Weather has stayed pleasant

I think we all will agree our weather has been very pleasant lately.
Everyone is rushing around with their gardens and lawns, and, of course, you will see the farmers getting out on their land by spreading fertilizer, doing fencing, and getting some seed in the ground.
It is a very busy time of the year and sometimes it can be a bit stressful as we tend to rush around here worrying that our good weather will end. We all have been on the side of missing the window of a few good days and then it ends in a month of rain.
It sounds like our neighbours to the south are experiencing that this year. And though I feel for them, I’m happy it is not us.
Of course, we are fortunate to be working with tiled land at the Emo Agricultural Research Station, so this gets us on the land earlier than some farms without tile. In some cases, it can be as much as two weeks’ difference.
Just a reminder to be patient if you get behind a tractor on the road trying to get to a field. It may slow you down for bit, but just take time to breath and appreciate that the farmer is growing food for all of us.
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My summer students at EARS have started. Kayla Stang has returned while Claire Hyatt is joining us!
I look forward to a good year that will be very “girl powered!” Our biggest challenge will be repairs since none of us specialize in this department.
We currently are waiting on our two new John Deere tractors since our lease was up on the last ones, so everyone is getting their training done on the older tractors, which is a good thing!
Kayla had a prior commitment on Friday so Claire and I tackled a bunch of planting. Although things didn’t go perfectly for us, we had a successful day.
I certainly could have worked at EARS all weekend but I couldn’t spare the time from home. April was such a busy month that I’m really struggling to get back on track.
My cattle needed to have their booster vaccine while the bulls needed to get moved out to the cows. We tackled that job on Saturday and it went quite well.
We also moved most of the sheep out of the barn to our bigger shed attached to the barn (this way it is a lot less mess). They are ready to go right outside but we are waiting for them to be sheared first.
It looks like that won’t happen until next week now but it’s always a good job to get finished. The ewes are finding it pretty warm on these nice spring days.
I had big hopes of cutting grass and finishing income tax, but that didn’t happen. We had a 4-H training night on Saturday and we started our Beef Club on Sunday night.
Our club has 20 members and it is going to be pretty busy. We are encouraging our members to start thinking of 4-H steer buyers since with an increase in members, we are going to have to look for new buyers, as well.
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In case you missed it, Linda Plumridge of Fort Frances “Caught the Ace” on Friday night at the Emo Legion.
It was only our third week and Linda selected envelope #14, which contained the ace of spades, and she won $2,095.
We were happy for Linda but sad at the same time. We have been encouraged to re-apply for our lottery licence and get started on the next “Catch the Ace” right away!
We will do that but please understand it might take a week to get things in place.
Thanks so much for the support these first three weeks. We really were pleased with how well things we moving along and people we really starting to catch on to this game of “Catch the Ace!”