What a difference a week makes

What a difference 10 days can make.
Marnie and I drove from Fort Frances to Calgary on the long weekend in May, returning 10 days later. It was a great trip having never crossed the Prairies at this time of year.
We wondered what the vast fields of grain would look like.
We have seen them in bloom, with vibrant fluorescent yellow canola flowers and blue flax flowers bordered by deep green fields of wheat and soybeans. We also have seen the fields being harvested all a golden brown in the fall.
Travelling west, we experienced fields in grayish brown that had clear lines of planting in the soil. There was scant any signs of growth.
But 10 days later, the fields in multi-colours of green seemed like freshly-mown lawns. The shoots clinging close to the dark soil of the prairies had turned a barren land into fresh green, healthy fields.
I picked up the Moosomin World Spectator community newspaper. Moosomin is just west of the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border and the front page featured a story on the amount of planting that had taken place up to May 25.
Seventy-five percent of the land already had been planted in the area around the community by May 25.
Local Moosomin farmers also had planted 1,000 hectares of land for the World Food Bank.
One seldom thinks of how the world politics of tariffs and duties impact on the economy of their community. But in Moosomin, many of the farmers were adjusting crop plantings to compensate for the increased duties placed on lentils and dried peas by the government of India.
Prices had dropped worldwide because the Indian market made Canadian-produced lentils and dried peas too expensive to purchase.
Across the district, the trees had gone from just leaves blossoming out to full fledge bonnets of leaves. Fields that were black now had green as the seeding was bursting through the soil.
Fields of hay had grown by eight-10 inches. Dandelions’ white seeds rose above the fields with the wind giving rise to the seeds to spread across the area.
Fields that had been created last summer with the removal of trees, and then had been broken up and had tile drainage placed, were now seeded and crops were poking through the soil. New fields already are being created with trees being removed.
I expect to see bulldozers knocking down and wind rowing the piles of slash shortly.
Winter turned to spring overnight. Barren fields turned to rich green ones in less than a fortnight.
What a difference a week makes.