The Rural Voice, 1992-06, Page 8AGRICULTURE
PROGRESS DAY
Elora Research Station
2 mi. south of Elora on west side o1 Elora road
Elora, Ontario
JULY 14, 1992
This family Field Day is for bus tours, car
loads, individuals • anyone who wants to
see the research facility.
Follow the signs to the Crops Headquarters
area, Take the one hour wagon tours or
shuttle bus from there. Crop tours begin at
10:00 a.m. - last tour 3:00 p.m. Tours leave
every 15 minutes.
FEATURES
• Soil and Crops guided wagon tours
• Dairy and Beef Cattle visits
• Educational Displays (machinery shed)
• Fish Research Station (1 1/2 hr. shuttle
bus tour at 10:30 a.m. & 1:30 p.m.)
CROP SCIENCE TOURS
• Comparison of high input, low input and
organic farming systems.
• Large scale canola demonstrations -
varieties, growth regulators, insecticides
and nitrogen levels.
• No -till soybean drills
• Weed management in conservation tilled
soybeans and white beans.
• Cereal varieties including hulless barley.
• Latest in weed control research -
interaction of weeds and nitrogen and
their effect on corn yield - weed
thresholds in corn and soybeans.
• Corn rootworm control.
FREE beef -on -a -bun to the first 400 who
register and exchange their completed form
for the sandwich.
Snacks, desserts, and drinks
available for purchase.
Registration: $5.00 per adult
\FERGUS
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Sponsored by:
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food
and University of Guelph
Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1
Further information available from:
1-519-824-4120 ext. 3933
4 THE RURAL VOICE
Gisele Ireland
Remarks to make your hair stand up
Did you ever notice how a
seemingly casual remark can make
those little hairs on the back of your
neck stand straight out?
Super Wrench has this art mast-
ered with several
degrees to his
credit. I know
the remark
means some-
thing, but I'll be
darned if I can
figure out what.
Usually his
disjointed chunks
of male logic just
leave me baffled
and would most
likely force a
triple degreed
psychologist to
flee in terror.
For no reason that I could see, he
told me that I really didn't realize
how lucky I was. Nothing more. He
sat and waited for the wheels to begin
turning. I came up blank. "You're
right," I said, "I don't realize how
lucky I am, so why don't you tell
me."
"Because," he replied with a tinge
of pomposity creeping in, "You've
forgotten how to cook like a farm
wife and I didn't embarrass you by
mentioning it at the table last night."
"That," I spat at him, "is because
we're not farming full time any more,
and cooking a table -groaning meal
twice a day is impossible on the
manifold of the car between work
and home."
"Well," he added, "you could
have been a little more imaginative
than throwing a banana at us for
dessert."
Those little hairs I was talking
about? They are now standing
straight up and I'm a prime candidate
for a hypertension attack and Super
Wrench is on a short list for the
intensive care unit.
I know it's not very adult of me to
have a tantrum over something so
seemingly insignificant. Only those
thousands of farm women who are in
the same situation have an inkling of
what's in question here.
We don't farm full time any more.
We work off the farm so we can write
a cheque for weekly groceries.
Spring seeding, and harvest for that
matter, still only lasts for several
good days. We've had very little of
those. Whether it's 500 acres or 100
that's being planted, the work is the
same for the lady of the house.
You hang out more than half a
dozen men's briefs on the clothes
line, in pristine white, except for the
black finger prints on them. They
haven't yet invented a detergent to
obliterate them.
You decide what to leave out for
lunch, get ready to go to work, and
leave something to thaw for supper.
When you get home, just in time
to clear the lunch dishes, it is not re-
assuring to find a note on the refrig-
erator that there will be "men" for
supper. Who? How many? Those
questions will remain a mystery until
they actually begin tromping into the
house. If you've cooked for eight,
you can be sure that only four will
make it to the table. If you've
cooked for four ... well any number
is as good a guess as any.
Even though spring seeding might
be shorter, and the acreage smaller, it
still makes little difference to the
towels in the wash room. They still
all get black.
Enough dirt is tracked into the
entrance and the kitchen to start a
flower bed under the table. I'm lucky
though, I have until midnight to wash
dishes, clean the floor and bring the
laundry in. The last stuff hung out
there in the rain for six days and the
birds built a nest in my bra. My luck
just doesn't seem to ever quit, does it?
Super Wrench was still sitting
there, waiting for a reply to his
banana remark. There were a lot of
things I could have replied, but
didn't. It will be all over in a few
days, and then the crops will bring in
untold fortunes.
I just gave him a "go to Mexico in
a wheelbarrow" look and sweetly told
him he was lucky I had bananas. I
could have brought home coconuts.0
Gisele Ireland is from Bruce County.
Her most recent book, Brace Your-
self, is available for $7 from Bumps
Books, Teeswater, Ontario. NOG 2S0