Diane Rogers

The sweet smell of molasses conquered sharper garlic and vinegar aromas from rival dishes as judges declared a winner in the pulse recipe contest held Jan. 13 during Crop Production Week. Four finalists were chosen from 40 recipes submitted to the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers. A Saskatoon hotel prepared the dishes and a taste test was […] Read more

BIGGAR, Sask. – Cathy Fenwick recommends that everyone have a first aid kit with the main ingredient being laughter. She picks up a pink plastic pig that fits in the hand and gives it a squeeze. It giggles. That’s a part of her own kit. She pops on a red clown nose and Groucho Marx-style […] Read more

Jim Lindsay doesn’t hold any grudges against the wolves that almost killed his family’s pet dog. “Timber wolves were here before me,” says the farmer from Weirdale, Sask. “They get the blame for things and get shot. They mind their own business around here.” Lindsay said that on Dec. 28, just as it was starting […] Read more

The first rural fair that Ontario stress line co-ordinator Susan Klein-Swormink went to, nobody would come near her booth. The next year they came to chat as the stigma lifted of talking to a mental health expert. It also helped that “the staff are all farmers and have good listening skills” said Klein-Swormink, part of […] Read more

The need for basic facts on food, sewing and household management hasn’t gone away, even if the formal career of home economist has. “People are doing without that information now,” said Millie Reynolds, a member of the Association of Saskatchewan Home Economists’ Saskatoon branch. Sometimes nutritionists, public health nurses or teachers will dispense this life […] Read more

It was a tie for the award for Canada’s newest outstanding young farmers from British Columbia and Nova Scotia. The award was presented in Vancouver Dec. 5 to Ron and Jessie Brar of Evergreen Herbs Ltd. in Surrey, B.C., and Brian and Edna Newcombe of Cornwallis Farms Ltd. in Port Williams, N.S. The two couples […] Read more

After 30 years working in a nursing home, Iris Anderson saw how well elderly people connected to music. That inspired the Brandon nurse to create musical recreation that could be appreciated by seniors, people with dementia and the lonely. She now has a business selling music tapes, CDs and songbooks. “You can never convince me […] Read more

PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – In about a month, Ray Gaudet will pay a visit to the dead. In a bit of macabre market research, the Prince Albert, Sask., Christmas tree grower will visit piles of discarded holiday trees, trying to figure out which evergreens still look fresh despite spending December inside a house. It will […] Read more

People need to feel they fit in a community if it has any hope of surviving, says a University of Lethbridge professor studying prairie resiliency. If youth feel the town is run for the seniors, they will flee and not return. If newcomers retire from the city to a rural acreage but are not welcomed, […] Read more

Ron Brown went from being the token male on the board of a Langruth, Man., child-care centre to running the system of five centres 14 years later. As one of two men among 50 participants at a recent rural child-care conference in Saskatoon, he said men tend to avoid the field because of the low […] Read more