GFD-MB Day 1

I was awake before my alarm and used the time to squeeze in some Marvel Strike Force before I had to get up. My morning was really my own today but I felt required to get out of the site and gather all the notes I possibly could before the customers started to arrive after lunch. I did have some things to accomplish on my computer before I left so I got myself cleaned up and was down at breakfast before seven. The hotel had graciously given me a voucher for a free breakfast. I’d ordered an orange juice and water before the informed me that the voucher was only good for fifteen bucks. That is relevant because the meal I’d decided on would work out to about that with the tax. With the drink I now would have to pay some out of pocket, not the end of the world but less elegant. I wouldn’t have ordered the drink if I’d been equipped with that knowledge in advance. Aw well, live and learn as they say. The meal I mentioned was a california style eggs benedict. That was also not as elegant. It is pictured below, the hollandaise sauce was replaced with an avocado hollandaise paste. It would have been fine but it was cold. That made everything a bit weird. The bread was also a sourdough rather than english muffin halves. The bacon was thick and chewy and refused to be cut so it was all as inelegant as the bill. The hashbrowns were amazing though.

I hustled back to my room and did about an hour of email to get caught up. Some folks had been looking for information while I was careening through the air above them and I was able to take an hour or so to satisfy all their questions. Then I set sail in my van to get over to the same site I was at yesterday. Apparently a truck had fallen off a bridge in a construction zone so the easy route was out of the question. I was going to have to explore some grid roads. This was exactly why I refused to book a compact car, that and it’s size relative to mine. I even got onto a true dirt road, this is the same stuff as the fields but it’s been compacted over the years. I learned a few years back that they quickly revert back to mud when exposed to adequate rainfall and become quite impassable to most vehicles. Being so flat on the priairies does make seems like the sky is bigger. At least there are some trees to dot the landscape in this province, other ones aren’t so lucky and are just plains.

On the way there I got some messages from the local rep saying there were some fires burning and it could be a problem for me. Apparently, the farmer across the road, who is in some kind of feud with the landowner we rent from, decided today was a good day to light some piles of dead weeds on fire. I guess that field was poorly managed all year and eventually they gathered up massive piles of lambsquarters to dry. I’m not even sure how that is possible. There were several dozen such piles and they’d lit a handful in the morning. The wind got up pretty good so it stopped them from lighting more. It also meant that all the smoke was blowing directly into the plots. It was so bad when I arrived that I had to sit in the van for a bit as I couldn’t even see the beans effectively enough to take my notes. Mid-morning the piles had burned down enough that I could see and I did my notes. One of my colleagues arrived around noon and I walked them through what I was looking at and some of the things I was seeing. Then we went in the corn plot. It was heavily drought stressed and not being included in the tour but we walked it anyways and I showed him what I was looking at. Most of my Western colleagues are still relatively new to corn and soybean plants so I usually end up giving my perspective on what are favourable traits and attributes. We didn’t even notice when our guests started to arrive. As we finished they were exiting their vehicles, good timing to make up for the lingering stink of the smoke. It wasn’t a factor by the time they arrived, just the smell remained.

The tour seemed to be a success. Everyone showed up and we all got to socialize a bit before they headed into the plots. I gave a short talk about the site and what we had here and about what to expect for tomorrow. It was straight forward. Most headed into the plots to see things for themselves. I noticed a few knots of people from time to time, catching up, likely not having seen each other for a year or more. I had a steady lineup of people waiting to come discuss things with me. I didn’t even get into the plots, generally I do my mingling in there but I was kept busy near the road. Great conversations were had and everyone was in a good mood. Everyone came over to say farewell when they’d finished up. Being near the road meant that I could keep any eye and make sure everyone dipped in our foot bath on the way in and out. That is required for some of the soil borne diseases they have out there in canola, the other yellow crop. Some customers came a bit later as they tried to see other locations on the same voyage so by the time they’d all been through the site and we’d chatted about everything they wanted to discuss it was closer to four than expected. My colleague and I saddled up and headed west towards the next big town to prepare for the next day’s event.

We arrived at that research farm around six and we took notes in the corn plots until nearly dark. I took real notes in the early stuff and we walked through the middle set so he could see it, leaving the later material until the next day. The early the material, the more excited people seem to get about it. We arrived at our hotel a short drive later and checked in quickly before heading out for dinner with some customers. We went to the same Montana’s I visited the last time I was there. I ordered the exact same meal as I had a week before in Woodstock. We had some laughs and got to know those particular customers better. I think we all had a nice time. We got back to the hotel close to ten and it was a short spurt of personal time before I had to be asleep. I used it to play MSF of course and passed out with my phone in my hand around eleven, waking in the night to pee and turn off the game. It was another full day on the road.