Doctors can’t talk about their work, but when they write about it, the stories they tell can make you laugh and cry — and see their profession in a whole new light. Dr. Paul Dhillon realized those stories weren’t being told after assuming his post as a family physician. He works for the Saskatchewan Medical
New book details the rewards and challenges of rural medicine
Both sad and lighthearted stories share the experience of what it’s really like to be a doctor practising somewhere in rural Canada
New guidelines for community suppers published
Manitoba’s chief public health inspector hopes to silence the critics who say food safety rules are too prohibitive
A new provincial guideline for safe food preparation at community dinners should help their hosts know what the public health inspector expects, says the province’s chief public health inspector. He also hopes the Community Dinner Guidelines now posted on Manitoba Health’s website, helps allay concerns that public health inspectors’ food safety requirements are making it
Heritage group creates online cemetery guide
A new online guide to local cemeteries will help bring the stories these sites tell to life, say its creators
People once knew how to “read” those chrysanthemums, empty chairs, logs and other symbols on headstones when they visited cemeteries. It’s a visual language mostly forgotten now. But modern eyes instantly recognize a different symbol — a ‘QR code,’ those tiny blocks of black and white squares are for scanning with smartphones to learn something.
Threshers break world record at Austin
Thousands of spectators at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum July 31 witnessed threshing outfits from across Canada and the northern U.S. stage the world’s largest threshing bee
Hundreds of volunteers donned overalls and heaved sheaves on Sunday to re-enact a Prairie harvest scene on the grandest scale the world has ever seen. More than 148 antique threshing outfits rattled, hissed and ‘chuff-chuff-chuffed,’ tended by 700 participants, in the Guinness World Record attempt at the Manitoba Agricultural Museum for the most threshers operating
Growers vigilant for fly that can devastate fruit crops
This season has had its share of disease and weather pressures, but above-average fruit crops are being reported
Manitoba’s fruit growers are keeping a close eye for signs of spotted wing drosophila, aiming to avoid the toll the tiny fly took on fruit crops last year. Some growers have already detected it and have applied an approved insecticide to combat against another infestation, provincial fruit crops specialist Anthony Mintenko said July 14. The
Farmers want and need resources for mental health: survey
Stress, anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion and burnout are all higher among farmers than among other groups
Canadian farmers are among the most vulnerable to stress, anxiety, burnout and depression, according to early results of an online mental health survey done by researchers at University of Guelph. They experience these symptoms in numbers higher than comparative groups, including those in the U.K. and Norway, where similar studies have been done, said Andria
Grassroots water monitoring pilot underway
The Lake Winnipeg Foundation has a pilot project to co-ordinate community-based water monitoring
It’s well understood high phosphorus levels cause harmful algae blooms in Lake Winnipeg. What’s not yet well understood is precisely where they come from. A new project from the not-for-profit Lake Winnipeg Foundation (LWF) aims to find out. Its Community Based Monitoring project, operating as a pilot program in 2016, aims to co-ordinate the water
Take the Pulse Pledge
Prairie Fare: Roasted Beet Hummus, Cumin Roasted Carrot and Lentil Tacos and Peanut Butter Chickpea Energy Balls
We’re halfway through International Year of Pulses (IYP). Are you eating more of them yet? If not, sign up for the Pulse Pledge. You’ll be inspired to try. First, a word on the IYP. The United Nations declared 2016 the year of pulses to remind us how diets of pulses are healthier for both people
Farmer sees water storage as ‘win-win’
The site covering an entire section temporarily holds back water to reduce downstream flooding
Few landowners would agree to hold water on their land without compensation — but one farmer is working with the Seine Rat River Conservation District (SRRCD) to buck convention. Dairy farmer David Wiens owns a quarter of a section — the rest is provincial Crown land — encompassed by a mile-long dike, constructed to hold
New life in Canada ‘a dream come true,’ couple says
The Cabatingans are one of hundreds of young families now calling Neepawa and surrounding municipalities home
Kharl Cabatingan will have his own “settler story” to tell his grandchilden one day. He and wife Ruby Ann became Canadian citizens last year. The couple, both born in the Philippines, has lived in Neepawa not quite all of their young daughter Annikha’s life. She was born shortly after Kharl emigrated in 2008, initially working
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