His legs reach the ground

Federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is the exact height that I imagined him to be. Like many of you, I don’t see federal political bigwigs in person that often. The in-person interviews of Ignatieff and other politicians of similar political importance, generally fall to reporters, who have greater expertise and more frequent practice in following and quizzing.
But on the rare occasion when a politician appears in my sights, he or she is often taller or shorter than I thought. Not so for Ignatieff. He’s medium height, lean and appears to be a good listener.

This observation was made last weekend on the Guenther dairy farm north of Osler, Sask. Ignatieff and entourage visited the farm to see first-hand the effects of rain and cropland flooding.
They picked a good place, because Chad Guenther said the farm has received about 27 inches (686 millimetres) of rain this spring and summer. His mother, Gaye, has had water in the basement of her farm home for seven weeks and counting.
Joe Guenther, Chad’s father, said he’s never seen conditions like this in all his years of farming. Crops on about 300 acres of the family’s 1,600 total are unsalvageable, although Chad said he thinks they’ll harvest something from the rest even if his father isn’t so sure.
“I’m very optimistic that our bins will still fill this year. But Dad has seen more bad years than I have.”
Chad acknowledges that the Guenther acreage is small compared to many farms, where problems created by excess rainfall are made that much worse because of large input costs.
While media types were waiting around at the Guenthers for Ignatieff to meet privately with farm leaders, Chad gave a tour of the farmstead, which had been dressed up with numerous loads of gravel to make the access passable for visitors.

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You can see the problems faced in the cow yard in one of these photos. Try as they might to provide dry places for the outdoor cattle, weather and available space did not co-operate.
Ignatieff emerged for a brief scrum with reporters, noting his greater understanding about fallout from the flood and the effects it is likely to have this year and possibly longer.
“You can’t do farm policy from Ottawa,” he said, in reference to the need for better business risk management programs. “We have to rebuild these things from the farmgate up. We’ve got to … sit on some bales together and work this thing out.”
He was speaking figuratively, because I noticed the Guenther’s hospitality arrangements had provided Ignatieff with a wooden chair. The farm leaders got to sit on the bales.