What's On My Mind?

The following subjects are what's on my mind today: [1] What is the driving force in this decision? It is happening three weeks earlier, first of all. In the event of turning our clocks ahead Saturday night, it means another hour of DARKNESS.

I have always enjoyed getting out of bed at 5:30a.m., going to the barn, looking forward seeing the sunrise. Saturday night's time change will give us an hour more of darkness. My choice is NOT to change our clocks at all, spring or fall. [2] Our Nova Scotia farmers have been struggling in all farming production, be it - chicken, pork, beef, vegetables, apples, blueberries and dairy producers. My husband and I have farmed since 1967. The product we are growing has such a higher production cost the farmer has not and can not recoup their costs. We do not pay ourselves wages because the dollars are not there. I worked off the farm for 21 years to pay for the farm equipment needed for farm production. I retired 3 years ago and came home to work the farm with my husband because the farm was not making money to pay the wages for our hired man. Now I am the gielf hand [tractor driver], calves handler and the gofer [go-for- it - er]. I love doing any job that is required on thefarm and still maintain a home but I ask, "How much longer can we - "the farmer" keep surviving this way? Do our governments wait until the old men and women died farming and the young men leave the family farm? Who will feed the people then? We do not want money handouts from our governments but have them build a needed cull cow processing plant in Nova Scotia, that is central to the farmers. An ethanol production plant here in our Annapolis Valley where there is a large land base for growing corn which will produce fuel for consumers and the by-products can be utilized throughout Nova Scotia. Thus in return there will be jobs here to operate these plants instead of "Go west young man!" Nova Scotia is losing our young people to higher paying jobs and those jobs are taking them away from the family farm. [3] The decision on "bidding' for the Commonwealth Games in Halifax was decided March 8th. Our province was considering spending $1.5 BILLION for hosting a sporting event. Do not take me wrong, I have been in sports all my life but to spend that much money seemed like closing the barn door after the horse got out. My heart goes out to those who made the final decision of cancelling the bid. A job well done! You stopped and thought what could have happened to all Nova Scotians. Submitted by Linda Davidson Greenfield, Kings County, Nova Scotia