It certainly looked a lot like Christmas in the Village on Sunday, with a large crowd in attendance at the Elks annual pancake breakfast. Fifty-eight young people received a candy bag from Jolly Old St. Nick while the school choir entertained with Christmas carols. At the school 20 plus venders offered a wide variety of goodies from baking to balloon animals, jewelry, crafts, spices to soaps plus many more. The kids’ shopping centre was a big hit. Unfortunately, the Circle Square’s team and wagon rides had to be cancelled because the streets were too icy. A pat on the back to our students who worked really hard between the school and the hall.
Tyler Hronek harvested his corn crop last week. A corn header is attached to a regular combine, which pulls the cobs from the plant and strips the kernels from the cob. Corn rows are 30 in. apart and grow to about 10 ft. tall. They can grow up to 20 in. in one week. Because of this year’s deep snow, some cobs were left on the plants and his cattle will crop graze these. Even so he estimates that his 62 acres will average 40 bushels to the acre and sell from $7 to $8 per bushel. Planting corn is an expensive operation. The seed runs about $65 per acre, it needs to be heavily fertilized and is sprayed 2 or 3 times with roundup to get rid of weeds. He also has to rent a corn planter, all of which is available locally from Solick seeds.
On the plus side, a corn crop is either good for grazing cattle or selling the seed, it adds fibre to the soil, cleans up the weeds and holds the snow.
Ryan Schilling has been growing corn for five years. He harvested his crop before the snow and dried the grain. Corn never completely dries and has to be mechanically dried or has to be harvest after freeze up. His crop averaged 54 bushels to the acre. Last year, Ryan grazed 114 head of cattle on 33 acres for seven weeks with supplementary feeding.
Kirk Sorensen planted his first crop this year and is grazing his cattle on it.
Our junior high students attended the William E. Hay production of “Grease” at the PAC in Stettler on Thursday.
Silent Santa box will be at the school until Friday.
Ryan Dahmer, Wyatt Kent, Jonathan Muncy and Seth Neufeld, all former Halkirk students, made the cut in tryouts for the Gus Wetter senior high basketball team. Congrats, guys.
Five little girls from the Helping Hands playschool toured the fire hall and fire equipment on Monday. Chief Dale Kent was the tour guide.
Adult volleyball held its last session for this year on Monday.
COMING EVENTS: Halkirk hall ham and turkey Christmas bingos on Dec. 13 and Dec. 20; Dec. 18 — Mother Teresa Christmas concert at 7 p.m.