Grass in Saskatchewan, Ontario wet

Anyone looking for a couple months of grazing for a couple hundred head of yearlings, may want to call Rodger Savory near Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

Rodger is a friend of a friend, and apparently has enough pasture for two months and also has winter grazing available. That part of the country was blessed with a bit more rainfall than many areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Hay, in the area,  is reported selling for about $50 per tonne.

You can reach Rodger at 306-647-2755.

 While there is a bit of grass available in some areas of Western Canada, it is interesting to hear problems associated with too much rain in Eastern Ontario, as I visit that part of the country this week.

Environment Canada said this morning that July broke a record for rainfall in Ontario. I’m in the Ottawa area and they’ve had rain 17 of the past 28 days. Last Friday, the day after I arrived they had six inches of rain in two hours,  just west of Ottawa, and the ground was already waterlogged.

I am interviewing a farmer in that area later today. He’s trying to get his hay off, but said there was no problem taking a couple hours this afternoon to talk. The ground is too wet, and the hay he had cut last week, is still lying in soggy swaths. More thunderstorms are forecast for this afternoon.

Although Environment Canada senior meteorologist David Phillips had forecast, in early summer, this was supposed to be a warm dry summer in Ontario, he now says that assessment was obviously off. July has been wet and relatively cool by Ontario standards, and at this point he says what you see is likely what you will get in August.

As a side note, I am working on a story looking at the value of effluent spray irrigation systems as a means of getting rid of ‘waste’ from municipalities. After the raw sewage is aerated and settles out in a lagoon, the nutrient rich water can be applied to land to grow a range of forage and grain crops. Some of these systems have been operating for more than 30 years. Ottawa uses the more conventional mechanical sewage treatment system. They recently built or added a $30 million sewage treatment plant. But, with all this rain overwhelming their tertiary treatment lagoons, an estimated 750 million litres of raw sewage has been dumped into the Ottawa River. Isn’t that great?

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