Reading Time: 3 minutes I joined the crowd in the corner booth of the Kingbird Café this morning and noticed a copy of the Globe and Mail lying open on the table. This is never a good thing. “75% OF FARMERS WILL RETIRE IN THE NEXT TEN YEARS,” announced the headline. I looked around the café and did a […] Read more
A New Wave
Help Wanted
Reading Time: 3 minutes Nobody at Hanson Acres saw a labour problem coming until the weekend of Donna’s birthday, back in March, when Trina came home from university to celebrate with her mom and tell the family about the great summer job she had landed. Dale wasn’t nearly as thrilled as his daughter must have hoped. Instead of asking […] Read more
That Nagging Cough
Reading Time: 3 minutes If you’re old enough to read this column, it’s a safe bet that you’ve had a cough. It’s also a safe bet that everyone you live with has had a cough too. You can’t get this far without knowing what a cough is. Knowing what a cough does, however, is a different matter. So here […] Read more
REFLECTIONS – for May. 31, 2011
Reading Time: 2 minutes “Why is income tax so complicated?” A friend puts my frustration in perspective. “The Chinese invented bureaucracy thousands of years ago. The government of Canada is perfecting it.” My wife Jacqueline and I appreciated Chinese bureaucracy during a recent tour. Her luggage was missing on arrival in Beijing. Pages of information were politely collected in […] Read more
Myth Of Persephone
Reading Time: 3 minutes It was not a marriage made in heaven. Petunia Valley’s fair board and the Persephone Little Theatre may have been hatched in the same log cabin 150 years ago, but they split up almost immediately and have lived separately for six generations. So when we heard that the two groups had joined forces to fundraise […] Read more
It’s All In The Plan
Reading Time: 3 minutes The transfer of farming operations is often the most difficult issue for producers. It is emotional and stressful, but also inevitable. Some producers have a natural succession plan with a child or children ready, willing and able to carry on the tradition. Others, for a variety of reasons, must look outside the family. It is […] Read more
Reward Yourself
Farming can take all you've got, but don't burn out in the process
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s a good thing that farming is so all consuming. There is always something more to be done today, and something else that you know needs doing tomorrow, and both of them have to be done perfectly. There’s always another problem to be solved and a challenge to be met. And if all the field and […] Read more
Don’t Ignore Bowel Health
Reading Time: 3 minutes There is a reason why bowel health isn’t often mentioned in “polite” company — it’s an unpleasant topic. But whenever you feel too embarrassed to discuss bowel habits, remember this. You won’t die of embarrassment, but you could die of bowel cancer. Your bowel is responsible for digestion of the food that provides the energy […] Read more
REFLECTIONS – for Mar. 29, 2011
Reading Time: 2 minutes “Struggle and self-sacrifice by one generation on behalf of the next are the conditions of the perpetuation of the species. History teaches that once a nation ceases to struggle or to be prepared to struggle for its existence… its greatness invariably declines, and its growth ceases.” The speaker was Reginald Bateman, first professor of English […] Read more
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Reading Time: 3 minutes Every day I drive past the Gothic two-storey brick building where I received my early schooling. It stands, sturdy and uncompromising, on the last windy drumlin on the highway going into town, a monument to the straight row and fact-based system of education we threw out the window 40 years ago. SS #12 was decommissioned […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
