Successful grand-opening for abattoir

The Rainy River District Regional Abattoir held a very successful grand-opening ceremony last Thursday, with well over 200 people attending and many specials presentations.
It was a wonderful feeling for us farmers to see the support we have as many of those who took time out of their schedules to attend were non-farmers.
The ministry officials also recognized the overwhelming community support! Thank you for that.
Deb and Marg once again hosted a delicious lunch, and people toured the new, modern facility.
Congratulations to everyone who was involved in this project. It wasn’t easy, but this proves that hard work and determination pays off!
As it has been pointed out time and time again, we need to be able to feed ourselves. As the price of fossil fuels continue to rise, eating what you can produce locally only will become more and more important.
With the abattoir, we are headed in the right direction.
• • •
The Rainy River District 4-H Leaders Association has a new president!
Murray McDonald has taken over the reins from Jason Teeple (thanks, Murray).
The Rainy River District 4-H Association is recognized by 4-H Ontario as a strong, independent group that has a great deal of leadership. Most of us who are involved have obtained these skills from being active 4-H members!
?4-H Ontario is throwing a few more changes at us, and I’m afraid we will lose some of our volunteers. But like many groups, people come and go.
• • •
By now, many of you will have received your latest copy of the Canadian Cattlemen’s “Calving Special 2010.”
There is a very cute picture on the front cover–a little boy and a calf on the kitchen floor. This special little boy is Levi Debney, Linda (Zimmerman) Debney’s twin boy!
Linda also wrote an article in this issue and it includes a picture of her twins, Levi and Charlie. It is such a keepsake!
If any of you are unlike me and don’t keep all your issues of the Canadian Cattlemen’s, would you please give your copy to Deb Zimmerman as they would like to keep a few extra copies of this edition!
Great pictures and article, Linda!
• • •
If any of you read “Country,” there is a story and picture of my barn in the February/March edition.
My dad and mom subscribe to this magazine and it was likely more than a year ago that they were looking for barn stories, so my dad told me to write one.
I did, and they contacted me last fall to gather a few pictures and say they would like to run it in their magazine!
My barn was built in 1936, and has a lot of history and memories attached to it!
• • •
Maddie has been asking how many more days until the snow is gone! I told her we couldn’t get sheep until the snow is gone, so she has been thinking that the snow should leave soon.
Grandma Bliss brought the girls out, with the tradition being to come to my house first and drive out to the barn to check out the cows.
“Whose cows are these,” Grandma asked, to which Maddie replied: “Mine and Auntie Kimmie’s.”
Marlee, meanwhile, enjoys listening to Grandpa’s Walkman and while she had an earphone in one of her ears, we caught her trying to put the other one in Karma’s ear.
Both Karma and Kloee are tired after spending much time with our girls!
Maddie also is looking forward to the calves coming. I started getting up through the nights now, so things should start to roll here within the next week.
Yes, you get tired from only sleeping in small increments, but my biggest pet peeve is pulling on all your winter clothes!