Eighty relatives of the Custer family gathered at Ed and Sandra Rayner's home at Metinota, Sept. 6. The weather was at its best for the day.
It started in early afternoon, the families all enjoyed visiting, catching up since the last reunion and taking pictures. The afternoon was filled in with croquet, bocce ball, drinks, laughter and hugs. Second 2 None Catering held a great supper at the Do Drop Inn in Meota. A slide presentation followed the supper and a lot of goodbye hugs until the next reunion.
Relatives travelled from Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Calgary and Red Deer in Alberta as well as Fort St. John, B.C., Saskatoon, the Battlefords and Baljennie. Only four members are left of the original family of seven: Glenn Custer of Saskatoon, Vernon Custer of North Battleford, Eva Rayner of Battleford and Bill Custer of Red Deer, Alta.
Vernon celebrated his 93rd birthday July 1 and his sister Eva celebrated her 88th birthday July 2. No one lives at the farm in Baljennie any more. The younger generation of the family has taken over the farm.
The last of the hot summer days are on us now. The signs of autumn are all around us. The equinox has passed and did give a little rainfall but the most rain came in early September. There has been enough frost to turn the tree leaves a rainbow of bright fall colours. Some of the leaves have already fallen in the woods.
It is very damp at times with high humidity most days and needs to dry up a little more. This makes for some very short days for the harvesting.
Huge flocks of crows, Canada and snow geese and sandhill cranes are flocking through the area. Combined pea fields are a mass of snow geese and look like a snowfall. The eagles are flying high to keep an eye on what's going on below. Pretty well all of the little birds have moved south for the winter season.
The harvesting is progressing as well as expected with the odd wet dewy morning. Some mornings are dew-free. We are getting lots of warm sunshine and a breeze to push the crops to ripen and mature faster and things are going much faster. It has been very slow going but the combines keep running when possible. It will take at least two good weeks to be all done.
Now it's just too bad the grain prices are so low and also that the grain is so slow to move to market. Our railroad tracks are full of oil tankers and not grain cars like we used to see. To get harvest done, farmers are putting in some hours of work to get done. Keep up the good work. The end will soon come.
