ABERDEEN, Sask. – Ed Buhler left a high paying job to live and work full time on the farm.
“I wanted to be able to spend time with my family,” said the father and grandfather who has worked in trucking and construction.
He and his wife, Ida, raised son, Sheldon, and daughter, Shauna, on this mixed farm in central Saskatchewan, which was homesteaded by Ida’s grandparents after they emigrated from Ukraine.
The couple shares a farmyard with their son, now a journeyman machinist, his wife, Janet, and their infant son.
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Together the Buhlers share the workload of a 50 head Simmental cow-calf operation and seed 2,000 acres of canola, wheat, barley, oats and flax.
The Buhlers, who have all worked off farm, have reduced their labour by switching to zero tillage and to purebred cattle.
“We’re not babysitting calves at calving time,” Sheldon said.
Ida, Ed and Sheldon believe diversification works for their farm, which once included hogs. One usually offsets the other, with grain prices currently up and cattle prices down, said Sheldon.
They also keep costs to a minimum by building their own bins and handling their own repairs.
The Buhlers keep abreast of trends by participating in marketing groups and farm management classes and forward contracting some of their production.
“So we can figure out where we’re at,” said Ida. “We’re trying to educate ourselves so we can keep up with technology.”
All pitch in to get the work done and allow family members to get away for work, holidays and volunteering, which include Ed’s extensive work with Mennonite Disaster Services.
Farming is a lifestyle choice for Sheldon, who hopes his son will join 4-H and farm one day.
“I enjoy having lots of time to think and I can see the results,” he said.
Sheldon said it would have been impossible to get into farming without the established farm and the family’s support. Much of the farmland in the region has been bought by Albertans, who were capitalizing on higher land values earlier this year and developing acreage subdivisions in the region located within a short commute of Saskatoon.
Sheldon looks ahead to a future on the farm full time, although he conceded the timing depends on prices and the general economics of agriculture.
He sees Ed’s aid work as a good bridge between farming and retirement that provides an outlet for his father’s many skills.
“It’s a good transition for Dad to make, to take a step back from farming,” he said.
“Family, faith and friends,” prominently etched in metal in Ed and Ida’s dining room, are centrepieces in their life.
Ed prefers to keep a low profile, but agreed to talk about his aid work in the Third World to increase awareness and help more people.
“Our ancestors were known for walking quietly on the land. That’s the way we’d like to continue,” said Ed.
Despite the ups and downs of Canadian agriculture, he felt farming has given him a good life and decided to give back to others weathering difficult times.
The Buhlers recalled their own troubles, including a plow wind that caused $75,000 worth of damage on the farm in 1998 and droughts that kept the combine out of use through three straight harvests.
They also have an 80 acre growing project for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Ed has travelled to Puerto Rico, New Orleans and Micronesia to build homes destroyed by severe weather.
“People are so overwhelmed when you come there to help them; to help someone you don’t know and will never see again,” said Ed.
He likes being able to see where his donations are going.
“We see places where people have lost everything,” said Ed, describing how people were homeless for months after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.
He has also helped out closer to home, sandbagging at Fishing Lake and helping with properties flooded by storms in Saskatoon.
In the future, Ida and Ed plan to do more volunteer work as a couple.
“This is what will be our retirement,” said Ida. “We’re not the kind of people who can go sit in a condo.”
