I was quite surprised to drive out to the country on a late September Sunday afternoon, only to discover that most of the crops in this area had been harvested. I would estimate that at least 85 percent of the crops were threshed.
When I asked one older farmer how this was possible when we had experienced such a wet spring, he took off his Roughrider hat, put it back on with the sunshade pointing upwards and said, “the weather was in our favour.”
Contrary to what the predictors of gloom and doom were telling us this spring, everything seems to have worked out OK for farmers in southern Saskatchewan. Most of the crop was harvested dry, yields were average to above average, prices are strong and markets look good.
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Looking at last spring’s scenario, things didn’t look too promising. In the end, thanks to favourable weather, things are now OK. Maybe if we let the climate surrounding the open markets of the world unfold, the climate that ultimately controls the price of wheat and other crops, things will work out in everyone’s favour.
The harvest scene brought to mind the people predicting gloom and doom if the Canadian Wheat Board goes to dual marketing, usually the same people that predict gloom and doom about everything else. Perhaps positive thought is the commodity that is lacking the most in these people’s lives.
In ending, I quote French artist Henri Matisse: “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
John Hamon,
Gravelbourg, Sask.
