DOMREMY, Sask. — Theron LeBlanc, 5, warily approaches a flock of chickens retreating into a red, aging hip roof barn.
The 100 birds are the responsibility of his older brothers, Lorrin, 11, and Griffin, 8. The oldest brother, Avery, 16, minds the six pigs snuffling in a nearby pen.
Their parents, Gilles and Crystal, hope this small-scale farm enterprise will instill a work ethic while allowing the boys to earn their own money.
“We want to give them responsibility, something to take care of,” said Crystal.
“In a safe manner,” added Gilles, who recently fed a pair of coveralls into a power take-off to help the boys see the dangers in farm work.
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He said it doesn’t make good economic sense for rural teenagers to drive to town to work.
“He can be at home, be a kid and help Mom,” Gilles said.
The family also benefits with a ready supply of eggs and meat.
“It’s a way to save on groceries and a way to teach our kids,” said Crystal.
The LeBlancs grow wheat, barley, canola, oats and flax on 1,700 cultivated acres near Domremy. The boys represent the fifth generation on the farm, which was founded by Gilles’s great-grandfather after he moved to Saskatchewan from Quebec.
Both LeBlancs grew up on a farm, with Gilles recalling a childhood in which he preferred farm newspapers and toys to Spiderman.
“It was in my blood. I had to find a way to farm,” said Gilles, who trained and worked as an agricultural machinery technician and gradually moved into full-time farming.
Today, they share labour and machinery with Gilles’s father and a friend, who lives in the area.
They would like to add peas to their crop rotation, but weather is a factor.
“Everyone gets an inch and we get six,” said Gilles as rain eased off after morning showers.
Added Crystal: “Peas don’t do well with that. Our rotation suits our weather.”
They harvested good crops that yielded above normal this year, she added.
This day, Gilles was hauling barley, drying grain and doing fall work. Crystal fits in a home-based bookkeeping business around the family’s schedule.
Gilles participates in canola field trials for Monsanto to see how they fare at this location.
“I like to learn, it’s a good partnership,” he said of agronomic advice from the company’s representatives.
The LeBlancs turn to AgriTrend for marketing and farm production advice. It’s a cost but one that they say produces savings and profit for their farm.
That support frees Gilles from worrying about prices and allows him to quickly sell crops when the price rallies or when they are running out of bin storage.
“I can from the seat of my combine decide whether to sell canola or wheat,” said Gilles.
“I never second guess my decision anymore.”
Added Crystal: “Because we know we’re making money.”
She keeps careful tabs on ex-penses with her farm bookkeeping and Agri-Data Solution, a web-based farm management tool.
They also participate in MNP seminars.
“I now know my cost per acre,” said Gilles. “If you don’t know your cost of production, you’re just winging it.”
Gilles would like to see five percent growth each year, either in acreage or yields.
Any succession planning is on hold until the boys choose their career paths, but they hope to retire earlier than Gilles’ parents, pass along the farm to at least one child and use life insurance policies to provide an inheritance for the non-farming children.
“Our kids are our best resource,” said Gilles.
“If I didn’t have kids, I’d have no interest in this. It was passed down five generations, and I don’t want it to end here.”
They are content to live in a refurbished 1920s two-storey farmhouse that still bears original fixtures and furnishings, including an oversized wooden cook stove that comes in handy during power outages. A grain-burning stove in their family room also adds heat when needed.
“If we both had jobs in town, we could have a new house, but that’s not the lifestyle we chose,” said Gilles.
Contact karen.morrison@producer.com
