January 2020 – MASTER OF NONE

January 20, 2020February 11, 2020

NOT A FAN OF OMAR KHADR

Legitimizing a convicted terrorist

WHAT A FARCE!!! That’s all I can say about the marshmallow puff questions posed towards Omar Khadr last night. If you would like a minute to minute description of the event, you can go through True North’s Andrew Lawton’s Twitter feed from the event.

Here’s a few points from last night’s session:

The moderator came out with the statement that they wanted the ‘hard questions‘ to be asked of Khadr. Immediately, the audience was told that no questions related to the ‘incident’ that occcured in Afghanistan or the government settlement would be taken. Well, For Fuck’s Sake, what was the point of having him there???
So instead of tough questions, Khadr got asked about the weather and if he read poetry in Guantanamo. He did volunteer that his dad got the family a pony when he was a kid.
During the Twitter rounds afterwards, I pointed out to some bleeding hearts that Khadr was not a child soldier. To begin with, he was not recruited by a regular army and using the term soldier implies legitimacy. Really, he was a young terrorist.
Also, under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict , he was a legal adult for the purposes of combat. Here’s the timeline: the Protocol was brought into force by the UN in February 2002; Khadr, who was 15 at the time, was detained by American forces in July 2002; the States did not ratify the Protocol until December 2002. So under the rules of the time, Khadr was an adult combatant with a terrorist organization, Al Qaeda, ergo he could be treated as an adult terrorist. Canada had signed the Protocol back in 2000 but because he was detained by Americans, he fell under their jurisdiction.
One statement from Khadr was that he did not believe in borders and it should be an open world. I thought that was interesting since he fought so hard to have his Canadian citizenship recognized so that he could be transferred to a Canadian jail.
There was a small protest of Canadian veterans present. I would encourage you to listen to what this veteran has to say on this video.

So for a night where Khadr was supposed to be talking about child soldiering, he did nothing of the sort. It was just another love-in session for Canada’s reformed terrorist and he received a standing ovation from the audience.

DISGUSTING!!!

So tonight is the big night. It’ll be interesting to hear the reports from the event. If I were there, here are the questions I would be asking Mr. Khadr:

Does he take any responsibility for the killing of Sgt Speer and the maiming of the other soldier? Does he unequivocally feel remorse for those actions?
Does he take any responsibility for the creation of IEDs which were probably targeted at coalition soldiers? Does he unequivocally feel remorse for any persons, military or civilian, who may have been killed or injured by IEDs that he helped build?
If he does feel remorse or responsibility for the killing or injuring of anyone, what is he doing to help right that wrong. For example, will he share any of his government payout money with the widow and children of the man he killed?
Has Mr. Khadr renounced the activities of the family members and former acquaintances who have been or are still connected to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda? Does he have any contact with those people? Has he supported them with any monies whether directly or through third parties? What groups, if any, does Mr. Khadr support and fund with his payout money?
Mr. Khadr mused about becoming a nurse at one point. So why did he buy a strip mall? It seems an odd purchase. Although, he is free to do whatever with his payout money, it seems strange. What else or what other plans does he have with all that money?
If able, does Mr. Khadr plan to someday revisit Afghanistan or Pakistan? Who would he go see and what would be his intent while there?

I doubt he would be forthcoming on any of those questions. After watching his interviews, all I see is someone who weasels away from a direct answer. Also, I understand that he will once again be refusing to talk to the media directly. Wouldn’t want to disturb the carefully laid out narrative, would we?

***Latest Update – CBC News responded to my questions in regards to Naylah Ahed moderating the Dalhousie event. “The event you mentioned last is being hosted by the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, in partnership with Dalhousie University’s Open Dialogue series, and while Nahlah Ayed was invited to moderate the event, Ideas has decided to explore this subject at another time in a different way. Given that decision, Nahlah will no longer be moderating. That said, CBC News may cover the event. Thank you.” When I first saw this story, I reached out to Brett Ruskin in Halifax who would be the logical reporter to cover the event. Andrew Lawton from True North News has already indicated that he will be reporting on the event. Reading between the lines, perhaps CBC has decided to distance itself from appearing to be to cozy with Khadr.***

***Update – VoteWexit, The Post Millennial, & True North News are running with this story now. If you feel that Dalhousie University should not be hosting Omar Khadr then True North News has a petition to sign here. National Post & the Postmedia papers have now picked up the article.***

After doing some digging, this is not the first time Omar Khadr has addressed a university crowd with his story. King’s University in Edmonton was graced with his presence back in 2016 when he gave a talk on his experience. The report on the event pushed the narrative that Khadr didn’t throw the grenade that killed Sgt Speers. It was inevitable that King’s University would host the convicted terrorist as members of the university fought hard to have the man released and brought back to Canada.

If there was one face which epitomized the depravity of the present Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau, it would be that of the smiling Omar Khadr upon receiving his $10.5 million non-contested payout.

Canadians across the country reacted with shock and revulsion when the news of the settlement was announced. The wife of the US Special Forces soldier who was killed by Khadr’s hand grenade is still pursuing a civil lawsuit against the man. The US has him listed as a convicted terrorist.

But up here in Canada, Khadr has become a darling and is starting on the talking circuit aided in part by the CBC. I was filled with crushing disappointment when I saw Khadr’s name listed as a keynote speaker for an upcoming event on February 10 at the Dalhousie University in Halifax. The event is being put on by the Children’s Rights Upfront organization (a group associated with the Dalhousie University) with the proceeds going to the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. Ret’d LGen Dallaire will be making an appearance. The event will be moderated by CBC reporter Nahlah Ayed.

CBC has already hosted Khadr on the talk show Tout le Monde en Parle. The show garnered criticism for having Khadr and Twitter briefly suspended the show’s account for being a ‘terror apologist’.

News of the proposed event and one of its keynote speakers has already sparked visceral, negative reaction from social media users. People on VoteWexit.com are venting their anger by the hundreds. After about five hours, the admins of the site took the Dalhousie University link down. Too many people were conflating the Wexit site with supporting Khadr and the tone of many of the comments were heated and inflammatory.

On a personal note, I have met Ret’d LGen Dallaire on several occasion through the years and I am disappointed that he would allow one of his causes to be caught up with lending support to this terrorist. I feel that this will result in a stain on Dallaire’s reputation and organizations related to raising awareness of child soldiers being used in warfare.

Sure, Khadr was a child soldier. But no, he should not be given any sort of platform that legitimizes his actions.

Not in my Canada!

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 16, 2020April 26, 2020

ENERGY REALIST

At the Regional Test Center in Williston, Vermont, researchers are examining how framed (in the background) and frameless (in the foreground) solar photovoltaic modules handle snowy conditions. | Photo Courtesy: Sandia National Laboratories

The Real world inefficiency of wind and solar

Update – Don’t believe me, well listen to an acolyte of the radical Lefties. Better watch Michael Moore’s film, ‘Planet of the Humans‘ before it gets successfully banned.

For Canadians suffering through this bitter winter cold snap, I thought I would crunch some actual numbers to see how some various forms of power generation were performing.

As a preamble, when it comes to generating electricity there are a few terms to understand. For example, just because a wind turbine or a natural gas generating station is rated for ‘X’ amount of Megawatts (MW), that does not mean that it is the constant output. It is a maximum output. In reality, the wind is not constantly blowing, the sun does not shine at night, and power plants get taken offline for repairs and maintenance.

The following chart shows the relative ‘efficiency’ of US power generation facilities. Note that nuclear power far and away is the most efficient power source.

But let’s see how some real world Canadian energy sources stack up against one another.

My analysis for the following graphs comes directly from the Alberta Utilities Commission Annual Electricity Data reports which can be accessed here. I took the last five years of data (2014-18) to determine the efficiencies of each type of power generation.

The first graph lists the percentages of each type of power generation in Alberta over the five year time period. The total installed capacity added up to 80875 MW.

Solar installations totalled 30 MW for 2017 & 2018. The Others category was power from fuel oil, diesel, & waste heat.

The total output of electrical generation over the time period was 415,652 GW and below is the percentages of how the power was produced.

Solar accounted for .1 GW of power generated in 2017 & 22.4 GWs in 2018

For comparison purposes, I produced a graph from just the 2018 energy production statistics.

After crunching the numbers, I came up with the following efficiency factors for Alberta’s energy sources.

Solar efficiency for 2018 increased to 17% with 30 MW of installed capacity

Compared to the US figures, the Alberta numbers are all more or less in the ballpark.

Environmentalists would have you believe that Canada should divest themselves of all fossil fuels and make the switch to renewable, ‘green’ energy such as wind and solar. Well here are some numbers regarding that type of action.

In 2018, Alberta coal and natural gas produced just over 76,000 GWh of power. Alberta has 900 wind turbines with a maximum output of 1500 MW. In order to replace coal and oil using the Alberta efficiency rating of 31.2%, the province would need 17,000 extra turbines. Using numbers obtained from SaskWind, each turbine would have a footprint of about .75 acre/MW which equates to 32 sq miles. Now because of turbulence, landscape, environmental, etc. issues, you can’t just jam all the turbines together so they need to be spread out. SaskWind figures about 87 acres/MW which translates to turbines being scattered out into a 3750 sq mile area.

Working through the same exercise with solar being used to replace coal and natural gas, I used Suncyclopedia’s average of five acres for one solar MW installation. Using the US solar efficiency number of 25%, the land area needed would be 273 sq miles. Using the Alberta efficiency number of 17%, land area is just over 400 sq miles.

So what’s the big deal with switching over? Well there’s many inherent problems with wind and solar that do not seem to justify the incredible amounts of money that have been thrown at the technologies. But they are the darlings which every Western government seems intent on promoting.

The following Alberta energy graphs prepared by Reliable AB Energy for December 2019 illustrate better than words why wind and solar are poor energy alternatives. Follow Reliable AB Energy on Twitter for daily updates on the state of Alberta’s energy sources.

Courtesy of Reliable AB Energy (@ReliableAB)

Imagine if you were relying only on electricity from solar from Dec 8 – 16. What about the Dec 11 – 15 time frame for wind? These power sources are too unreliable to be counted upon especially during a brutal cold weather event such as what regularly occurs across Canada at this time of year. The back-up power plants would make the wind and solar systems redundant. So why would we have them in the first place?

Wind and solar energy are expensive boondoggles that will never replace better forms of energy, particularly nuclear or even clean-burning technologies for coal. It is time to stop wasting Canadian’s money on these pipedreams.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 15, 2020

STUDENT OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

*The land of the Patagonian Indigenous peoples*

The Inaccurate Romanticizing of Indigenous Peoples

***Trigger Warning***

The Progressive Woke will call you a racist for reading this article.

As the war in the woods heats up out on the West Coast between the Wet’suweten First Nation, Coastal GasLink, the province, and the RCMP, it reminded me of how Canadian Indigenous peoples have been deliberately romanticized as the mythical ‘Noble Savage’.

There is a fascinating account of the famous ‘wild white man’ called William Buckley who after being transported to an Australian penal colony in 1803, escaped and lived amongst the Aborigines for 30+ years. He had zero contact with white men during that time and his memoirs are an invaluable peek into Aborigine life before their territory started to be seriously encroached upon by Europeans.

The tale of escaped convict, William Buckley, is a compelling tale set in pre-colonized Australia

If the reader is interested, open source accounts of Buckley’s exploits can be accessed here and here.

There were a few points that jumped out to me during my readings:

A man’s worth depended not only on his strength and prowess in battle but also in how clever he was. A man could became more popular through fighting or by coming up with novel ways to hunt game. This equated to a greater standing within the tribe and more wives.
The Aborigines were strict hunter/gatherers moving from hunting ground to hunting ground with the season, when the hunting turned poor, or by being chased off by a competing tribe.
The Aborigines could accurately be described as grifters. Buckley described one instance where his tribe was tricked into turning over all their tomahawks or the deity that looked after the World would falter in his job. When Buckley got back to a white settlement, he was constantly trying to keep the Aborigines from thieving or outright slaughtering the whites. Guns and larger numbers swung the tide towards the colonizers.
From Buckley’s observations, women Aborigines were the root cause of the constant warfare between tribes. Grievances seemingly never forgotten and were fueled by spats over who should have married whom, women running off with other men, or blatant attacks to steal another tribe’s women. Tribes would come together under congenial conditions only to end up with a fresh round of revenge murders by the end of the day.
The Aborigine women were not shrinking violets. They would just as often fight alongside the men and no quarter was given just because a female was in the mix. But in general, if a raiding party was formed to enact justice for some old slight, the men would go off to fight.
The Aborigines were cannibals. Some practiced a ritualistic form after a foe or a loved one perished. But Buckley did describe a couple of tribes who lived off the flesh of man. Everyone steered clear of their territory.

Speaking of cannibalism, did you know that Canada’s West Coast natives indulged in the practice, usually related to a potlatch ceremony where they would kill a slave? Reports of cannibalism involving Vancouver Island natives were as recent as 1904. Also, it is well documented that before the Europeans showed up, the Canadian natives warred constantly whether to exact revenge, gain territory, or to carry off slaves. Sounds very similar to what the Aborigines were up to over on the other side of the world.

Flag of Chile – The star with the blue background represent the big skies of the nation, the white is the snow of the Andes, the red is the Nation’s shame for all the Indio blood spilled

During my sojourn with the Armada de Chile in 2013, I was intrigued to learn of the natives of Patagonia. They were first discovered by Ferdinand Magellan during his voyages. Subsequent visits by Europeans and missionaries eager to convert the ‘heathens’ did not go well. The Natives or Indios were not friendly and did their best to kill Europeans whether they were friendly or not. They kept up a rear guard war against Spanish settlement for about 350 years by taking advantage of the remoteness of their territory. Unfortunately, unlike the Incans who had tried to conquer them, eventually the Chilean colonizers either killed or bred out almost all of the full blooded natives. When there was only a handful left, they relocated them to Puerto Edén which is an extremely remote island location. There was supposedly only one full blooded Native left when I sailed past Puerto Edén and she has probably passed away by now.

Indio Picaros abound in the numerous Artesanal villiages throughout Chile

In stark contrast to the manner in which Canadian First Nations peoples have now become ‘sacred’ so to speak, Chile is slightly less politically correct when it comes to their actual genocide of their native peoples. Yes, they did feel bad about killing off all the Natives and the bottom half of their flag is red representing all of the Indio blood that was spilled. At the world famous Cementerio Municipal Sara Braun in Punta Arenas, there is the revered tomb of the Indio Desconocido (The Unknown Indian). But throughout the country, in every tourist shop, you can pick up in various sizes, a male or female Indio Picaro (Kinky Indian). The big joke is when you slide the body upwards a big erect dick or hairy bush is revealed. Somehow, I doubt that sort of ‘joke’ would go over well here in Canada.

The point of these examples is that man is not particularly special just because they were ‘native’ to an area that was eventually colonized by the Europeans. The ‘white’ man just upped the ante and was able to spread out further as technology related to sailing, exploration, and firepower progressed. The entirety of world history can be summarized as the powerful taking advantage of the weak.

This is the danger of elevating Natives onto a pedestal. Canadian First Nations have severe ongoing issues related to the colonizing of Canada, the Reserve system, the horribly outdated Indian Act, and attempts to assimilate them into Canadian culture. But they are not particularly ‘Green’ or in tune with ‘Mother Earth’ compared to anyone else. It is a mistake to attribute undue weight to their counsel in order to atone for Canada’s collective sins vis-à-vis their past treatment. But special interest groups and virtue signaling politicians are eager to take advantage of their ‘special’ status.

Hopefully the upcoming shenanigans in the woods are dealt with more peacefully compared to the Oka Crisis in 1990. By the way, no one was ever charged in the murder of Sûreté du Québec police officer Corporal Marcel Lemay.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 14, 2020

LIBERTARIAN CANADIAN

Paradoxically, wait times are increasing despite decades of ‘working’ on the problem. WHY?!?

Our Insecurity is Strangling Canadian Prosperity

“We’ve spent all this money, what do we have to show for it?” – Little Mrs. Graham lamenting the state of Canada’s finances many years ago.

These were the sentiments of one of my elementary school teachers some time back when I stopped in for a quick visit. As a note, we had two Mrs. Grahams, one small and one large. But the epitaph is as true today as it was those many years ago, where has all the money gone?

One of the areas of concern starting to rear up again in Canadian social media circles is the issue of waiting times for medical procedures and the general lack of medical availability. People are starting to see their own health, along with their family and friends, suffer due to the chronic inability of the medical system to perform. Have you ever tried to find a new family doctor? We have known for decades that the Boomer generation was going to swamp each sector of society as they moved through. So why the general lack of preparedness despite government assurances that more money is going into the system?

Sure, there was some chattering during last year’s Federal election regarding health care in this country. The Liberals made some vague noise about universal pharmacare and the NDP declared ‘Free for Everyone’ as they are wont to do. Did anyone believe that the Health care debate was getting the attention that a National crisis should normally garner? Even if the panacea of ‘Free Drugs for Everyone’ program is in the offing, it will take forever to work out the details and roll-out. The Liberals still have not fixed the Phoenix system for paying their own employees so the question is how will they not screw this up too?

This is not a swipe at any particular level or brand of government. This incompetence related to getting anything done in Canada crosses the entire political spectrum right down to the municipal level.

But let us get back to a little, old lady’s observation that Canada is bereft of any sort of meaningful accomplishments. The reason for our general lack of paradoxically not being able to get anything done despite mountains of cash being thrown at a problem is our insecurity complex related to being a poor nation.

What? Poor nation you say, that’s not right! Au contraire, we could have been a great nation but ever since WWII, Canada has slid further and further into obsolesce and we are squandering the resources that this country is blessed with.

Here is a pointed example of Canada’s insecurity related to the inconceivably long and expensive process of procuring military equipment, namely the New Shipborne Helicopter. The book, The Politics of Procurement by Aaron Plamondon, goes into exquisite detail over how the venerable Sea King helicopter which was to be replaced in 1975 has still not been fully replaced by the new Cyclone.

Read the book but here is an example of the mission creep which affects all Canadian institutions. The Statement of Requirements (SOR) for the original Sea King was only about four pages. When the military was starting to look for a replacement in 1975, the SOR had already ballooned to four volumes. All that extra time and effort jacks the ultimate cost of anything the military wants to buy. They do not get shiny, new toys very often so they want to get things right. Then because the government waffles over these decisions, it gives new governments time to cancel programmes outright and start their own politically driven agendas. That is how the CAF never gets their equipment. It is also how Canada does not get new pipelines and end up buying foreign oil from dictatorships.

General insecurity stalls out industrious Canadians. There is no point in going into the pipeline debate as those things get hopelessly mired down. But here is an example of something as simple as recovering a log from the bottom of a lake. In BC, when logs are floated across lakes, some become waterlogged and sink. This wood is still incredibly valuable and the diving company I worked for wanted to go after them. We did not bother because you needed an environmental permit to disturb the bottom of the lake, a permit to have the log on the surface, a permit to bring the log to the edge of the lake, a permit to bring a truck down to the edge of the lake, and a permit to take the log away. Now throw in a few more layers of bureaucracy like Indigenous and gender balance, and it is just not worth the effort for a small outfit. Ostensibly, regulations are meant to protect things but in reality, they serve to stifle industry.

All levels of government are bloated with civil servants whose job is to regulate the country to a standstill. Here is an example from what I observed in the military that is just as true of the civil service. An officer would enter a new job. In order to progress and be promoted, they needed to effect ‘change’. They were never in the job for long or had a budget large enough to push through a complex project that would take decades to see through and effect real change. They just fiddled with the system enough to piss off their subordinates. That is where the saying ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’ comes from. Meanwhile, their budgets got spent mostly spinning wheels.

Here is an example from the Coast Guard. The West Coast fleet, back in the day, had a couple of ladies with Rolodexes looking after everyone’s pay and nary an issue. The system was modernized with a new building in downtown Vancouver with 50 employees and it went to shit. You were happy to get any sort of pay cheque and issues would take up to half a year to fix.

Here is one from the Veterans Hospital in Halifax. The building has rats. Nurses can hear them humping in the walls and ceilings. Veterans Affairs representatives told me to my face that they were aware of the problem and were having meetings to discuss solutions. The solution was to call an exterminator and kill the vermin. Instead, admin types endlessly study the issue as they are reticent over spending money to fix obvious problems. Meetings give the appearance of ‘we are on the job’ when actually nothing is being accomplished.

Suffice to say, Canadians could endlessly bring up examples of why stuff does not get done in this country. Heaven forbid if we cross some politically incorrect line. What if those ‘people’ get offended? Is there anyone left to apologize to yet? Have we sufficiently studied this issue to death with regards to how it will effect the Canadian three-toed hemostar, the Indigenous tribe on the other side of the country, the ever popular Canadian content rules, and just for fun, the new ‘gender’ balance rules we are going to have to follow. To be crass, we are a nation of pussies. Sorry, eh?

Venezuela is listed with having the world’s largest proven oil reserves. Their descent into becoming a ‘shit-hole’ country took less than two decades. Don’t worry Canada will be the Northern Venezuela soon enough the way we are going.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

January 6, 2020

STUDENT FARMER – PART IV

A droopy ear on a beast can be the first sign of an issue with the animal

An Almanac of Farming – A Series

This is a continuation of a series of notes to myself on farming that I would like to share with those who are interesting in the subject.

If an animal can figure out a way to open a gate, get stuck, or just die, it will. Found a calf the other day that had pushed two gates out enough to stick his head in and then get stuck. Then he fought me when I tried to push his head down to let him go as the chains holding the gate were jammed. Cattle and calves will chew on plastic twine which can get in their gut and kill them. We pick up as much twine as we can find to prevent this.
If animals are doing something strange, it is for a reason. If calves are drinking from a manure puddle when there is fresh water right next to them in a drinker, then check the drinker for issues. Turns out the wires were grounding out and the water was electrified.
Always shut the gate!
If you have to pull a large animal, you can use a non-choke chain and pull them by the head. If you pull them by the legs you can hurt them.
When feeding silage to cattle make sure they have a good water source. After eating silage, cattle are quite thirsty.
Since cattle are not bright enough to go down both sides of a trough, if you stand in the middle of the stream of cattle going by it will split them enough to even things out.

Bored, itchy cattle like to get into mischief and knocked over this section of wind fence

When the weather is warm and pleasant, cattle will get up to mischief. They will wander through the whole paddock so make sure the fences are in good shape, fencers are on and sparking, and the gates are secure.
On our farm, if a cow is going to slip a calf (have a spontaneous abortion), it seems to happen in the first week of January. Look for an animal that is acting weird. The aborted fetus will attract birds and coyotes. Finding the cow after can be difficult if she is not hanging around the dead calf. Look for obvious signs of birth like a loose vagina, blood, a dirty tail, and signs of the udder starting to bag up.
Dipping of an ear is an early warning sign of something awry with an animal. In one case, the young heifer was ovulating. Signs include restlessness, cattle jumping each other, and very noticeable sweating. Also, I usually have a dog with me and his first reaction was to run up and have a good sniff of her hind end.
In poor hay years, ranchers have to start scrounging for cattle feed to replace or supplement the usual dry hay rations. Some options are Distillers Dry Grain (DDGs), potatoes, green oat silage, corn silage, ground barley, or grass seed screenings pellets. Ranchers also can feed canola, barley, or wheat straw bales to give the animals some roughage. A few gallons of feed molasses poured or injected into the bales helps to ‘sweeten the pot’ and seems to make the straw more palatable. Some pitfalls come with the different feeds. DDGs are fine like dust and wind will blow it away if they are in an unprotected area. Cattle can choke on whole potatoes. Silage is costly and prone to spoilage before freeze-up. Grass seed screenings can contain ergot which can cause health and reproduction issues in your herd.
Before straight cutting became so prevalent, there was not much use for canola straw. When canola is swathed, it needs to sit for a few weeks before combining. There was not much use in trying to keep straw which had been sitting on the ground. But with desiccation and different varieties, the straw has become very useful as a bedding material and feed source. Canola straw actually has a higher feed content than barley or wheat straw. There is a trade-off though by not chopping straw back into the field as the nutrients and fertilizer value is being taken away. Plus there is the extra cost of putting up the straw. But when hay yields are down and round bales are going for $100 plus each, canola straw with a little molasses gets the job done.

Blair’s LinkedIn Profile

Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.