So since my last update, there have been a few things happening. The weekend of the 18th I went to a horsemanship clinic run by a guy called John Tilley. He was quite a nice guy and a feaking awesome rider. It is so humbling to see good people ride horses, although he does spend all of his time riding/training them so it is to be expected I suppose. Nevertheless it was a very interesting weekend and I learnt quite a bit. There were some nice people there as well, although mostly city slickers who only ride when they get a chance, which seemed to be like once or twice a month for the most part. Oh almost forgot...I happened to win the lucky door prize which was a set of McCarthy reins so that was pretty awesome. Will have to try them out when I get home.

Since then we have been pretty busy with the harvesting (again). All the second cut Lucerne has been baled and most of it hauled back to the yard. There ended up being about 550 bales, which Perry was quite happy about. We also made some square bales, which was pretty cool but rather labour intensive. The bales were made and we went behind with a trailer and loaded them up. This wasn't so bad really as you didn't have to cart the bales, just wait for the trailer to go past and throw then on. Unloading was much worse as we had to carry the bales into the barn. Also it was quite a hot day when we did it and was therefore hard work. As you can see from the photos the trailer was stacked up pretty high. Once we got above 3 stacks I couldn't really throw them on anymore so usually ended up on top stacking. This went pretty smoothly most of the time, although I did fall off from the top once which wasn't quite so fun!

Unfortunately the canola crops were not as good as expected and only about 1/3 was combined. The rest was just baled for hay. There were some pretty late nights baling, which wasn't too bad except it can be quite disorientating driving around in an unfamiliar field at night. I voiced my concerns about being lost at one point and Perry assured me I wasn't lost if there was a swath in front of me. Great advice! We were baling as late as possible, some nights stopping at 8:30 and others going through until midnight. It's just a matter of testing the bales to make sure there isn't too much moisture in them.

So harvest is almost over, with only about 180 acres of canola left to go at Little Rainbow. Hopefully this stuff is better than the last and can be combined to get the seed. There is also the corn to be chopped for silage I suppose, but that won't happen until the end of September. Silaging is probably more fun because at least I get to drive the truck and am not stuck in the tractor for hours on end looking at nothing but the swath in front of me. I think there is still quite a bit of baling to do though because some people have asked Perry to bale their straw and take it because they don't have any cattle. Not sure when that will start.

Last weekend I went to Regina and happened to be in town for a Riders game (the Saskatchewan team in the Canadian Football League). So I decided to follow the sea of green to the stadium and check it out for myself. When I got to the gate I asked the guy where I could buy tickets and he asked me how many I wanted. I told him just the one and he pulled some out of his pocket which were extras people had given him…pretty luck hey? It was quite fun to watch, although the weather wasn't really cooperating and there were 80km/h wind-gusts on the field. The Roughriders ended up losing, which kinda sucked but I'm glad I went cos I'm not likely to get another chance to see a CFL game.

Not too sure what this week will bring yet, although Dad is coming for a visit so we had better have something to keep him occupied. It will be interesting for him to see the place and I think him and Perry will enjoy talking 'shop' together. It is starting to cool off here and can drop to about 10 overnight. The days are also getting quite a bit shorter, with the sun rising/setting 3 minutes later/earlier each day. That is quite crazy as you can really notice the difference in day length. I imagine that in the winter time there is minimal day length, which would not be fun at all!