Behind the bounty are the families who toil. The Western Producer is following three farm families this growing season. Every few weeks, look for stories on their efforts, challenges, fears and successes. In this package, our reporters visited the families just as seeding was completed.
SPEERS, Sask. – Diana and John Kindrachuk have just undergone a temporary separation.
It’s the same separation most grain farming couples go through every spring, when seeding steals the father from the family for days or even weeks at a time. Since late May, when John was first able to start seeding his fields, he has seen little of Diana and the kids.
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“There are lots of times he comes home late at night I don’t hear him, and he goes off early in the morning and I don’t see him,” said Diana a couple of days after John finally finished seeding.
Every year it’s a hectic time, when John is pulled away from the house to spend almost all his waking hours on the fields and Diana is left taking care of their four daughters, the garden and the house. John often eats breakfast, lunch and supper on the tractor. But this year it was even more intense than usual because rain delayed seeding by about a week and a half.
When the weather cleared in late May, seeding progressed, as John planted crops as fast as possible to try to avoid the risk of early frosts in August.
“It all depends on the fall weather,” said John about the Argentine canola he seeded first.
Because seeding was delayed, John and the farmer he partners with had to seed and spray at the same time, burning off one field one day then seeding it a day or two later.
Now that the crop is coming up, John is back out spraying.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing a rain about now,” said John. “I could do with an excuse for a break.”
Diana and John don’t mind the hard work that is demanded of farm families. They like working and they think their daughters will benefit from seeing their parents work hard. It will give them a good work ethic that will carry them through life.
But they’d like to do more of the work near the house, so that mother, father and children are not separated as severely as happens now at seeding and harvest.
“They learn by what they see and if mom and dad are never there, what do they see,” wondered Diana, who is happy the family is backing away from grain farming and converting to a grassed cattle operation.
Cattle won’t be easier to look after, the family knows. During the winter it will demand a lot from everybody. But at least the work is spread out through the year, so the family can always be together.
Diana keeps the yard around the house a bucolic place. Wide lawns give the children space, and create a green, quiet area for the adults. Her vegetable garden is big enough to supply most of the family’s needs through the year, and gives her an excuse to do physical work weeding and tending.
“It’s work, but it’s beautiful work,” said Diana, who had just spent three hours on the lawnmower leveling the grass that has been thriving from the rains.
“It’s therapeutic. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
John thinks the idea of a more wholesome future made him calmer as he seeded this year. Instead of panicking about the rain delays and threat of frost, he focused on the new direction the farm is beginning to go.
“It was nice knowing you’re not going back into that field to seed it again,” John said about a quarter section he seeded to alfalfa.
Over the next couple of years the Kindrachuks plan to convert, quarter by quarter, to grass. They plan to leave about 40 acres of standing oats this fall for winter grazing for the dozen cows they plan to buy.
They’re changing things on the farm because they love the farm lifestyle and think cattle will provide more stability than cropping.
On top of farming, John is reeve of his rural municipality. Diana works two days a week in nearby Hafford. They like to keep busy, but want to make sure they don’t let it get too busy.
That’s why they think the predictable day-to-day management of cattle will be better than the starts and stops of grain farming.
“Right now, it seems every minute you’re doing something, and you’re thinking about what you need to do next. You’re really spreading yourself thin,” said Diana.
“It’s full. It’s really full. You just burn on less oil.”
