The Rural Voice, 1992-05, Page 3Editor: Keith Roulston
editorial advisory committee:
Bev Hill, farmer, Huron County
John Heard, soils and crop extension
and research, northwestem Ontario
Neil McCutcheon, farmer, Grey Cty.
Diane O'Shea, farmer, Middlesex Cty.
George Penfold, associate professor,
University of Guelph
Gerald Poechman, farmer, Bruce Cty.
contributing writers:
Adrian Vos, Gisele Ireland, Cathy
Laird, Wayne Kelly, Sarah Borowski,
Mary Lou Weiser -Hamilton, June
Flath, Ian Wylie-Toal, Susan Glover,
Bob Reid, Mervyn Erb, Darene
Yavorsky, Peter Baltensperger, Sandra
Orr, Yvonne Reynolds, Dorothy Smith
marketing & advertising sales manager:
Gerry Fortune
advertising sales:
Merle Gunby
production co-ordinator:
Tracey Rising
advertising & editorial production:
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
Anne Harrison
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Rural Voice, Box 429, Blyth, Ontario,
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THE RHYTHM OF THE SEASONS
May—May weather is the strangest
of weather. Some days it feels like
May should be included among the
summer months. Heat can be intense,
bringing blossoms on early.
Suddenly, the weather can resemble
March again, setting the birds
shivering as they sit on their nests
trying to keep their eggs warm.
But the signs of spring are
overwhelming now and even the odd
setback can't hurt the conviction that
summer is inevitably coming. The
March winds and April showers have
brought the May flowers. The
daffodils are in full bloom and the
tulips are starting to show off their
beauty. In the bush the wild flowers
are putting on their show. The
trilliums turn the forest floor white,
their carpet broken here and there by
a dash of their blood -red cousins, the
yellow of dog -tooth violets, the green
and purple of the proud jack-in-the-
pulpit.
But nobody is there to see the
show. Farmers, who may have been
in the bush cutting wood during the
winter months, or gathering sap for
maple syrup, are busy elsewhere
now. The days are long as they hurry
to get the crops in. There is as much
beauty in the warm feel of the soil in
their hands as they stop to let it run
through their fingers, as there is in a
bush full of trilliums, as sweet a scent
in the smell of the earth as in any
flower.
It's the season of endless
possibilities: like the new season for
baseball teams when all can dream of
their chances in the world series. As
the seeds drop into the soil, a farmer
can see the crop as it should be:
waving across the horizon, not a
weed in sight. No drought. No
insects. No wet to ruin the harvest.
He can dream that this year, at last,
there will be that perfect combination
of high yield and good prices that
will make up for all those bad years.
May is the time when farmers
climb off the tractor on rubbery legs
at night, unsteady from the long
hours riding back and forth. Yet is a
weariness that sits lightly because
May is when all is new, and all is
possible. 0
BEHIND THE SCENES
Every now and then we need to find out from our readers what they're liking
about the magazine, what they don't care for, and what they would like to see
added. This month we're conducting a readership survey which you'll find on the
back inside cover. Please fill it in to help us to help you. As an added incentive,
two of the entries will be chosen to receive tickets to the Blyth Festival.
Meanwhile, we are trying to add new features to the magazine. Last month we
added a travel story. Not everybody can take the time to travel to foreign lands,
but we can take a few hours now and then for a daytrip. This month we introduce
a new feature on daytrips to points of local interest.
Some farmers these days are looking for crops and livestock that will give
them a unique niche in the marketplace: something they can produce where they
won't have to compete with thousands of other farmers. Former pork producer
Jerry Wilder of the Zurich area turned to raising emu (a member of the ostrich
family from Australia) and got in just in time to see the business boom.
The idea of clearing up the lines of jurisdiction on who pays what for services
like roads and welfare sounds like a good one, but some local political leaders
fear that rural Ontario may get hit with a huge tax bite if current proposals go
forward. It's a classic rural -urban confrontation and if rural Ontario loses out, the
cost can be in the hundreds of millions.0 —Keith Roulsion