Full Transcript for The Muster- Greg Erickson: Canadian Tales

like it normally is. July was pretty decent, a little bit colder at the start, but June was just terrible. There was just no heat, no nothing. It just rained constantly. So it kind of reminded me of Southland, actually. But we had record levels of rain in June. So, yeah, we would get, which is, we would get, say, an inch one night, an inch the next night, and then a week later we'd get four inches. And that doesn't happen here. 00:03:24 Speaker 1: Do you get a lot of meadow hay made over there, baleage and the likes? 00:03:29 Speaker 2: Not really, no. People will make baleage out of, if it's, say, Lucerne grass mix, but no one's making just straight grass. It's all got extra in it. 00:03:40 Speaker 1: So hay's still a big deal? 00:03:42 Speaker 2: Hay's huge, but all the hay here is also Lucerne. There is no straight grass hay. 00:03:50 Speaker 1: Is it a cost measure? 00:03:53 Speaker 2: I think so. I think it started off as trying to get the most out of every acre. And then I think it's sort of just become such a thing, such a popular thing that no one sows grass here really. It all goes straight into lucerne or crops. 00:04:14 Speaker 1: Now you've got about 6,000 acres that needs combined. How many combines have you got going? 00:04:19 Speaker 2: We've got three. uh three john deers and that mean they're older but they will knock off 300 acres a day per like uh with all three combines and one big chaser bin and then we've got a great big elevator it takes most of our grain maybe 10 15 k's away from all our crops so we just truck it to there most of the time we don't have to store too much we store probably more than half of it but yeah we just uh get rid of it as quick as we can And then we bag the rest. But we'll be looking at, a good day is 300 acres a day. And then when we get into the canola, it'll be less because that's just a little slower. 00:05:00 Speaker 1: Now, you say it's a big chaser bin. What's the capacity? 00:05:04 Speaker 2: Ah, 2,000 bushels. 00:05:07 Speaker 1: Okay, talk normal here. What are we talking as far as tonnes or whatever? 00:05:13 Speaker 2: Okay, so if you put tonnes of wheat in it, well, say tonnes of barley, you'll stick easily 45 tonnes of barley in it. Tonnes of wheat, you're probably 55 tonnes. 00:05:21 Speaker 1: So you've got some serious gear towing this, I'd imagine. 00:05:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. There's a 550 horsepower quad track in front of it. 00:05:29 Speaker 1: Has the weather ever determined the length of the harvest season over there? 00:05:34 Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. So we typically, in this area, everyone would swath their canola down and put it in windrows and then pick it up with the pickup head of the combine. And this year we are doing it all with the draper head, like the... straight cuts or the honeybees, whatever. And if it snows before we've got to it, if it's a really, really, if it's a light, fluffy snow, it won't matter. If it's a really heavy snow, it'll flatten the canola and we'll be trying to get it back in May. 00:06:07 Speaker 1: Because a lot of people do harvest with snow on there, like you say, as long as it's a light fall, but they farm for it. 00:06:14 Speaker 2: Yes, yes. So if the canola is in a swath and it snows, you can still combine it. If it's flattened, they have a really hard time picking it off the ground. And especially when it's... Because typically once it snows here, it doesn't leave until spring. And then you've got to get in there and you've got to combine it before you can prep the field and seed it. So it becomes a very big headache in May if you can't get it off in September or October. 00:06:41 Speaker 1: Canada as a whole, the economic mood of the community or of the country, how would it be? 00:06:45 Speaker 2: Horrible. 00:06:47 Speaker 1: Horrible? 00:06:49 Speaker 2: We're not in a recession or anything. Just, well, Trump did a whole tariff thing again and he put on 50% tariffs on a whole bunch of things like steel and lumber and cars. So cars in Ontario, out east, are a huge thing because car parts will go across the border over there maybe six or seven times before they're put into a car for whatever reason. And then there's towns in BC and Quebec that... that are the lumber towns, like they are logging towns, and the whole town is there because of a mill. And because there's tariffs on it, now that whole town is suffering because the whole town is reliant on this mill. And so in retaliation to these tariffs, Canada put tariffs back on the states, and equal value, so we didn't... I guess Canada didn't overstep. However, that got Trump into a tizzy, and then he... renamed a lake in Ontario, Lake Ontario, which borders. 00:07:49 Speaker 1: Lake America. 00:07:50 Speaker 2: He renamed that to Lake America. And it's just been this big whole thing, and we just want him to focus on someone else. 00:07:59 Speaker 1: So the midterm elections, if we see a change towards Democrats, will that mean much regarding tariffs? 00:08:05 Speaker 2: Probably not. I think all that will happen is the impeachment processes will start, and we will be stuck trying to deal... get his attention to take the tariffs off, and I don't think that'll happen. I think we'll have stuck with him for a while. 00:08:20 Speaker 1: Hey, just finally, Greg, good news. The Stags won the game of rugby yesterday. That's three in the year for the last 365 days. We won two for the season. It was a good one. 00:08:30 Speaker 2: That's fantastic. It's good news. 00:08:32 Speaker 1: Do you watch it all online on your social channels, or how do you get your fix? 00:08:36 Speaker 2: I keep it all on the highlights on the socials, yeah. That's the easiest way to do it, is just the 10, 15-minute highlight reels. It's the same with the All Blacks and the Warriors. I mean, yesterday's game in Boston was a bit easier to watch, but typically when they're in play in New Zealand, the time zones are really inconvenient. 00:08:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, the game in Baltimore was an interesting one for a lot of people, but I suppose it's all baseball there and NBA cracking up and ice hockey season going into pre-season almost. 00:09:08 Speaker 2: Is it? That's correct, yeah. So NFL just started. I think that was last weekend or this weekend. And then hockey starts in a week or two, the pre-seasons, and then the NBA is kicking off soon. And then the whole, like, if you want sports anywhere here, you can find sports. It's everywhere. It's just trying to get somehow rugby is an obscure sport here, so that's a little harder to find. 00:09:31 Speaker 1: Hey, good on you, Greg. Always appreciate your time. And next time, and when we do catch up next, hopefully that harvest is getting into the memory stage. Thanks as always. 00:09:40 Speaker 2: Sounds good. Thanks, Andy. 00:09:43 Speaker 1: Greg Erickson, formerly of Waimumi, these days based out of Millet. Before we wrap up, we're talking the Stags. Joanne Kyle, but before we went to the Stags, went up to the Warriors with another individual from around here. You're listening to The Muster. 00:09:56 Speaker 2: I'm down, I'm down.