An April snowfall and cooler temperatures that hit southwest Manitoba earlier in the week were certainly welcomed for desparately needed moisture.
On Monday morning, April 12 wet snow began falling on Southern Manitoba after weeks of above-seasonal temperatures and dry conditions. The snow continued to the next day, ending early Tuesday evening. Accumulation in the region varied from 12 cm to 20 cm (five to eight inches).
Everyone, especially the farming community, welcomed the moisture it left behind.
Soil moisture and ground water in retention ponds were depleted after a record low snowfall winter and no spring runoff. Growers will be happy to see this moisture, even if it came as snow.
It is certainly a different world than the fall of 2019.
Whereas at that point, the entire area was awash with water to the point where crops could not come off - moving into the spring of 2021, southwestern Manitoba is dry as the proverbial bone. Moisture left over from a year and a half was used up on the 2020 crop and now people are looking to the heavens for a little wet stuff. It is worrying agricultural producers, and those concerned about a spark setting something alight, particularly in the Turtle Mountains.
Jon Gustafson is a cattle farmer and a councillor with the Municipality of Deloraine-Winchester. Farming about eight miles south of Deloraine just north of the US border, he said it is beyond dry. The creeks that usually empty from the Turtle Mountains into the sloughs of the area are not bringing the moisture. Gustafson said the lack of snowfall did not do anyone any good in his area.
“I had wind breaks, they would be filled up with snow,” Gustafson explained. “You would get six foot high snow drifts. It would all drain into the dugouts. It was great. Not a drop of water came from them this year. It is really surprising how little moisture there was once the snow melted. Nothing ran, not that I could tell.”
He said the fall came quickly in 2020 and then the snow was gone just as quickly this spring. Gustafson said there is an eerie silence where he is.
“I can’t hear frogs. Are the sloughs dry? Is the frost not out of the ground yet?”
The move to the country is working out for Jamie Morrison.
The veteran massage therapist opened up her new clinic on South Railway Street in late 2020. So far, she said, everything is moving in the right direction.
“It has been very good,” Morrison stated. “Business is getting busier now, mostly growing through word of mouth. Everything is working out very well.”
Morrison is in her twelfth year of massage therapy. She said she was interested in natural approaches to health care. It appealed to her in part because she knew people who were doctoring and not necessarily finding the solutions to their problems.
“They were looking for something for pain relief other than a pill.”
She was looking for a holistic approach to health care, and also did not want to go to school forever. Morrison did her schooling in Winnipeg at the Massage Therapy College of Manitoba, and said she fell in love with it quickly. She added she usually does a couple of courses a year to keep up with new ideas and techniques.
Morrison worked in Winnipeg for several years, and then was in Brandon at the Reactive Massage Therapy Clinic. She has been on her own for a few years now and wanted a change of scenery.
“I was looking for anywhere, looking in the Whiteshell, the Rocky Mountains,” Morrison explained. “I was looking for a change. I found a property, took a leap and moved to the country.”
The Teulon native said she is living in the Turtle Mountains about 20 minutes southwest of Boissevain. She also fell in love with her available office space on the main street in Boissevain.
Your walk down Crescent Avenue this summer is about to get a lot sweeter. It might even look a little brighter with the addition of Souris’ newest business, 49º (forty-nine degrees).
This June, as long as everything remains on target, Jessica Anderson and sister-in-law, Larissa Anderson will be opening their new ice cream and coffee Shop at the west end of Crescent Avenue.
“We are so excited to begin this new adventure,” explained Jessica Anderson who, along with her husband Craig farm near Souris. “Opening a business was something Larissa and I talked about and we wanted something that was going to be an amazing fit with the community. Once we decided what our business would be, we had to come up with a name.”
