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Wa’al, about th’ cattle…this time of year a hundred head are consuming four bags of high-protein feed and 16 square bales a day, since the grass died in the first big freeze and won’t be back until spring, but ours get away with that “little” because they browse on brush in the woods. You’ll be happier not knowing what this costs. I haven’t seen my friend, Glen, recently, so I don’t know how his wheat crop did. He grows hundreds of thousands of bushels of wheat and corn every year–and supports himself with trucking! I keep quoting Daddy, “You can’t afford to run cattle unless you have a private income!” Being a “big” farmer but not Agribiz is a pretty chancy business, too. People don’t realize how fragile our food supply is. 2% are feeding 98%, and the Food “Safety” Act is aimed squarely at driving the last 2.1 million small farmers (and ranchers) out of business. Agribiz has increasing problems with the costs of fuel, labor, feed, electricity, taxes, and so forth. I am more concerned with “peak food” than I am with “peak oil.” I’m sure I would rather not know what Haiti is going to cost us. The problem in California is that more and more water is being flushed away uselessly purportedly to help “endangered” species; that water is needed to produce electrical power and irrigate crops. Most of the crop in Southern California was lost for that reason, I read. Individually we can plant gardens, but that is only a small stop gap. Regards, Linda

Regarding the crops in the area where I live, the quantity is certainly down but the quality is good. The reason for this is because of the dry summer that we had in the Peace River Region last summer. However other parts of the Canadian prairies received enough rain at the right time to end up with very good crops. As you know from reading the Whiskey Post, Saskatchewan is the largest producer of lentils & peas as well as wheat. So the farmers here are doing okay but the best thing is there is more than enough food to go around and export the large balance. You know Linda I drove through southern California a few years ago heading north through farm country on the I-5, the vegetable growing crops are quite amazing. On the other hand the cattle ranchers there look kind of poorly compared to the density of our cattle herds in the Peace Region of British Columbia and Alberta.

So how are the cattle ranchers doing in your part of Texas? What about the wheat crop of last summer?

Best Regards, CanadaNorth