Omar Khadr and $10 million

 Western Canadian Conservatives love to hate Justin Trudeau. Partly because they hated his father and partly because he is a Liberal. They have tagged him as “soft on Muslims” and “favouring introduction of Sharia Law in Canada”. It is safe to say, paraphrasing John Stuart Mill, that not all Conservatives are racist bigots, but all racist bigots are Conservatives. They need someone to hate, preferable a readily identifiable minority. Their racism and bigotry have led to a rise in hate crimes against Muslims.

One of the accusations against Justin Trudeau is that he “gave $10 million of taxpayer money to a Muslim Terrorist”. This “Fox News headline” has been repeated often enough that some people actually believe it. The facts around this 10% truth are conveniently ignored though the information is out there. This post will attempt to clarify the situation.

Omar Khadr was born in Toronto to immigrant parents from Egypt and Pakistan. His father, Ahmed Khadr worked for charitable organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he became friendly with Osama bin Laden. In 2002, after 9/11 and the subsequent American invasion, Omar’s father sent him to Afghanistan to act as a translator. Later that year, a badly wounded 15 year old Omar was captured by American troops as the only survivor of a group of al-Qaeda in a major firefight. He was accused of throwing a grenade that killed one American soldier. He was taken to the hospital at Bagram Air Base and when he recovered, at age 16, he was sent to the prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The Canadian government initially opposed Khadr's transfer to Guantanamo Bay. It also urged the US to take into account his juvenile status. The Americans ignored Canada's requests. For reasons that remain unclear, attitudes in Ottawa then hardened, and the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien began playing down Khadr’s age. A number of factors led to a polarization of opinion about Omar Khadr, not the least of which was that male family members were heavily involved with al-Qaeda and his mother and sister, in 2004, spoke to CBC in favourable terms about al-Qaeda and unfavourable terms about the Canadian government.

The only thing Omar Khadr had in his favour were his youth and the fact he was not in Afghanistan of his own volition. Amnesty International and several Canadian NGOs took his case to the courts to have him repatriated to Canada and eventually freed. The Liberal government was not interested, and a majority of Canadians opposed it but said he should at least be treated as a child soldier.

Canadian Intelligence (CSIS) got American permission to interrogate Khadr in 2003 and again in 2004, if they shared information with the Americans. His captors softened Khadr up for interrogation by depriving him of sleep for several days prior. His problems only increased under Harper’s “tough on terrorism’” Conservative government, fighting in court every move to repatriate Khadr.

In 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada forced CSIS to turn over the video tapes of the interrogations which caused a huge outcry among Canadians. In 2010, Wikileaks (still the good guys in those days) release emails from the Canadian government and CISIS indicating they did NOT want Khadr repatriated. In 2010, the Supreme Court again ruled against the Canadian Government, declaring that: CSIS agents who participated in the interrogations "offended the most basic Canadian standards of detained youth suspects." The court barred Canadian officials from any further such questioning, but refused to demand Khadr's repatriation.

Khadr and all Guantanamo captive were tried by military commission, based on military courts-martial. However, human-rights and legal groups — even the United States Supreme Court — criticized the commissions for lack of due process and for criminalizing conduct retroactively. The commissions made no distinction between youths and adults, and their rules allowed for indefinite detention even after an acquittal.

In October 2010, Khadr pleaded guilty before a military commission to five war crimes, in exchange for a further eight-year sentence. He signed a lengthy stipulation of facts in which he admitted killing Sgt. Christopher Speer, trying to kill Sgt. Layne Morris, and to being a member of al-Qaeda. He would later say that the guilty plea, urged on him by his lawyers, was the only way for him to be returned to Canada. The US would have had the power to keep him at Guantanamo even if he had been acquitted. (Some of you may remember David Milgaard who spent 22 years in prison for a murder he did not commit because he refused to acknowledge his guilt or he would have been out on 12.)

He was eventually transferred to Canada in 2012 to maximum security prison, eventually in Aberta. Harper’s conservatives used his guilty plea to beat anyone who took up Khadr’s case. “Omar Khadr pled guilty to very serious crimes. It is very important that we continue to vigorously defend against any attempts in court to lessen his punishment for these heinous acts.”

In 2013 Alberta Courts sided with the federal government that that the eight-year sentence handed him by the US military commission could not be interpreted under the International Transfer of Offenders Act as a youth sentence but that Khadr should be treated as an adult offender. The case went to the Supreme Court which took 30 minutes to throw out the federal governments arguments and confirm Khadr’s youth status under Canadian Law. In 2015 he was released on bail, wearing a tracking device.

Harper continued to spout the “convicted, confessed terrorist” line. Khadr appealed his conviction by the American Military Commission on the legal grounds that the offenses were declared war crimes retroactively. A similar case is currently before American courts and Khadr’s case will not be heard until after it is decided.

Khadr also sued the Canadian government beginning in 2004, for violating his constitutional rights when its agents interrogated him in Guantanamo. In 2014, it was amended to $20-million and included the allegation that Canada had conspired with the US to breach Khadr's constitutional rights. In 2017, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau settled the Khadr lawsuit by apologizing to Khadr and compensating him for what Liberal cabinet ministers described as the "wrongdoing of Canadian officials…a Canadian citizen's Charter rights were violated; as a result, the government of Canada was required to provide a remedy." Compensation was reported as $10.5 million CAD which was better than spending millions defending the case and losing anyhow. In 2019 an Alberta judge ruled that Omar Khadr’s sentence was complete and he was free to go.

The feces immediately hit the fan, led by Scheer’s Conservatives, and was unequally distributed. The “taxpayers’ money” and “convicted, confessed terrorist” meme worthy of Fox News circulated widely.

The above is more or less a factually summary of what should be generally agreed on.

Now the question arises, “What if Omar Khadr was not guilty of anything the Americans accused him of doing?”

Other than a coerced confession, there is little evidence against him. Under Canadian jurisdiction there would not have been enough evidence to lay a charge much less get a conviction. Had the Canadian Government insisted on transparency, due process, and rule of law in an open court, the result would have been a defeat for the American government. But they sacrificed principle to political expediency. Khadr pleaded guilty for the opportunity to return to Canada. It was successful in that regard but was turned into a personal tragedy because he “pleaded guilty to murder”.

This was no small firefight, but an all out assault on a 100 to 120 foot square compound. On July 27. 2002, more than 100 American troops pounded the compound with cannon and mortar fire; fighter jets and helicopters dropped multiple 500 lb bombs. When they assumed everyone was dead, the Americans approached the compound. A grenade killed an American Sergeant and Omar Khadr was captured alive.

There are several versions of events all of which cannot be true.

1.    The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire, including a thrown grenade. They killed the shooter who also threw the grenade. They then captured Khadr, who did not throw the grenade (Report by Maj. Randy Watt, senior U.S. officer at battle, July 28, 2002);
2. The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire and a witness identified as OC-1 saw a grenade thrown over a wall. Because of the timing of the shooting and grenade, he did not believe one person could have done both. OC-1 killed the shooter. He then found Khadr seated and facing away from the assault team and shot him in the back. According to OC-1, Khadr was the only person who could have killed Speer (Statement by witness OC-1, dated March 17, 2004, almost two years after the event);
3. The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire, including a thrown grenade. They shot and captured Khadr, who was the only survivor in the compound during the exchange. Being the only survivor, Khadr must have killed Speer (false public position of U.S. military until 2008, as per CBC report);
4. The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire and saw a grenade thrown over a wall. They killed the shooter and two Delta Force members confronted Khadr, who was armed and stood facing them. They shot him in the chest (per summary of statements, originally reported by Michelle Shephard in the Toronto Star);
5. The assault team entered, encountered enemy fire, and saw a grenade thrown over a wall. Soldiers outside the compound were also throwing grenades in response to the firefight. U.S. forces first killed the shooter, then shot and captured Khadr (per Los Angeles Times report of statement evidence). This opens the possibility that friendly fire accidentally killed Speer;
6. The assault team entered, encountered and returned enemy fire and killed the shooter. Omar Khadr, positioned behind a crumbling wall, then threw a grenade at a group of soldiers who were talking. He did not consider them a threat to his safety, but just planned to kill as many Americans as he could (U.S. government stipulation of facts, 2010, paragraphs 41-43, agreed to by Khadr in his guilty plea);
7.  Classified photographs taken at the scene and obtained in 2009 by the Toronto Star:

 

Photo 1 shows the dead shooter and Omar Khadr buried under a pile of rubble. Photo 2 (enhanced) shows the rubble cleared away and Khadr lying with a bullet hole in his back. According to the Star, military documents indicate that "a soldier stood on top of Khadr's body before realizing someone was buried." Obviously an already wounded Khadr did not have time to throw the grenade and then cover himself in debris in a few seconds. OC-1’s statement cannot be true. He most likely killed the shooter and then finding the buried Khadr, shot him in the back.

The prosecutor’s case rests almost entirely on a coerced confession which is easily obtained from young people especially under duress and willing to confess to end the pain. Khadr had already confessed that Maher Arar (more on him later) had stayed at terrorist safe houses in Afghanistan when he had never been to the country.

The only report consistent with the photographs is that of Major Randy Watt, the day after the firefight. That it was altered after the fact to fit the official story is not inconsistent with the American Military (see Pat Tillman). Any competent defense lawyer could easily have destroyed the prosecution’s argument. 

And Canada should have been on side. It was Canada’s job to raise hell about the railroading of a Canadian teen based on a lousy case. It was Canada's job to raise hell about the torture of a Canadian kid in U.S. custody. Instead, we presumed he was guilty. He was tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion without a trial. The few who defended him were sneered at as bleeding heart terrorist lovers.

Khadr's guilty plea bought his freedom, but at a heavy price. For that freedom Khadr traded, perhaps forever, the chance to clear his name and turn public scrutiny on those who abused him, who doctored records, who changed their stories.

As part of his plea deal, Khadr agreed to a statement of facts admitting to killing Sgt. Speer, and promised never to seek forensic review of the evidence which might one day prove his innocence. He also agreed to permit the U.S. government to destroy all evidence following sentencing. Which means to me that the Americans knew it was all lies in the first place.

As a teenager Omar Khadr was betrayed and exploited by every adult who owed him a duty of care, including his father who conscripted him into a terrorist group, and his mother who let it happen. Then he was abandoned by the one government that should have protected his right to a fair trial. Khadr's passport out should have been the birthright he was born with—his Canadian citizenship.

Travel Destinations of Interest

 This is a poor excuse for a blog post. Copy and paste with upgrades, from my friend, John, Kansas answer to Sam Elliot. I have the background work done on two posts for some time; one to annoy the Right and one to annoy the Left. I just don't have the concentration to write them up yet. I'm tired all the time. My days and nights are confused. Go to bed at midnight and maybe sleep by 4:00. I don't want to turn on the AC and If I open the window the sandflies devour me. They mainly live on flower nectar but the females need blood to reproduce. Tanya provides the blossoms and I provide the blood.

The kitchen garden is growing wonderfully well. Lettuce and onions we have had for a while, also a small dish of strawberries every day. Tomatoes are forming and small vegetable marrows too. Tanya picked a few young pea pods which sure tasted good. The garden soil is black clay, holds moisture well but hardens on top quickly in the sun. Tanya has been breaking up the surface with a hoe. When one gets dull, she switches to a sharp one. I sharpened six for her today and even that little bit of work tired me out. 

It rained enough today to cool things down so I will take Lucky out in an hour. Neither of us take heat well. A month after we have had our second shots, I am going into town at noon and hit every little bar, coffee shop and café if it takes two days. We have several new ones I have never been to, including an Irish Pub. 

I have been in many places in my life, but I've never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can't go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.

I've also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there.

I have, however, been in Sane. They don't have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends and family. I live close so it's a short drive, more3 of a putt actually.

I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.

I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go and I try not to visit there too often.

I've been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.

Sometimes I'm in Capable, and I go there more often as I'm getting older.

One of my favourite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli I can get.

Sometimes I think I am in Vincible but life shows me I am not.

When I was young, I never was in Fertile and have four kids to prove it.

People keep telling me I'm in Denial but I'm positive I've never been there before.

I have been in Deepsh** many times; the older I get, the easier it is to get there.

Sigh, I may have been in Continent, but never far from salt water. My travel agent says I’m on the frequent fliers list. Surgery will do that to you sometimes.

Gardens After the Rain

 We enjoyed three days of wind, wet and 10C weather. Slow soaker of rain, no runoff. Maybe 30-50 mm. Warmed up to 20C since and you can see stuff grow. The world is green. Gardens higher up from the river where it is warmer are way ahead of us. Early potatoes in bloom, peonies in full bloom, that sort of thing. Wild roses are blooming. Poppies growing wild spotting the grassy fields with red. 

Lettuce and garlic up front, tomatoes far left, onion, beets in back

Onions. Beets on the left, carrots on the right, both need thinning

Peas far right are blooming, cucumbers show signs of life

Tanya's kitchen garden is doing well. Corn is really slow but finally coming, as are the vine vegetables. All her tomatoes are doing well and we'll need to think about staking them soon.

Tanya takes such wonderful pictures of flowers close up. I try to get pictures of the overall scene but am less than successful usually in making the photos look like what I see. That is a knack I need to learn.

Not sure what it is called in English, but it has little red blossoms that go on forever

The front half of the front flower garden

Clematis is really blooming this year.

The front flower garden has problems this year. Across the center there have been three Hosta plants for years but this year the middle on disappeared. At the back were three peonies that normally are in bloom by now. They do not look healthy at all and one seems to be missing. We are plagued with Medvedki (Mole Crickets). These are huge bugs you do not want to meet in a dark alley. They burrow under ground and eat the roots of plants. They have always been in the vegetable garden but this is the first in the flower beds that I know of. Tanya will go on a poisoning spree which will settle their hash.

Tanya has filled in space with trees, shrubs and flowering plants
that she does not have to look after

The front of the side flower garden

Looking down on the back of the side flower garden

Over head shot blocked by grape vines

Ditto but you sort of get the idea

A better overhead of the back of the side flower garden

One close up of the Lupines. They stood straight after the rain

Looking across at the neighbour's garden. Green and black.

Tanya's roses will be blooming in a week. Then all is right with my world. I love the rose bushes and shrubs. 

Prairie Bachelor: The Story of a Kansas Homesteader and the Populist Movement , a book review

Prairie Bachelor: The Story of a Kansas Homesteader and the Populist Movement
by Lynda Beck Fenwick. 
https://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Bachelor-Homesteader-Populist-Movement/dp/0700630279

Isaac Beckley Werner, the prairie bachelor, was born into a well-to-do family in Pennsylvania in 1844. His formal education extended well past the norm for his time, and he never stopped educating himself. He owned a drugstore and then a mill in Illinois before taking up a homestead in Kansas in 1878. As a homesteader he experimented in cropping practices, promoted agricultural education, supported his neighbours, and was an active participant in local politics. After a lengthy illness, which gradually left him entirely incapacitated, he died at the age of 51 in 1895 and his estate was wound up by 1898.

Prairie Bachelor covers the 20 years between 1878 and 1898, known as the Gilded Age, which it was, for the rich, powerful, and politically connected, and for the American Middle Class. However, it was a time of terrible hardship for small southern and western farmers and ranchers, miners and lumber workers, factory and railway labourers, Immigrants, Black Americans, and First Nations, the poor and the destitute. The banding together of these groups, to fight for their rights and very survival, sparked the Populist Movement, and from it, the People’s Party, the most successful third party in American history.

The author with Isaac's journal

Lynda Beck Fenwick’s interest in Isaac began when she obtained his journal from the Stafford County museum. Isaac wrote his autobiography in a massive 480 page ledger-size journal in close script with no waste space. Begun in 1870-71 then lapsed for 13 years, he kept meticulous notes beginning again in 1884 until 1891 when he ran out of space and could not afford another journal.

On a personal note, I will refer to the author as Lyn, since I have followed her blog about writing Prairie Bachelor at lynfenwick.blogspot.com for 11 years and we have become what was known in the old days as pen-pals. I will refer to Isaac B Werner as Isaac because as I read, I began to feel I knew him. I could feel his pride, his frustrations, his illness, his loneliness, his defeats, and his successes.

Lyn’s connections to Isaac go back four generations. Two sets of great grandparents were neighbours and friends of Isaac’s. A third set were not close neighbours but knew Isaac. Lyn (with her husband Larry) is the fourth generation of Becks to live in that house from which she could see the site of Isaac’s homestead a mile away.

Lyn spent a year transcribing Isaac’s journal, then went to work to fill in the gaps using her talents as a teacher, lawyer, and writer to research every bit of information she could find about Isaac, his neighbours, Stafford county, the hardships, and the politics of his time. Prairie Bachelor has an incredibly detailed set of footnotes and a lengthy bibliography, which will satisfy both a pleasure reader like me, and any academic historian who wishes to follow up.

Under the Homestead Act of 1862, Isaac could claim, at no cost, 160 acres which he had to prove up over five years by living on the property and by breaking a certain number of acres to get title. He also took a ‘Timber Claim’, another 160 acres on which, if he grew 10 acres of trees over 8 years, he could also get title. Not many homesteaders, including Isaac, had the money to acquire livestock and tools necessary to build a farm. As I read about the hardships the homesteaders endured, I understood why no more than 40% were able to prove up on their claims.

For eight years, Isaac farmed without a horse. He traded his labour for use of horse and plow or horse and wagon but could never get money enough ahead to buy a horse without going into debt. Nor would his brother in Pennsylvania advance him the money. Finally, in 1886, he mortgaged his farm, borrowing enough to buy Dolly, a little grey mare, and some implements to expand production, later borrowing more money to buy a second horse and a wagon. By then it was too late. Other homesteaders across the west were doing the same. Increased production forced prices down and freight prices up. Rains did not come. Isaac was in debt until just before he died, to banks, merchants, friends, and family. He was able to hang on, but many homesteaders lost their farms to foreclosure.

Isaac’s main crops were corn and potatoes, and eventually wheat. Potatoes were his main crop as they grew well in the sandy loam soil and were famous for their quality. He stored them in his home over winter and sold many of them as seed potatoes in the spring. Colorado potato beetles were the bane of his existence. He kept them at bay with Paris Green, a highly toxic mixture of copper acetate and arsenic trioxide.

Isaac never married and, although he had an eye for a pretty girl, he was mainly attracted to strong, well-spoken, independent women. Though he was often lonely, he also enjoyed solitude. He had watched as homestead wives worked themselves into an early grave, died in childbirth or saw their children die or starve and was glad he had no one to worry about, especially as his health deteriorated.

Isaac cared about people, as humanity and as individuals. If he saw a need, he was there, whether sitting with a sick child, taking extra fuel to a neighbour in a cold winter, fixing the local school, or organizing relief for families with little or no food. He returned borrowed tools and implements in better condition that he received them and cared for his farm the same way.

Isaac had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Beginning in Illinois, he built up a sizable library of significant titles. In Kansas, he continued to buy books he felt were beneficial to improving farming practices, even when he was short of money. He continually trying different varieties, row spacings, depth of planting etc., all faithfully recorded in his journal. Isaac was in constant touch with Professor E. M. Shelton, who in 1874 became the Farm Superintendent at the Kansas State Agricultural College.

He succeeded in forming the Stafford County Agricultural Society with township chapters, including his own Albano township, to meet and discuss better farming methods based on their soil type and overall environment. He created a library of his farm practices books at the local school where the Agricultural Society met. At his estate sale, his books were the big draw.

He was greatly frustrated by farmers who did not want to learn, who just came to the meetings to visit or did not bother to come at all. Isaac did not understand that he was one of a small percentage of farmers, an innovator, constantly experimenting. His best friend, Will Campbell, good farmer, pillar of the community, respected politician, along with a very few of Isaac’s other friends, were part of a somewhat larger group, anxious to quickly adopt new technologies that appeared to work.  The majority of farmers might come to the meetings and eventually pick up on better farming methods, while some never changed their ways. It would not be until 19 years after Isaac’s death, that the Smith Lever Act would create the Cooperative Extension Service and its County Agents, building on all the Agricultural Clubs and Societies over the decades from the early 1800s, including Isaac’s.

Isaac’s world was not all farming and farm politics. There were several incidents which involved people Isaac knew well: a cold blooded murder, a gunfight, a train robbery, livestock theft rings, and bank embezzlements. There were even a couple of “Old West” bank robberies. In 1884, the bank in Medicine Lodge, two counties south of Isaac, was held up by four men, including two peace officers. In 1892, the Dalton Gang was shot to ribbons in Coffeyville, several counties east of Isaac.

Today’s America has a great deal in common with the Gilded Age of Isaac’s time, with some events almost parallel. The Republicans were no longer the party of Lincoln but were owned by the “Robber Barons”. The [Southern] Democrats, having survived Reconstruction, were busy disenfranchising Black Americans with Jim Crow laws and the KKK, and opposed public spending on the grounds that it was taking money from hard working [white] Americans and giving it to lazy, ignorant [Black] loafers who just wanted free stuff. They called this Socialism. Both parties did not hesitate to use the military to put down strikes

Dr. Heather Cox Richardson in West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War and How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America describes how the Northern Democrats, the Middle Class of the industrialized North, was more than happy to apply the label Socialist to immigrants, union workers, any labourers who dared to organize against their bosses or any group that organized for better treatment from the government. Grover Cleveland, Democratic President from 1884 to 1888 and again from 1892-1896, vetoed any and all pension bills for Veterans, for example, on the grounds that “the people should support the government, the government should not support the people”.

The Populist Movement began as people began to organize, fighting back against the railways, banks, and industrialists. Prairie Bachelor details the convoluted path that led from the Farmers Alliance in Texas to the formation of the Peoples Party as a national third party in 1892. Several other parties were started and dropped in favour of a larger vision. Kansas was at the forefront of several of them and Isaac was an active participant. His friend, Will Campbell, was elected to the Kansas legislature twice under two different parties, the last being the People’s Party, which took the Kansas Governorship and the State Senate in 1892. The Republicans, not willing to lose everything, fraudulently claimed to have won enough seats to control the House and refused to accept the findings of a neutral commission. An armed mob attacked the Legislature and smashed down the doors with hammers. The state militia refused to disperse them.

The People’s Party, with its progressive platform, polled over a million votes for their presidential candidate in the 1892 election, and several members were elected to the Senate and House, mainly from the south and west. However, in 1896, the People’s Party decided to also nominate the Democratic nominee for president, William Jennings Bryan and run a campaign solely on bi-metalism, insisting that using both silver and gold as the basis for money was superior to gold alone. Choosing to ignore the progressive planks in the platform split the party and the Republicans swept the field.

By 1898, the economy was looking better. The discovery of gold in the Yukon eased the monetary supply. Republicans and Democrats adopted some of the ideas of the Populists. One of the ideas eventually found its way, in one form or another, into Farm Support Programs beginning under FDR’s New Deal. Proposed in 1890 by Texas Agricultural Economist, Charles Macune, the Sub-Treasury Plan called for the establishment of a network of government warehouses for the storage of agricultural commodities, Farmers making use of the facilities could then draw low-interest loans of up to 80% of the value of their goods held in storage, payable in U.S. Treasury notes. This would release farmers from being forced to sell their grain in the fall at low prices to pay debts. Being free to pick the time of marketing would put more money in their pockets. The People’s Party having disintegrated, disappeared

Writing a review of Prairie Bachelor has been a challenge. What I knew about Kansas, I learned mainly from histories of the cattle industry and from western novels. And I knew nothing about the Populist Movement whatsoever. So, it took a good bit of digging to get my head around it. I give the book 5 stars. It was highly readable, it made me work and taught me things I did not know before.

Because Isaac B Werner was extremely sick the last two years of his short life and out of the public eye, he did not get the obituary he deserved for his farming accomplishments or his community service. Prairie Bachelor, published 125 years after his death, is both obituary and eulogy to an incredible individual.

 

Our Backyard and Kitchen Garden

 Yesterday, Sunday May 23rd, we BBQd shashlik in the back yard so I took a few pictures. The backyard is mainly grass with trees interspersed and the odd flowerbed here and there. We do not have a lawnmower and the ground may be too rough for one to be effective anyway. A few years ago we bought a gas powered weed whip. I have not used it for four years and we hire our neighbourhood handyman to cut it for us. Saturday was the first cut and the grass was tall. 

There are several pines growing along the divider to the kitchen garden

Japanese Peonies, (I think)

Tanya has several white ones too and wants to get some yellow ones

Our Quince tree in the last stages of blossoming

This young spruce is growing quite well.

Tanya planted shrubs and bushes between her flower garden and the back yard

These two spruce were planted in 2009 when we went to Truskavets

Blank looking places are corn, cucs and other vines. Very slow so far

Carrots thinned once

Beets thinned once

Remembering the Farm: Water, Wells and Dugouts

 Potable water in adequate amounts was a problem on many Saskatchewan farms. Bored or hand dug wells 3' in diameter could only go down so far. If there was water, it was usually Ok for drinking but amounts would vary from place to place and year to year. Surface water could be collected in dams or dugouts but spring runoff was undependable and if the level got too low, quality was terrible.  Drilled deep wells were not a thing until I was a kid. You could always hit water if you drilled deep enough but for example south of Kindersley towards the river, you hit Bearpaw Shale and the water was so hard you had to cut if off the tap with an axe.

The availability of water and one's willingness to pump it by hand were initial determinants of how many livestock were kept on the farm. Some farmers bought a pumpjack and used a gas engine to pump water. My father pumped by hand prior to getting electricity in spring of 1953. I do not know how many cows or horses we had when I was very small but I remember him filling the trough in winter and letting the animals out of the old barn to drink. 

Diagram of a hand operated piston pump

Our well was about 100 feet from the house and down hill from the barn however runoff was not an issue, thank goodness. It was about 30' deep and had a wooden cribbing that extended above the ground. The pump was a cylinder type as shown. The cylinder could be any distance from the pump that you cared to lift water but could not be more than 15' from the water surface as it required atmospheric pressure to lift the water to fill the vacuum created by the piston. If the check valve at the bottom of the cylinder leaked, you would have to prime the pump to make it work.

The farm well, long retired 

We kids carried water from the well to the house in 3 gallon pails. While we were milking cows (up to 1960) the well also served to cool and store cream which was in long 5 gallon cans lowered almost to the water surface on chains. 

Dad bought a pumpjack finally and ran it with an electric motor. That made life a lot easier for all of us. The barn yard used to come down to where the fence is now and a trough was located just inside the fence. We would carry water to animals that could not come to the trough, eg pigs, chickens, or cattle in the other barn. 

Dad wanted a pressurized watering system that he could trench to the house and other parts of the farm. So in the early 60's he had a well drilled about 50' SE of the old well. It went down 200'. He sent a sample to be tested and the results came back not fit for human or animal consumption. It was high in Magnesium Sulfate, Calcium Sulfate, Iron and what else. Too late. Advice ignored. It was duly trenched to the corrals and barn and eventually to the house.

Using an air compressor to pump water

We used an air compressor to pump water with for the longest time. That is the simplest cheapest trick I ever saw. Half inch pipe going down, inch and a quarter coming up. The deeper the well the better it worked. It would take a while to build up enough pressure but then the water would come in spurts. Before we had the water trenched to the corrals and barn, we just had a plastic hose coming out of the well. When you were done pumping in winter, you had to drain the hose thoroughly or it would freeze up. Pressure would build up until the pop valve on the air compressor would let go. Then you went to the house and got a kettle of boiling water which you poured into the end of the plastic hose and lifted it so the water would run to melt the ice. 

One day I looked into the end of the pipe, just as it let go. Chunks of ice hit me in the forehead at 100 psi. Missed my eye by so much but I had a great gash. Hauled into Wilkie Hospital. "How did you do that?" "I bit myself."  "How can you bite yourself on the forehead?" "I stood on a chair." Sometimes you wait your whole life for someone to feed you straight lines like that. They almost left me to bleed to death but it would have been worth it.

The water was not fit to drink. How it affected the animals that were forced to drink it, I can't say but I am sure it reduced their productivity considerably. The worst was the iron content and iron bacteria. It ate metal faster than it could be replaced. It stained everything yellow rusty. Two iron filters wouldn't even touch it. Mom could not use it to cook or wash clothes. It was used for dishes, bathing, and flushing toilets. They hauled drinking water from Landis 7 km away. They did laundry in Wilkie. Mom used it to water her garden but I don't think it was very good for that either.

We had 240 acres of pasture north of us. Cattle depended on sloughs for water but it wasn't always there. there was an old well about a quarter of a mile north of us in a low spot surrounded by a slough that dad hand pumped to water the cattle in summer on occasion. It wasn't the best well but it was there. PFRA was paying a major portion of the cost for farmers to build dugouts so in the mid 50s, Dad had one dug in the same location as the old well. It served us well for many years. When it was new the water was clean and soft so we hauled it for mom to wash.

It didn't stay clean for long. The cattle drank from the ends of the dugout in summer and tramped mud down into it. Starting in 1960, Dad wintered the cattle in the bush not far from the dugout. We hauled feed to them and cut ice on the dugout for them to drink. After many years of this the dugout got very fouled with manure and if the spring runoff was low, the water was so thick, you could almost shovel it.

Eventually it needed cleaning out. I'm not sure of the year but it was after Mom and Dad died that a backhoe came in and dredged it out so the water would be clean and the holding volume of the dugout restored. Dugouts should be fenced and the water pumped out to the cattle. Improved productivity of healthier cattle pays for it and then some. However...

Dugout prior to cleaning.

Dredging out the muck

Good spring runoff

Exceptional spring runoff

 

Tanya's Flowers May 10, 2021

 Tanya, Lina and I took pictures of Tanya's flowers yesterday and today. Some of Tanya's are on FB. Ours is just one yard in the neighbourhood filled with flowers from snow melt to snow fly. Our neighbour Lucia's yard is also filled with flowers. The fronts of many yards along the streets where Lucky and I walk are filled with flowers. Flowers require work but little or no money. Lawns require money to keep them looking good. As well, the surrounding country side has fruit trees in blossom everywhere, too. Click pictures to enlarge.

One of our apple trees

Apple blossoms

Sour cherry trees

My rhubarb plant. Maybe pies next year?

Tanya's 65 petunia plants will fill in gaps

These three Lace Peonies have bloomed in this spot for 30 years