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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Going to Gracekand part 2




After spending the night in Swift Current we headed east to Manitoba. The prairies are in the grips of a fall freeze. The mercury was 14 degrees cooler than normal, which is a coincidence because so was the temperature. The fields were cloaked in a skiff of snow. Bales of hay lay in the fields covered in snow like giant Frosted Mini Wheats. We crossed the border into Manitoba. The landscape doesn’t know that there is a border so, not surprisingly it changed little. I think that the thing that grabs me most about the prairies, even after all these years, are the skies. Big sky country they call it, with good reason. The skies are enormous. Fluffy cotton ball clouds hang over the stubbled fields. Trucks pass us on the highways taking the crops to market. Trucks line up at local grain elevators waiting to be weighed and drop their cargos. Farmers are waiting to get paid. At a sugar plant huge piles of sugar beets lay on the ground in huge heaps. Trucks with trailers behind pulling literally tons of softball to football size sugar beets pass us. Full ones going our way empty ones coming towards us. It is thanksgiving and it seems there is a lot to be thankful for.
Being on a tour bus with a dozen farmers you can just sit back and listen to the running commentary. “Boy those fields are sure dry, just look at the dust that combine is kicking up.” “Boy the sure seed every acre with corn around here.” “That must be fodder corm; it sure is late to be harvesting corn” “That sure is a nice crop of flax!” I have a special affection for farmers, having worked on a farm as a boy. They have certain honesty and a philosophical bent that comes from spending a lot of time hunched over a tractor wheel. We pass through Brandon on the way to Winnipeg. I wish I had been here years ago; I had an Uncle here once. As we get closer to Winnipeg the scenery starts to get familiar. I have been to Winnipeg many times as our company has its’ headquarters here in fact I have stayed at this hotel before when it was the International Hotel. Oh well, it is an early start tomorrow. So I must get to bed. Tomorrow the U.S.A.!

Greg

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