I spent my afternoon at a local event in Stockholm, Saskatchewan. It was a Equine Extravaganza & Trade Show. What is a Equine Extravaganza you ask? Well the local Twin Valley Riding Club got together with a pile of local vendors, and rented a hall in Stockholm so they could show off their works. These works ranged from the horse related to the western lifestyle art. There was booths for jewelry & clothing, vets, local horse supply stores, and artist from around the Qu'Appelle valley. There was even a table for the local animal shelter Angles of Hope Animal Rescue, and they were attempting find fur-ever homes for their lovely animals. There was music played during the trade show, and some poetry read. Outside they had demonstrations ranging from how to properly gear up your horse to health care tips. Bascially it was a whole day dedicated to horse related things. Personally, I throughly enjoyed getting a chance to try my hand at roping with one of the local young men who was giving lessons. I also enjoyed getting to see a rather interesting breed of horse. They are the Gypsy Vanner breed. This breed of horse has only been in Canada for 16 years. It is a special breed developed by the traditional gypsies for their variety of uses. They were bred to have this beautiful flowing hair, and coloring to match the Gypsy fashion. I also got to enjoy watching a farrier do his work, and learn about the corrective work they can do to fix a horses stance. I learnt from this man that you can only do corrective work on a horse up till the age of 3. By this age the bones have hardened, and formed, so all work to correct issues after that point will only work to allievate the issue; not cure it. He travelled all the way up to Stockholm from Ogema, Saskatchewan. He was quite the skilled and knoweldged individual. His name was Chad Robinson, and travels around much of the province doing the work he does. All in all it was a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and well worth the drive. The people were really friendly, and there was lots to see and learn. There was also a great hay ride to take part of for free, which was an added bonus to the day!!!
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I happily write this first blog with knowledge that today myself, along with others, will be sharing their stories to help connect the consumer to agriculture. Thanks to the excellent efforts of a great group of people of the Farm On community they have started an movement to help connect the consumer to the farmer. They have launched their #FarmVoices campaign where young farmers are to get out there and share their stories through social media to help bring some much needed information about agriculture out to the broader public. I think it is a fabulous movement for a multiple of reasons starting with the most important; more and more people are not living on the farm, and therefore less people have knowledge of what it takes to produce the food that feeds them. This is shown in Stats Canada data that states "Farm numbers have been declining steadily since 1941. Between 2006 and 2011, the number fell in every province except Nova Scotia, where it rose 2.9%.". I also know first hand what it is like to meet a person that does not know what the everyday operations of the average farm is. This was something very surprising to me since growing up in Saskatchewan you can see the influence and the importance of agriculture everywhere... even at Sask Fashion Week where in their displays they show beautiful wheat fields blowing in the wind. I am a amateur photographer with a love for agriculture, conservation, rural life and the outdoors [especially fishing]. I am excited to start this blog to help give people an insight into all those topics by using my photography skills as a window into a world most don't get to see. So on this first blog I thought I would join the #FarmVoices, and tell the tale of girl who found her way back to the farm. I was very blessed to be raised spending my time as a kid jumping between my grandparents farms, provincial parks, and multiple small towns. These moves, and experiences, are what gave me my foundations for the my loves. I knew right from being young that living on the farm was going to be apart of my future; it was a non-negotiable. Unlike many of my rural living friends however, I only got to live 3 short years on our family farm [the rest of the 9 years was spent living in town and going to the farm]. This too also ended up shaping a lot of who I am, and the stumbling journey I took after graduating high school. With all the travelling that occurred in my young life it gave me a rather intense love of road travelling adventures. So when I graduated from my small town instead of jumping straight into an agriculture degree I took the opposite approach. Through most of my life it always felt that the farm life I wanted for myself, as close as it was, was so distance compared to those of my friends that I hung out with. I admit freely I don't know what it is like to have to pull a calf, check on cows during calving, or what it is like to drive a sprayer. I watched, and listened to the stories of my friends who I considered to be the real farm kids [not a part timer like me] with some underlying jealously. In my part time life on the farm I got to experience some of the more idealistic farming experiences. This combined with my ability to constantly be living in my own dream world produced a very idealistic sense of what I wanted my life to be. Thank goodness I had my parents teach me to be realistic, and knock some sense into me. Between my parents sense & my admiration of my real farm friends I decided that even though farming would be apart of my future maybe I should use my own unique experiences growing up, and come into agriculture with a different point of view and starting point. So the day I graduated and left my small town, I did not go to agriculture school. Instead my adventurous side bit me, and I decided to pursue my other passion of conservation. I ended up going to the wonderful school of University of Northern British Columbia. It is the GREEN university of Canada, and it was in the beautifully small city of Prince George, BC. The small university and small city looked like the perfect place to go for a girl who could not make herself live in a "real" city. Plus, having the chance to see Moose on my campus and have a forest right outside my school lab door to be able to get hands on learning looked like an excellent adventure to take. This was supposed to be a short adventure, a year or two. I ended up staying at UNBC and Prince George for the next 6 years!!! Long story short my life plan got a big curve ball right from step one. This was where my young naive mind learnt one the most important lessons in my life.... not everyone knows the hands that feed them, and agriculture is not an integrated into peoples way of life. I always figured if you were concerned about conservation and sustainability of our society that you HAD to have knowledge of agriculture. I was blindsided to find out this was not true. This was an important point in my life for it taught me two things... how much I LOVE talking about agriculture with people and I maybe a lot more Farm Girl than I previously thought. I will by no extreme exaggeration say that I found my life, my mental well-being, can not exist without being surrounded by agriculture. It was one of the hardest things I have had to do in my life was to finish my degree at UNBC. There was not a day that went by that I did not want to go home [and my friends would be surprised that was even true in my first years]. But being my stubborn self I forced myself to face my choices, and test my inner strength, and finish the degree I had started. I am happy to say with the help of amazing professors, and student peers, I got my degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Management [and actually had a pretty good time doing it in the end]. The people I had in my everyday life made being so far away from the farm a little easier. So at the end of the six years I got more than a degree. I got the experiences needed to prove to myself that I was ready to start my farm future a lot sooner than I had planned on my life plan. I found out that seeing young calves in the spring, riding on the tractor, or driving down rural roads are more important to me than the travelling I had hoped to do in my 20's. I left Prince George and came back to Saskatchewan and can't say I have looked back once. I have lived one of the most happiest years of my life this past year. Nothing compares to the freedom, and peace, I find while driving the back roads and seeing mile after mile of pasture and cropland. Because of my degree I got a internship in which I got to walk mile after mile of conserved native prairie, and got to see even more of the beautiful province that is my home. I got even more insight, and knowledge, to know how intertwined conservation and agriculture really are! Important fact: without the hard work and dedication of our Canadian Ranchers we would not have what is left of our native grasslands. Because of my degree I now have an excellent day job where I get to see how agriculture and rural people a like are working together to improve watershed health, and fisheries in Saskatchewan. Oh, and to have a job that I get to put savings away to develop a nice down payment on that piece of land that will be my farm one day! I am lucky though to have my grandparents farm to practice on until I have that farm. So after reading this long piece please enjoy this collection of pictures from my past year of life. I think life was giving me a sign when I graduated university. For it was the last couple weeks of school when Jason Aldeans - Fly Over States was released, and I heard for the first time ever as I left Prince George Doc Walkers - Where I belong. Both songs so completely tell my love for where I am from that I think the universe was welcoming home. So it with great pleasure I present this collection of pictures in video form with the amazing Doc Walker song in the back ground. Please enjoy! Have a great day! |
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