Black humour is the only thing thriving these days under the sunny
skies of drought-ridden Alberta and Saskatchewan.
One rancher jokes that his white Case tractor used to be a John Deere,
but grasshoppers ate off all the paint in their relentless pursuit of
greenery.
Another says once his cattle are gone, he might go into the rope
business. He says there’s a demand for nooses among depressed cattle
producers.
A third, disgusted with Saskatchewan government inaction to address the
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problem, says he’s convinced politicians couldn’t organize a two-man
rush on a three-seater outhouse.
There’s a lot of whistling past the graveyard as cattle producers sell
off breeding herds. No feed, no water, and soon, few cattle. Other
livestock producers are similarly affected.
It’s hard to put a brave face on a situation like that, but somehow,
some of them manage.
There are chinks in the armour. More than a few strong men and women
are standing in auction markets these days, eyes wet with tears as
calves with baby-fuzzy faces go up on the block. Their mothers, many in
their prime breeding years and representing years of carefully
calculated genetics, are headed for slaughter and the hamburger market.
That cow bottle-fed as a calf, that cow that’s had two sets of twins,
that cow with markings almost exactly like those of its mother – they
walk in front of auctioneers and into waiting cattle liners. The future
is sold, and it wrenches the heart.
Drought has robbed people here of any enjoyment they might otherwise
take in sunny skies and summer’s heat.
Each clear day kills a little more foliage, evaporates a little more
moisture, saps a little more strength from man, plant and animal.
There’s nothing so taxing on the collective farming psyche than a
prolonged drought like this.
Every year there’s someplace on the Prairies that suffers from disaster
– some greater, some lesser than this.
So stories of farmer generosity are emerging – trainloads of hay from
Eastern Canada and offers from southern Alberta to pasture cattle at no
charge.
Dollars can’t fill empty dugouts and cracks in the earth and empty
spaces where crop should be standing. All that requires one thing –
rain. Help with that has to come from a little higher up.
In the meantime, it is the help and understanding of fellow farmers and
ranchers – mixed with prairie stubbornness, resilience and “dry”
humour – that will see people through this drought.
