Excited to be off to plowing match

I wrote my “Moos” early since I will be off to the plowing match this week, which I’m pretty excited about attending.
This is the first time ever that the plowing match has been held in the north (and likely the last). The venue is located next door to New Liskeard, which is where I went to college.
There actually is a fair bunch of us who attended New Liskeard. It was a great northern agricultural college that unfortunately was closed a few years ago.
New Liskeard also is where my boss and fellow co-workers are, so I very excited about seeing everyone!
• • •
The weather has been simply amazing of late and I’m just surprised at our temperatures.
We are nearing having all the cereal plots in at the agricultural research station here in Emo, with only a few remaining, along with the soybeans and one canola trial (they will have to await my return now).
Chantelle will be busy cleaning seed while I’m away so that upon my return, I can enter some numbers and meet my Oct. 1 deadline for the cereal performance trials.
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I had a phone call the other morning from Colin Langford, the local stewardship co-ordinator with the Ministry of Natural Resources, to let me know he would be moving to Dryden to a new position.
?Even though I was happy that he was moving into a job he always dreamed of, I was sad that we are losing a great person and family from Rainy River District.
A while back I had an opportunity to move into a different job myself but it, too, would have meant that I would have to leave the district. I couldn’t wait to leave from high school, but now it just wouldn’t seem right.
I was farming with my grandma at the time, and really didn’t think I could leave her with the work and knew she would hate to quit. As it turned out, she had to retire due to unforeseen circumstances and here I still am researching and farming.
Good thing, too, as it wouldn’t be nearly as easy to spoil my nieces if I wasn’t living here!
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The 50th anniversary party at the Stratton sales barn is over. We couldn’t have asked for a better day Saturday, with the only problem being that a good many of our farmers were busy haying and combining.
I really want to thank all my friends for helping make this party such a success (I hope they will continue to be my friends).
We thought it would be nice change to make beef kabobs for dinner–but after poking meat and veggies on nearly 250 kabob sticks, we weren’t sure that it was such a great idea after all!
It was nice to sit around a visit and hear about some of the good old days. We had a super display of cattle ranging from across the district, as well as a good representation from a majority of the breeds.
Deb Z. put together a wonderful silent auction, with lots of healthy bidding.
Delton Martin was the winner of our guess-the-weight contest. He was right on the money by guessing Marg and Syd Irvine’s Black Angus bull weighed 2,255 pounds to take home the $57 in loonies (I was only out by five pounds).
The district was very supportive and came together to help us host this 50th birthday party, and I am very touched by all the generosity.
Thanks to everyone who took time out of the busy schedules and came to the party!
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Last week I mentioned we celebrated my mom’s 60th birthday—but in my “moos,” it looked like I dropped the birthday cake when, in fact, it was my mother herself!
I once dropped a pumpkin pie on the floor at Thanksgiving and I got into major trouble, so I won’t be doing that again!

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