MERVIN, Sask. – A painting and a message “keep your city out of my country” greet visitors at the back door of the log cabin where Bonny Macnab lives and creates art.
Once a city girl herself, working as a model in Vancouver, the blonde returned to her mother’s childhood home for a visit in the 1980s. She fell in love with a rancher and settled into a comfortable lifestyle drawing pictures and raising animals, children and bedding plants.
“I must have been a country girl at heart,” said the 38 year old. “I hated the rain (on the West Coast). Now I pray for it.”
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Country life suits her alongside husband Gary, 41, and their three children, Trent, 15, Michael, 13 and Rebecca, 10.
“Compared to the city, this is a beautiful place to raise your kids.”
Macnab started TLC Greenhouses nine years ago to be closer to home and family.
“I didn’t know the difference between a pansy and a petunia, but I didn’t want to work in town any more,” she said.
With help from family and friends, Macnab operates the two 1,500 sq. foot greenhouses from March to June. The greenhouses supply a local golf course and stores and see a lot of walk-in customers, many en route to nearby lakes.
That leaves the rest of the year for art. Macnab put away the pencils and brushes for a time between high school and the birth of her first child.
She enjoys realistic pencil sketches, coloured charcoal and watercolours of portraits and landscapes. Many reflect the horses and country lifestyle of her home at Maple Ridge Ranch.
She is drawing images for a children’s book and conducts art classes from a second-storey workshop overlooking her stone fireplace.
Her art and greenhouse ventures support the household while the farm, which includes buffalo, horses and a 280-head commercial cow-calf operation, takes care of itself, she said.
It’s this diversity that makes the operation thrive, said Macnab.
“On the farm there are lots of options if you can handle it and are not scared of change.”
When increases in natural gas hit hard this year, Macnab compensated by starting her greenhouse season a week later and pondering alternative fuel sources for the future. She continues to recycle plant pots to reduce new purchases.
The ranch got into buffalo when prices were good, and they raise and train 27 Paint horses for sale and pleasure riding. Gary also bought 40 extra heifers this year to put on grass and calve out to keep money coming in.
They were forced to make a big change in their operation when Gary’s two brothers, who were farming partners, died from cancer in recent years. The couple now rents land from the widows and manages the 4,500 acres with help from Gary’s father and a hired man. The Macnabs are looking to put more of the land into grass.
“You work long hours, hard hours,” said Macnab, citing multiple roles as farmer and mechanic. “You never realize what a farmer does.”
Ferne Nielsen, who farms nearby, sees Macnab as a positive role model for other women: “She has shown by example what can be done with a stay-at-home mother to support and develop her talents and her personal development.”
Macnab puts in a full day between home and community work and “does it with a smile,” Nielsen said.
Macnab’s artwork appeals to Nielsen because it depicts familiar farm and family scenes in the mixed farming community.
The Macnab family keeps busy with team roping competitions and 4-H, in addition to daily chores, including tending to the 75 chickens in a pen near the greenhouses.
They all pitched in to peel logs for the 2,200-sq. ft. two-storey log home, decorated with her art, animal skins and antler chandeliers.
There are still times to break away and go fishing. Time with family is number one, Macnab said.
“It’s the one thing that you can’t buy and no one can take away from you.”
Gary’s parents and sisters live in the community as do Bonnie’s parents and together form a close-knit family.
“We couldn’t do half of what we do without family,” she said.
