Michael Raine

Winter was long and the snow was deep. We can measure how long, but do we really know how deep? Environment Canada is the only source for this type of information on the Prairies. But changes to how weather information is collected are leaving some rural residents out in the cold. In days gone by, […] Read more

Tax time on the farm is enough to send the children fleeing to a sound proof part of the house, the dog to seek refuge out in the cold and hair loss to occur below the cap line. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just sit down at the computer, answer a few simple […] Read more

FOX VALLEY, Sask. – Lester and Laura Lodoen are converts to the concept for building a better beef industry based on better beef, not better breeds. They prefer to judge their herd based on producing tender, lean meat with low slaughter waste. And they think the system they use meets those needs. Supergene is a […] Read more

and Reuter News Agency news Winter clutched the Prairies once more this week and forced flood forecasters to re-evaluate the water situation for Manitobans. Aerial surveys early this week confirmed the worst of possibilities. The 50 centimetres of new snow that paralyzed much of southern Manitoba over the weekend have a high water content. The […] Read more

MOOSE JAW, Sask. – Long, cold, snowy winter; long, wet muddy spring. The snow that buried the Prairies has begun to melt leaving the West with floods and flood warnings. Melting has moved east from Saskatchewan’s Wood River and Notukeu Creek systems, threatening, but not drowning, the town of Gravelbourg. Low-lying farms received minor damage […] Read more

VANGUARD, Sask. – Wind, cooled by rising flood waters, blew dust from the damp grain across the Hapke farmyard. Headlights and a rising full moon gave an eerie fog to the otherwise black night. Singing engines of tractors, augers and farm trucks drowned an insistent splash and crunch of water and ice 15 metres behind […] Read more

Future hog homes are being developed in two Saskatchewan locations this year by Saskatchewan Wheat Pool’s Heartland Livestock and community initiatives. Both projects are destined to be 2,400-sow, multi-site developments. Salespersons are meeting and greeting farmers and rural residents in the communities near Biggar and Neilburg in western Saskatchewan, hoping to encourage local equity in […] Read more

Pulse production in Saskatchewan is projected to grow by nearly 20 percent this coming crop year. Nine meetings and 800 growers later the Saskatchewan Pulse Growers association has completed its winter round of meetings and the survey says pulses are up. Cropping plans for growers attending the meetings include a 19 percent acreage increase over […] Read more

She was 38 when she died, her life span predetermined by genetics. Her father was 26 when he passed on and her mother died at 29. A hard worker, her kind and gentle nature was well known in her rural community. Her memory will live on in her more than 10 children and two generations […] Read more

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. – The Lethbridge bull sale held March 8 sold 43 bulls for a total of $110,000 to average $2,565. Held in conjunction with the southern Alberta Bull Congress, 42 Herefords and one Angus sold. The grand champion and high seller was a two-year-old Hereford bull entered by Grant Hirsche of High River. He […] Read more