Have times changed?

I attended Cliff Flauknor’s funeral in Calgary this week. Many of you may not know Cliff, who was a long-time writer for Country Guide Magazine. In fact, I didn’t know him very well either. I had met him, knew him by reputation mostly, but he had retired from Guide a decade or so before I started. (As a bit of background Country Guide, Canadian Cattleman Magazine and Grainews are all part of the same publishing group)

Ultimately when I joined the company in 1988, I took over a field editor position with Country Guide in Calgary that Cliff (photo at right) had held from the late ‘50s to 1974.

He was a long time writer and character and continued writing books and working on

 other projects long after he retired. Perhaps since I didn’t know him well, I decided to look back at some of the stories he had written for Guide. It is always amazing, when I open those old volumes of 30 and 40 years ago, to see how many of the same stories and same topics writers like myself are still chasing. The people may have changed but many of the topics, problems, issues and successes written about are very similar.

Cliff’s last story in Guide appeared in October 1974 and it was about a young dairy farmer in Creston, B.C. (the Creston Valley is about five hours west of Calgary), who started in the dairy business with minimum cash.

Wayne Adams was 20 years old in 1970, he and a partner at that time Ernie Adams (no relation), decided to start dairy farming at Creston. Wayne had owned about 30 head of beef cattle at Chilliwack before he decided there was no money in beef (where I have heard that before), so he sold the cattle and moved to Creston with about $4,000 to start a dairy farm.

He and Ernie had limited resources, most banks laughed at them when they went to borrow money. A former boss of Wayne’s loaned the two young men 10 Holstein heifers for two years at no cost. Finally, the local CIBC bank manager William Lloyd had enough confidence in them that he loaned them $11,000 to buy 10 more cows and quota. The next spring they bought 15 more cows and 600 pounds more quota at a time when quota was worth about $10 a pound.

At the time of Cliff’s interview with Wayne in 1974, things had progressed. Wayne bought out Ernie’s share of the farm, after Ernie had become ill, Wayne had married Eileen Phillips and he was milking 48 head of Holsteins in a six-place milking parlor with a total herd of 100 head. Land at the time was selling for about $1,750 per acre.

I talked to Wayne today, October 1, 2009, to see how things were going. He’s still milking cows. He and Eileen operate Wayleen Farms. They had five children, a son Keith, 31, is at home joining them in the dairy business. They built a new dairy barn on the Creston flats about three years ago. They milk 200 head twice a day, in a modern double-16 parallel DeLaval parlour. 

With dry cows and replacements they have a total herd of about 350 head. And they crop about 430 acres of mostly forages and some grain for the farm.

Land in the area is now worth about $6,000 per acre and although it varies, dairy quota is trading for about $100 per kilogram of butter fat.

One dream Wayne had in 1974 was to one day have a hired man, and that goal was realized as well. They actually have two full time employees.

What’s different about dairy farming today compared to 1974? “Not much,” says Wayne. “Yes, we have more modern facilities and much more automation, but it’s still a lot of work and it seems like you run into the same problems and hassles today that we had 35 years ago.”  Life is good, but the cows still have to be milked twice a day, 365 days of the year.

We all get older, and eventually we all pass on. Cliff was 96 when he died and still sharp and active almost to the end. Us young fellas, like myself and Wayne, are still doing much the same today as we did 35 years ago. This item is first appearing on a blog and when I started in the business I had not even an inkling of what a computer was, let alone something called the Internet, or a form of communication known as blogging.

But dare I say it, in putting this little piece together, it is clear over the span of 35 to 40 years, as much as things change, the more they stay the same.

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