
Reading Time: 2 minutes When COVID-19 first struck, who could have guessed that the biggest lesson it would teach us is how dangerous it is for Canadians to stop interacting with and appreciating each other. It’s being called the winter of our discontent. What name will we give to its summer? What, individually, are you going to do to […] Read more
Hanson Acres: Standing in line, waiting, waiting, waiting…
Worrying about spring long before it arrives
Reading Time: 4 minutes When he went inside to change into some “going to town” jeans, Jeff heard his eight-year-old daughter Jenny complaining. “This Rice Krispie cake doesn’t taste right,” Jenny was telling her mother. “Did you use the wrong recipe?” Jenny wasn’t usually whiny, but she’d had a lonely week at home. She didn’t have symptoms, but her […] Read more
Editor’s Note: It’s too early to say the battle for gender equality is won
Reading Time: 2 minutes Agriculture’s progress on the gender front has been uneven. Country Guide’s, I have to admit, has been uneven too. So yes, let’s celebrate women’s gains, but remember that more must be done. I wondered recently if Guide should do an issue where all the farmers and all the business advisors, in fact where all the […] Read more
Hanson Acres: Looking south with stars glittering in their eyes
“I’m not missing another year,” Donna said, and for good measure Dale added. “Don’t worry about us.”
Reading Time: 4 minutes When Dale and Donna Hanson drove home from their winter holiday in Yuma in January 2020, the biggest challenge they’d faced was finding a hotel room along the highway during a sudden blizzard. “Good thing we came back to Canada before COVID-19 hit,” they’d both said many times since then. After spending the rest of […] Read more
Editor’s Note: Who should own the land?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Some problems must be solved before they become problems. For Canada, a question that will soon require an urgent answer is, who should own our farmland? There’s a whole world full of things that you and I can disagree about. One thing we can’t, though, is that farmland is an increasingly precious commodity whose management […] Read more
Hanson Acres: There’s always more room in a farmer’s schedule
If only farming was as simple as everyone seems to think
Reading Time: 4 minutes Jeff Hanson was next in line at the Co-op grocery store cash register when he ran into his old friend Shawn. “That’s a full cart,” Shawn commented. Jeff had loaded his shopping cart with a week’s worth of food for himself and his two kids. Shawn, still single, didn’t need a grocery basket, let alone […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
