I’ve made changes to my workshop, again. If you’ll recall, I spent a large chunk of time at the workshop reorganization project, which I wrote about in excruciating detail last winter. Well. It has resumed. Before I proceed, I just want to thank those of you who took the time to write to me with […] Read more
Toban Dyck: A wholesale rebrand of the farm workshop
I’ll quit before I get too close to the sun, but not a moment before that
Toban Dyck: Free will and agriculture
I think we’re due for a self-imposed moment of reckoning
When I was in my early twenties, I took a course called “Philosophy of Mind.” Don’t tell anyone, but I’m pretty sure I received a B+ on an essay that I never wrote in that class. I digress. In this course, we spent a lot of time talking about freedom. Specifically, free will. Does free […] Read more
Toban Dyck: What I love about farming
It’s not all about harvesting
The small soybean field east of our yard was ready to harvest. Our combine, however, was not ready to harvest it. The conveyor hadn’t been hooked up and set up at the corresponding bin and there was other preparatory work required before we could start biting and chewing our way through our soybean acres. That […] Read more
Toban Dyck: Adventure found in the most unexpected place
Jamie and I explore the wild side of Souris, Manitoba
I joked to my dad that I don’t think we’ve ever harvested so many acres in one day. He assured me this was not something to brag about. We didn’t put our combine in road gear, but we’ve never harvested wheat at those speeds before. This column isn’t about that, though. It’s about the community […] Read more
Toban Dyck: Some good news would be nice
I’m thankful for distractions
It’s very difficult to unpack a growing season such as this one. In spring, there was again a question mark surrounding farmer access to inputs. Fertilizer was rumoured to be hard to get. Seed as well. These whispers filter through coffee shops, into newspapers and are sensationalized to an audience of consumers and farmers, who […] Read more
PHOTOS: Toban Dyck: If the tractor is the picture, the workshop is the lens
A final word on shop organization
If you think you’ve heard all there is to hear about my workshop organization project, bear with me, for I have unearthed yet another parable, albeit an unintended one, from his process. “Perfection is the enemy of done,” is a quote that gets repeated in this home quite often. I don’t know who said it, […] Read more
Toban Dyck: Policy battles and progress
There used to be a thing called the Manitoba Pool Elevators. It was a grain company founded in the early 1900s, but its history and trajectory through the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and Agricore United is not the topic of this column. There are two filing cabinets in our basement. They contain farm records from before […] Read more
Toban Dyck: The bar between “lunacy” and “worth exploring” has lowered considerably
In the wake of COVID-19, few things remain sacred. In this case, it’s tillage
The changes we’ve all been forced to endure have called my spring plans into question. The disruption that has been thrust upon us, leaving us to choose between adapting to an ever-changing political and social landscape, enduring it, stubbornly opposing it and everything in-between has seeped into my farming plans. I’m looking at this spring […] Read more
Toban Dyck: How much of what we do as farmers is learned or the result of habit?
How you answer this question could be quite revealing
When I began writing this column in 2012, some of its value was wrapped up in my shameless approach to admitting, as a then 32-year-old, all of the things I did not yet know about farming and all the things I’d have to relearn in order to farm. I promised to take you along for […] Read more
Toban Dyck: I may be too old to become a professional snowboarder
I’m young enough to explore opportunities and embrace change
This August, Jamie and I will have been on this farm for nine years. This is registering with me as a significant amount of time. Also, in March of this year, I will celebrate my five-year anniversary at Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers. I say celebrate, but, if any of my coworkers are reading this, […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
