Empire-Advance

 

    Apparently a few farmers mused last week that “We could sure use a bit of rain.” They got their wish, and then some, with rainfalls that soaked the fields and, in some cases, revisited some of this past summer’s overland flooding. Where the crops survived or re-grew from hail damage and where the floods didn’t reach, the crops look really good. Gardens are doing great.
    My Mother was raised in the non-freezer days and canning was pretty much the whole deal for
preserving food. I perhaps should explain the term canning as it has nothing to do with cans. It’s a heat process where food is cooked and put into glass sealers or jars and sealed with rubber rings and a glass or metal top secured with a threaded steel ring. She canned beef and chicken. Also cranberry, choke-cherry, raspberry jelly and jams and bought B.C. plums and pears to can. At times, she canned beet and bean pickles and many forms of cucumber pickles. Canned tomatoes often made it to the shelf. We also had an older home with a stone basement and a separate cold room for storing carrots and potatoes.
     She thought she had really arrived when they bought a freezer in the 1950s just after they got hydro in their house on the farm. All kinds of food went into the freezer.
Strangely enough, our parents passed on a fine prairie tradition and you know you have Depression era roots when you put aside a “good box”, just because it might come in handy someday.
Here’s another strange depression era thing, my Dad would rarely cut a board unless he had to because it might get re-used in another spot that needed a longer piece of wood. He overlapped a lot of boards in his day and I tend to do the same.
      As a former farmer and Ag-rep, I am always wondering why we don’t harvest more fruit and vegetables. I am sure there’s more food that stays on the ground than ever gets to the table when it comes to fruit and vegetables except perhaps for the commercial potato fields. Commercial producers often offer free potatoes to individuals and to food banks.
     There’s another problem with food production and preserving in Manitoba. I have known several
occasions where people who could really use some free food were offered some. The invitation was
extended to come out and pick some vegetables for free. The response was, “Can you pick it and bring it into town the next time you are in?” Unless it was a case of sickness or disability, the answer should be a firm “No”. The next answer should be, “Get off your butt” and look after yourself with stuff that is being given to them for free. Do they want other people to cook it for them and maybe chew it for them too?  

​

​

​

     I think we could be much more self-sufficient in Manitoba with a bit more industrious pursuit of what we can and do grow. Perhaps we have had too many government regulations and too much socialism in Manitoba. Manitoba, as province, has been on social assistance for decades as we get subsidized by “Have provinces” because we are a “Have-not province”. For decades we have been on the government welfare roll. That is shameful and saddens me. I am pretty sure that spending billions to re-locate rail lines in Winnipeg won’t help make us into “Have province”, but I welcome someone who wants to prove me wrong. 

    

 Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the Banner & Press staff.