SWAN RIVER, Man. – A thin plume of smoke surges from the exhaust stack on John Twilley’s Cockshutt tractor.
With a cultivator in tow, Twilley is getting a good jump on his fall field work. His harvest went by in a flash. By Sept. 18, he had only a small field of oats to harvest.
It was the same for many of his neighbors. Swathing began in August and three weeks of steady harvesting saw most of the cereal and canola crops in the bin by mid-September.
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“It’s beautiful,” said Twilley, after hopping down from the tractor cab for a brief chat.
“It’s the best fall ever, pretty much.”
Twilley farms a short drive east of Swan River. Forests and fields compete for space on the rolling terrain.
What made this fall special for Twilley was the lack of rain. Mild, sunny days were the norm, which allowed him to reap crops with average yields and decent quality.
It also let him finish harvest with his sense of humour intact.
“I call my farm a hobbit,” he said, toeing the soil with his boot.
“It’s a cross between a bad habit and a hobby.”
Twilley farms 260 acres. He also works as an airplane mechanic and hopes to start producing cattle. He’s struggling to find the time to build fences and do some of the other things needed to hold a herd.
“I have too many irons in the fire, too many things going on at once.”
Splashes of yellow and red had already started to tinge the forests of this area by mid-September. There hadn’t been much rain since the beginning of August.
The lack of moisture, combined with a lack of weed and volunteer crop growth, forced farmers in the region to reduce their tillage work this fall. Attempts at tillage often resulted in cloddy soil.
But many area farmers still managed good yields.
At the Agricore A elevator in Swan River, grain manager Brent Woloshyn tilted a pail to reveal a sample of wheat from a local field. There were few weed seeds. Only a thin smattering of wild oats was visible.
“It’s beautiful wheat,” said Woloshyn, beaming as he talked about the quality of grain flowing through his elevator this fall.
“It’s an average crop with good quality and there was no struggling to get if off.”
He wasn’t quite as upbeat about the canola, however. Much of the local crop was, in his words, borderline. Green seed, caused by sweltering heat as the crop matured, was a concern.
Canola crops in northwestern Manitoba averaged 25 bushels per acre this year, while wheat crops averaged 40 bu. an acre.
The prolonged bout of dry weather also began sapping moisture out of the region’s pastures in August. Pastures this month remained dry and dugouts were low in the first week of October.
Vic Kuby, a cattle producer near Ethelbert, Man., appeared unconcerned about the parched weather during an interview at his farm Sept. 18. His land stretches out toward a marsh. His low-lying pastures were still a lush green.
Kuby, 69, now rents out his grain land. He keeps 20 commercial cows, but is considering retirement. His wife is coaxing him in that direction.
“The price of cattle is good and it seems to have gone up,” he said Sept. 18.
“Maybe it’s a good time to sell. I don’t know.”
Most of his hay was already baled and stacked by mid-September. Climbing aboard his all-terrain vehicle, he set off in search of mole hills, which are lumpy sources of aggravation at haying time.
Upon finding a mole hill, he drew out a long metal rod and began prodding around the edges of the hill. He soon discovered the tunnel, and will return later to place a trap.
He then hopped aboard the ATV and set off for a quick look at his cattle.
Their markings offered immediate evidence of their Simmental breeding. They wandered up to Kuby and his ATV. As he studied the sturdy stock that surrounded him, he was clearly troubled by the nagging question of what it would be like not to have them around.
“Well…” he said, pausing. “I’d hate to let them go. It’s hard, I tell you.”
He also drives a school bus occasionally, filling in on days when there aren’t enough other drivers. He and his wife own a cabin at a nearby lake. He enjoys fishing and curling.
Still, he knows nothing can compare with the enjoyment of being among a herd of cattle as they snip away at the grass and chew contentedly on their cuds.
After spending some time with the cattle, Kuby turned his ATV toward a well-kept farm house. The ATV kicked up dust as it swept through the stubble left from this year’s canola crop. A German shepherd dog raced along behind, determined to keep up with its master.
