WEYBURN, Sask. – For their Christmas meeting, members of the Weyburn Country Women’s Club compete for who can bring the most useless gift. The winner in 2002 brought a Saskatchewan Wheat Pool share. The year before, it was an application to the Canadian Farm Income Program. But the dozen members all agree on the one […] Read more
Stories by Diane Rogers
General store traditions live on
ASQUITH, Sask. – The 1906 building has seen a lot of owners come and go. It is featured in historic pictures of Asquith, a Saskatchewan town whose highway sign proclaims it the centre of the British Empire. While fire and the vagaries of man have changed the look of some structures on the wide main […] Read more
Farm women, children fill labour gap
As hired hands disappear from western Canadian farms, women and children have picked up the shovels and stepped into the tractors. A national study of farm work habits has shown how much work family members are doing. The 2001-02 study of 600 farm families across Canada was released May 7 by the National Farmers Union […] Read more
Study reflects women’s reality
Prairie farm women agree with the findings of a National Farmers Union study. They are all busy. “In my community I do see that,” Karen Gordon said May 8 from her snowed-under cattle and grain farm near Hanna, Alta. “On our farm we have a hired couple. I do already work outside a lot. I […] Read more
Farm kids want to stay home
Half of all kids raised on a farm want to take over the business from their parents, according to a national study. In the research that was to be released May 7, the National Farmers Union found the desire to farm was strongest among youth involved in livestock, except dairy, and those who are given […] Read more
Cattle may be black and Grey, but business is collage of colour
CALMAR, Alta. – Some days the pizza boxes are piled high at the door of Lisa and Alvin Clark’s house. They are not fast food fanatics. The pizza boxes are how Lisa packs items for her mail-order business, sending out scrapbook-making supplies from her home on a purebred cattle ranch south of Edmonton. Business is […] Read more
Gem jar lids back
Gem jar lids should soon be appearing in prairie grocery stores, says a representative of Canadian Home Canning Inc. The Toronto-based company shipped 169 cases of the lids in the last week of April, said Shirley Tirebuck, wife of the company president. The Tirebucks started their company this year to manufacture the gem home canning […] Read more
Education goes the distance
Distance education, hailed as the solution to the problems faced by rural students, may not provide all the answers, says a senior academic. David Barnard, president of the University of Regina, said in a recent interview that there is a trend to “a substantial disinvestment” in computer-based distance education. He said the problem is that […] Read more
Teahouse thrives in middle of nowhere
LONE ROCK, Sask. – When the auctioneer couldn’t get a $50 bid on an 85-year-old house, Bernice Parkyn bit. “That was the inspiration,” she said while sitting in the renovated two storey house that she moved 35 kilometres to Lone Rock to become her business. In fact, the Four Seasons Craft and Teahouse is the […] Read more
B.C. women’s institute wants tally of garden size
Tomatoes and peppers have already been started as bedding plants for Louise Jacobs’ large vegetable patch. The British Columbia Women’s Institute member grows a lot in her 1,500 sq. foot garden, which is about the size of a house. Besides the tender Mediterranean vegetables, she puts in onions, potatoes, lettuce, all the cabbage family except […] Read more
