Calving Season is here.

March is when we like to calve our cows. We actually start about the 20th of February and finish hopefully before the end of April. It seems that by March the weather is starting to warm up, but the mud puddles haven't got too big yet.

We have to spend a lot of time in the pen with our cows, just checking on things and being there if there are any issues. The cows get quite used to us being around and after a wile almost ignore us as we walk through the pen. They do seem annoyed when I walk through the pen at 3:00 am and shine the flashlight in their eyes.

The grand kids get quite used to being there when a new born calf opens his eyes for the first time, looks around in bewilderment and wonders what all those things are he is seeing for the first time. It seems an amazing act of mother nature to watch him learn to stand and learn to drink milk all in his first 15 minutes of his life.

The grand kids do enjoy going out to the barnyard for fresh air and to get out of the house. They do like to go feed the horses. Our old white horse named Blaze just had his 31st. birthday. In the picture you can see he is getting his mane braided.

Keri's Birthday

Keri celebrated another birthday the other day. We invited her and her family over for a family meal and celebration. We were also fortunate to have my sister Vicki and her husband come for supper and a visit. They only live about 30 minutes away but it seems we never get to see them so it was great to catch up on what was happening in their lives.

Farm Marketer of the Year

On February 24 and 25 we attended the Alberta Farm Fresh Producers Associations annual Berry and Vegetable school. It moves around throughout the province each year and we were fortunate that this year it was in Red Deer which is only an 1/2 drive away.

This is always a very informative couple of days with lots of great speakers all with a wealth of knowledge. We also like all the networking that happens in the classrooms and in the hallways with other growers from throughout the province.

Each year the executive of the association chooses one operation to be their "FARM MARKETER OF THE YEAR". This year Edgar Farms was chosen with this prestigious award. Jim Hill a grower from Sylvan Lake made the presentation at the noon luncheon. He spoke of what we had done on the farm and needless to say our heads got quite swollen from all the good things he said.

We received a lot of good press with this award with a large articles in the Red Deer, and Innisfail papers. We were also interviewed on the radio on the farm news section.

An email from Carlos in Chile

As you may know this last January we toured Chile. One of the memorable stops was at Carlos Crovettos farm. He was the fellow that treated everyone as his best friend and taught the no till school.

Last night we received a forwarded email from him. I have attached it below. He speaks of an earthen damn that he has for irrigation water and he has opened the underwater drain to lower the water level


Pictured here is a view of his irrigation lagoon and a picture of a building that had toppled over in Concepion that I copied from "The Hindu" magazine on line.

Dated March 03, 2010 11:03 PM.
Quoting Calos

"Dear Friends:

Since few minutes ago the cell and internet communication arrive.

My family, closer friends and myself are fine. We are in the fifth day but still we do not have electricity. In the farm we have had little damage. the main one looks to be 60 meters crack in the main dam but it does not have seepage we have open underground pipe for water release. Soon an engineer is coming to check damage.

We have electric generator to produce energy in vital service like, water, light energy for 70 thousand birds, mash food, communication through satellite with CNN and national at Santiago TV.

Our apartment in Concepcion is 3 years old, fortunatelyr Saturday early morning 3.30 hours we were not in there, we were at the farm. The building has 13 floor. Monday we could enter, the building is severe damaged inside the twin towers is 25 cm lay down ay the level of our floor, has to be demolished as well as many others. In Concepcion one new one fall down with 15 floors. Rescue came from Santiago, many people is death, they have to open concret walls with electric machine to get in and rescue some alive people. This is unbelievable, how could fall down,maybe the question is why remain stand up many others tall buildings?

The earhtquake was 8.8 Ritcher scale and last more than two minutes. Unbelievable, Never feel in Chile something like that. I remember the 1939 earthquake, I was six fortunately our house was very solid concret. This one killed 10.00 people. Most of the houses were adobe brick. To day the situation is completely different. During the movement I thought that was the end of our life, every furniture was move about three meters, some fall down, many windows were broken.

Right now we have a big one............... we have had more than one hundred. Doris panic is out of control. I do not know what to do.

In Concepcion bad people is destroying every thing, some looking for something to eat and water, but many of them are taking out every thing from the super markets malls and others.. Fortunately since yesterday the army close to the police are working for better citizen control.

The central south of our country is paralyzed, the people is suffering, no food and water, oil is difficult to get. We can not send eggs to Concepcion and we are in severe danger in the farm. We have locked the two access road to the farm.

When we receive your emails we feel much better. We have had more than 120 earthquake and only today the internet is open. We loved your messagge, it is wonderfulto have we have good friends that really love us is Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, USA, Canada, Ukraine, Germany, England, Spain, Australia, Canada, Mexico and France.

I would like to know better English and tell and explain in a better way every thing about us. Please receive everyone of your warmest appreciation for your worries about us. It is a great help for our life.

Carlos Crovetto Doris Arrau"

Off to see Angie in Fort Mac.

This weekend some of our family flew out of Edmonton to see our daughter Angie and her husband Steve.

Angie is due to have her first baby this May so Elna has been missing not being closer to her, although I am sure when the big day comes she will up there in a flash.

Their was no school on Friday so Elna and her 2 granddaughters and their mother all went to see Angie and Steve. Randy and I stayed home to look after things on the farm. This was not the first time any of them had flown but while waiting to board the plane when they announce that families with small children could board first they did. They were really impressed when the Air Canada pilot saw them coming across the tarmac and with the flight attendant taking their picture in front of the plane, he offered them his hat for the picture but Elna insisted that he be in the picture.

Argentina Cattle

Argentina is big into beef production. We had the opportunity to be at a beef producers place to watch him work some of his Red Angus cattle through the chute. He was applying an insecticide to cattle for the treatment of insects. After we were done we then went to his ranch house for a delicious meal and an after lunch rest in a shady hammock.

We also toured the largest cattle auction in Argentina. The day we were there they were selling 270 kg. grass fattened steers ready for slaughter. They slaughter their animals a lot smaller than we do because of the lack of feed and if they grew them out to full size you would not be able to chew the meat. Our calves are heavier than that in the fall when we wean them from the cow and then we feed them to a market weight of 500-600 kg. Because we give our cattle lots of good feed they grow faster and are more tender.

We also visited a leather coat factory that made real nice custom leather coats. Elna and her friend Evelyn both bought new jackets. We stopped at the factory at about 6:30 Saturday eve. at which time they measured everyone purchasing jackets. At 2:00 pm. Monday afternoon they arrived a our hotel with about 25 new hand made jackets custom fit for people on our tour. Considering that they don't work on Sunday and that we were not the only group buying coats that evening that seemed to be an impressive feat. Shelley also ordered one but they got the measurements wrong and immediately refunded her money back to her. If it wasn't that we were heading off to the airport in about an hour they would of just made her a new one that same day.

Argentina Soybeans

Soybeans are the biggest field crop in Argentina. One of reasons for this is the Argentinian government has a "cheap food policy" and politically forces down the price of any crop grown for human or cattle feed. This means if they grow wheat they don't get paid much, probably near or below the cost of production.

Soybeans are an export crop so they are sold on the Chicago Stock exchange at the world price. The government does tax the farmer 35% of his crop before regular taxes. Even so they still grow soybeans. These beans are all GMO soybeans and also require fewer crop inputs than other crops. This cheap food policy is why they have no feed for their cattle as they can't make money growing feed grain.

The downside with this whole program is it skews the supply and demand cycle and even though there is demand for wheat hardly anyone grows wheat.

Also they ending up flooding the world market with cheap soybeans especially during their harvest period when all the farmers are selling as they need the money.

Concepcion to Santiago

After our day at the No Till School we loaded on our tour bus and head back to Santiago the capital city of Chile.

After leaving Carlo's farm yesterday we drove by a grain field that was cut and put into stooks similar to what my Great Grandfather did in the early 1900's. The only difference was these were all done by hand and my Great Grandfather had a binder that was pulled by a team of horses. This field had recently been taken out of the forest and still had 2 foot tree stumps spread throughout the field so I am sure this was why everything was done by hand. It is interesting to see the vast differences in production methods in this country.

On our way back we stopped at a John Deere dealership. It was quite a change to see nice new shiny tractors, as we sure hadn't seen any in the country. The one thing we noticed was the lack of used equipment at the dealership meaning once they sell an item it goes to the farm and stays there.

No Till School

After some long days on the bus today we have a short one hour drive to a farm operated by Carlos Crovetto and his brother. Carlos has been a very strong advocate of no till farming. He has spoken all over the world and was in Edmonton just a couple of years ago. He even has a classroom set up right on his farm complete with thank you plaques from no-till associations all over the world.

Upon arrival Carlos insisted on meeting each one of us individually and introducing himself to us.

We spent the entire day on the farm in the classroom and in the field. We even took our brand new bus out to the field much to the drivers dismay.

One of stops was at his brothers farm who has a collection of Mercedes Benz cars. He probably has 20 or 30 of all vintages and styles, all stored in a beautiful building.

We went to one of his other farms where they were combining. We even got a chance to get grain dust down our necks while watching the combines work.

After the tour we went to Concepcion for the night, before the long drive the next day back to Santiago.

Santiago to Chilean

Up at 6:15 and drove all day with the exception of a few rest stops on the way to Chilean. Finally got to our hotel by 9:00 PM. After getting into our hotel decided to go to a grocery store, check out the produce and buy some bottled water. We had not eaten dinner yet so we went to the local pizzeria. The place was right full of customers and we were tired so the 6 of us just ordered the pizza to go and ate it in one of our rooms.

When visiting with other people in our group they were asking if we had felt the earthquake tremor of about 4.5. We were in the grocery store at the time and hadn't felt a thing. The locals were unconcerned but for an Alberta boy this was something new.

**Note. This is the same town that the on the 27 of February, 2010 had a very devastating 8.8 earthquake that has killed 700+ people. We also stayed a night in the city of Concepcion, toured the port of Valparaiso and spent a few nights in Santiago. All these places were badly effected by this earthquake. So tragic for all those people and their families.

National Election day in Chile

National election day in Chile today. Every person of eligible voting age is required to vote in this country or you are assessed a monetary fine. If you don't pay your fine you can't cash your pay check, register your car, renew your drivers license, or a myriad of other inconveniences. Needless to say every one that is registered has to vote, although there are a few unregistered citizens. Can you imagine how that system would be in Canada or the United States.

Today we did a city bus tour and then we walked down to a local park for a while. Because of the election all the stores were closed, a lot of the town square was closed and as a result the city was quite quiet.

This evening we went to a fancy restaurant for dinner. On election day no alcohol can be sold or served, but because this was a private function and we are not Chilean citizens we were allowed to have wine with our dinner. Weren't we lucky!!

Planes Trains and Automobiles Today

Got to sleep in till 6:15 today as we have another overnight flight to Chile tonight. Caught the train for breakfast and a nice 2 hour ride down the Sacred Valley to the nearest road that a tour bus could navigate.

We then bused up to the top of the valley (12,300 feet elevation) and drove through highland agriculture fields. Most everything is done by hand or oxen although there are a few small tractors, which are not common.

We saw a lot of animals on our trip with most of them being tethered rather than having the expense of a fence. As we drove by a dairy farm the farmer and his family were out in the pasture milking cows by hand with pails and stools.

After our bus ride back to Cuzco we caught an evening flight back to Lima. We then caught a night flight to Santiago, Chile. After a grueling immigration (I don't think they like tourists) we arrived at our hotel at 4:20 AM. Thank goodness our wake up call isn't till 10:30 AM.

**Note: Just 1 week after we did our train ride in and out of Machu Picchu the rain came down and the mud slides started which washed out the train tracks. The Military had to use helicopters to fly food in and some 2000+ stranded people out of Machu Picchu. Weren't we lucky!!!