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solstice letter
2 days ago
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Remember Forget!
More details are up at the Forget Summer Arts Festival page. And don't forget this Sunday June 4th, 3 p.m., it's "Spring for Ananda," the annual benefit concert for the Ananda Arthouse, featuring Anthony Kelly, The Row-Taters (locals Lorri Solomon, Anthony Bzdell, Lane Easton, and Tom Richards, very fun and very fine), Manitoba Hal, and the Crossroads Community Chorus. Take the main road into Forget, and look for the big church off to your right.
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4 comments:
Laura, how far in minutes/hours is Griffin from Arcola?
Griffin? You're not thinking - ? But it's flat there, as I recall, and hardly any trees. Kind of across the invisible line between our parkland landscape and the open prairie to the west. But - it's only about 45 minutes away, I'd say.
Well, there's this 30-acre listing 5 miles east of Griffin with house, barns, shop and TREES! The listing said that there's a well and dugout for water, but that they were hauling drinking water, so I'm not sure what that means as far as potability of the water on the property. But some dear person planted about 10-15 acres of trees, judging by the aerial photo, so that all becomes so much more thinkable. It's still at the browsing stage right now.
You know, I've been looking at lots of these aerial photos, and one of the things that's really different from Alberta is the lack of windrows. I see mile and miles and miles of roads and fields, but there's nothing planted alongside those roads. Isn't there a problem with erosion?
I think the decisions about windrows are fairly complicated. If there is sufficient moisture, the tendency (I think) is to take out windrows (and natural bluffs of trees) because they get in the way of cultivation operations, take space out of production, compete (or appear to compete) with the crop for moisture and nutrients, make the crop ripen unevenly, and harbour weeds. Where conditions are drier (towards the southwest), or where soil is light, windrows are valued more highly.
Yes, there are problems with erosion. In some places the problems can be quite obvious. But I'm not the best one to ask about it, since I've never been directly involved with a grain farm, except a little bit of helping drive tractor for Garth and his brother, and they're not conventional farmers.
This is just a hunch, but I'm thinking you'd be happier a little farther northeast, into the edge of the Moose Mountains. Maybe Wawota area, or dare I say it, north of Arcola? But you might not find a place all set up to your liking. Water might be a problem, too. There are good springs here and there, but many people have tried for wells along the edge of the hills and found only fickle little sand seams and then, by the time they get deep enough for a good volume of water, the mineral content is very high. I don't know what the water situation is like farther northeast (Wawota and area).
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