.it's been a while.

I'd like to apologize, firstly for my absence of blogs lately! May has surely been an extremely busy month for me, especially this year!

May is seeding month! We are busy putting in our 3200 acres of land for the season! Not only are we busy seeding, we have also been kept very busy with all the repairs and errands, not to mention when we manage to get the machinery stuck! It's been a very wet spring this year, and the machinery seems to be slopping around in the mud! Just yesterday, my father got the cultivator stuck, and in the process of pulling it out, we pulled the wheel off... yikes!

Good one Dad! 

Along with the seeding and the farm-work I have also been very busy at school.

2011 is my graduation year, and next Friday is my high school graduation ceremony. Being an avid leader within the school, I have been busy preparing a speech to thank the teachers alongside a fellow classmate to be said at the ceremonies. Also, being president of the students union I have been organizing a year end field trip. With all this and studying for exams that are coming up so quickly I can't seem to find the time to inform you guys of anything new! Diploma's are coming up so fast, and Grad makes things so hectic!

Sorry I haven't been keeping up lately, but I will try my best to get on here and blog whenever I can!

.in memory of someone we love.

Being a farmer in Alberta we all know how hot the sun can get, but do we really know what kind of damage that sun is doing to us and our skin?

The truth is, not everyone realizes what kind of damage the sun may cause. Daily tasks such as; fencing, chasing cows, field work, and other various chores around the farm and in the yard, raise our chances of damaging our skin from the sun. Without using proper protection such as sunscreen, or even a hat makes these risks even higher.

I strongly encourage you to take a moment to click on, and watch this clip (attached below) to help raise awareness on the dangers of melanoma.

                              

For more tools an information, visit: http://dcmf.ca/tools

.every "litter" bit hurts.

Just the other day, as a 4-H member, I was doing my part in helping to cleanup just a few of Alberta's highways in the annual clean-up. After watching the safety video (for the millionth time...), we were all assigned to different highways. All of us senior 4-H members had the "priveledge" of doing the 4-laned highway. This once again brought me to the pressing question; why do we not care about the environment to the extent that we will cover it in trash?

The annual highway cleanup program is set-up as a fundraiser event. Although the program was originally established for associations such as the 4H and Scouts, all groups and clubs are now encouraged to participate. Our club cleaned 11km’s on the outskirts of Lacombe, AB.

Motorists and pedestrians are responsible for creating between 30 and 55 percent of all litter. The rest comes from household or commercial garbage, construction sites, loading and delivery areas, and uncovered trucks. Garbage that is not properly disposed of is easily blown by the wind spreading litter to neighbouring areas. In British Columbia, signs along highways indicate litterbugs can be fined up to $2,000.00 for a littering offence. But the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks is hard pressed to say when the last successful prosecution occurred. Research indicates males aged between 16 and 30 do most of the littering along roadsides.

Interestingly enough, the worst type of litter is found most often on the road-ways. Cigarette butts, snack wrappers and take-out food and beverage containers are the most commonly littered items. Cigarettes are one of the most insidious forms of litter, taking up 21% of all liter: Each discarded butt takes 12 years to break down, all the while leaching toxic elements such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into soil and waterways. In my group we had a competition to see who could find the most empty cigarette packs. I won the competition with a surprising number of 43. Needless to say, the other members werent far behind. In just under 2km of highway, we had picked over more than 100 empty cigarette packs, and that is not including all of the cigarette butts that are found laying around either.

Doing your part to keep litter to a minimum is easy, but it takes vigilance. For starters, never let trash escape from your car, and make sure household garbage bins are sealed tightly so animals can’t get at the contents. Always remember to take your garbage with you upon leaving a park or other public space. And if you smoke, remember that not only is it harmful to yourself, it is also just as harmful to the environment. Dispose properly of your cigarette butts and empty packages. Also, if that stretch of roadway you drive everyday to work is a haven for litter, offer to clean it up and keep it clean. Many cities and towns welcome “Adopt-A-Mile” sponsors for particularly litter-prone streets and highways, and your employer might even want to get in on the act by paying you for your volunteer time.

10 top litter tips:

1. Once you butt out, butt in. Smokers…put your butts in the ashtray and empty cigarette packs in the bin.
2. Bin there, done that. Recycle your pop cans.

3. Roll up to the bin and toss it in. Everyone's drinking coffee on the go - make sure your cup ends up in the bin.

4. Don't make yesterday's news tomorrow's trash. The real news would be if we all recycled our newspapers.

5. Don’t sing the gum shoe blues. Aim for the bin - not the sidewalk.

6. Fast food = fast litter. Put the brakes on fast food litter.

7. Everybody needs a pick-me-up. Pledge to pick up one piece of litter daily.

8. Waste not, walk a lot. With thousands of bins out there, just walk those few extra steps.

9. Talking trash is okay. Remind family, friends, kids and colleagues not to litter.

10. Stash your trash or lose your cash. Many towns enforce litter by-laws and sets fines for offenders.

.did you know?.

I find it interesting that...

• One bushel of corn will sweeten more than 400 cans of pop.
• A typical, full grown Holstein cow weighs about 1,400 pounds and produces 60 pounds of milk per day.
• Lettuce is a member of the sunflower family.
• It takes 12 Honeybees to produce 1 tablespoon of honey.
• Pigs can't sweat. Pigs have no sweat glands, that is why they roll around in mud to cool off.
• Hamburger meat from a single steer will make about 720 quarter pound hamburger patties. That's enough for a family of 4 to enjoy hamburgers each day for nearly 6 months.
• A dairy cow consumes 35 gallons of water, 20 pounds of grain and concentrated feed and 35 pounds of hay or silage (a mixture of corn and grass) in just one day.
• Abe Lincoln's mother died when the family dairy cow ate poisonous mushrooms and Mrs. Lincoln drank the milk.
• A Kangaroo can not jump if it's tail is off the ground.
• It is impossible for pigs to look up in the sky.
• The most expensive cow in the world was sold for $1.3 million.
• Sheep can survive up to two weeks buried in a snow drift.
• There was no grass during the time of the dinosaurs. Grass evolved from bamboo-like plants only 24 million years ago.
• It takes 100 pounds of rain water to produce a single pound of food from the earth. Between 10 and 20 tons of water must pass through the roots of an acre of corn before one bushel of corn will be produced.
• Almost all of our breakfast cereals are made of grass. Oats, barley, corn and wheat are all different varieties of grass and are all descended from the same botanical species. Furthermore, most of the sugar we eat also comes from grass (sugar cane), as do most of our alcoholic beverages.
• Straight from the cow, the temperature of cow’s milk is about 97 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Products we use in our everyday lives come from plant and animal byproducts produced by America's farmers and ranchers: - Health care: Pharmaceuticals, surgical sutures, ointments, latex gloves, x-ray film, gelatin for capsules and heart valves.
• A cow has 4 stomachs. They are: the rumen, where the food is first stored, the reticulum where food that has been more thoroughly chewed is stored once the cow has chewed the cud and has swallowed it; the omasum where extra water is squeezed out, and finally the food goes to the abomasum. Some of the digested food is then stored in the cow’s udder where it is made into milk.
• There are 914 different breeds of sheep in the world. There are 35 breeds in the U.S.

.this is me.

Life is meant to be lived. Lived to your fullest extent. Lived the way you want to live it. Be unique. Most importantly, be yourself.

Growing up in rural Alberta, I have learnt many things. To me; if you haven’t eaten dirt, slept on the straw bales, fallen asleep to the sound of the coyotes, had a mud fight, or worked over twelve hours just to wake up the next day and start again, you aren’t a farm kid.