WEBVTT

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♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

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- If you take highway
61 east towards

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Manyberries and Nemiskam.

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- You need south on highway 879.

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- I live 20 miles
south of Foremost.

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- We live about 15
miles from anywhere.

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- At Ridge Road 83
you turn north.

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- And then you turn
onto Township 44.

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- Half a mile east.

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- And then we\'re
on Range Road 100.

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- We run a ranch.

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- I live on farm and a
ranch with my two sons

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and their families
and grandchildren.

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My name is Joan Houson.

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- I\'m Lori King.

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- Hello, I\'m Bonnie Pearson.

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- My name is Lee Harty.

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Um, I live on a farm, and we
farm there with my husband\'s

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family, his brother and his dad.

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- I grew up in the city, I\'m
a city girl, and I call,

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somebody said we\'re the
transplants out to the farm,

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and definitely
it\'s an adjustment.

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- I really enjoy it, that\'s
why I am still here.

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I like to, to live on the farm,
and I enjoy working with my

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family, and it\'s just a great
pleasure to be able to watch my

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grandchildren grow up and
be part of their lives

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and take it all in.

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- It\'s been about 2
years ago my, my husband

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suddenly passed away, so we
weren\'t very well prepared

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to take over running the ranch
because he was the main

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operator of the place, but
my son and I have taken over

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and run the ranch for
the last 2 years.

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- Some challenges I think that
come from living on the farm are

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the isolation, in particular
when I was first married and had

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young children, I remember they
would get sick at midnight or

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4:00, and, you know, they have a
high fever, they\'re throwing up,

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you feel like you\'re all alone,
and you just don\'t zip to the

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clinic, or, or the doctor,
or anything like that.

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That can be a scary time.

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- The loneliness,
the isolation being,

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when I first came
here 51 years ago,

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we didn\'t have much
modern conveniences,

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and we didn\'t have a
lot of communication.

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I was on a party line
with 20 other people,

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so you didn\'t talk
anything personal.

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- There are neighbours, but
they\'re maybe not necessarily

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people your age.

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So, sometimes you can be lonely,
and sometimes my husband comes

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home, or comes in the house
and, well, what do you know?

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Nothing, I haven\'t
spoken to anyone all day,

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just the children.

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Because there\'s not daycare,
you know, there\'s no,

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there\'s no daycare.

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(crying)

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- Another challenge I think
for rural women coming in

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to a farm family is that a
family has its own language.

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And when I came to the farm, I
was coming as a new member to

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that family, and because we live
in close proximity and we work

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together, it took a few years
to get onto the language of that

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family and to put some of
my own language in there.

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You have to be a strong person
to join this kind of a business,

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this kind of a lifestyle,
and you got to

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fight for your own spot.

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- In 1982, my husband died,
so I was a widow at 39,

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left with the farm and, well, we
didn\'t have as big a farm or as

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many cattle then, but I had
three kids to raise on my own.

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The day of his funeral, a
relative come up to me and said,

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\"What are you gonna
do with the farm?\"

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And I said, \"Well, I\'m gonna run
it.\" And he looked me in the eye

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and he said, \"There\'s no
way you can do that.\" Well,

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he shouldn\'t have challenged me,
because I look back and I said,

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\"Well, you just watch me.

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I can run this farm.\" I did
the books, I paid the bills,

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I knew how the business
end of it worked.

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I do have a Bachelor of
Science and Mathematics,

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so I am very good at bookwork.

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Running the farm was
not a challenge to me.

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What I said to him, I said,
\"What really scares me is

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raising three children on my
own.\" That was the biggest

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challenge, but I
can truthfully say

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I think they turned
out pretty good.

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- I\'m a mother of four.

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I love that we live on a
farm for those children.

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They can go out and
play all day outside,

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and I really don\'t
have to fear much.

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We recently have started up
three ATVs going at once,

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which is probably
my biggest worry

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that there might be a crash.

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The other thing is my boys
love to shadow their dad,

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and with him working so
close the yard some days,

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they can right by him
and learning the ropes

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already about the farm.

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- I think raising my kids, as
the next generation of farmers

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is a big responsibility,
because we feed the world.

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It\'s important to show them
that that\'s an important job.

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Farming\'s not for people who
didn\'t want to go to university;

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farming\'s for people
who chose to farm.

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Our farm celebrated
its 100 years in 2010.

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So, my grandchildren are
fifth generation on the place,

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and I\'m sure a couple of
them might carry on farming.

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- I have two little grand boys,
and they are my pride and joy,

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and we hope to carry
the ranch on for them,

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because we have been there
106 years now for the ranch.

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- I can ride with my kids.

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We have some horses, we got for
rides, and we see jackrabbits,

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all that kind of
things, there\'s owls.

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Yeah, those kinds of experiences
you can\'t have anywhere else and

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they\'re valuable, and
that\'s what makes life fun.

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- I only have one son, so I can
spend as much time with him as I

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want, so.

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I\'ve always been
in a men\'s world,

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working with on the ranch,
but it\'s always nice to visit

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with a woman.

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- My female friends in the
community keep you sane.

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You can talk about your kids.

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You can talk about
your husbands.

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You can talk about your in-laws,
because most of us are on a

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family farm and you do need
to talk about those things.

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- I didn\'t have a lot of time to
meet with the girls and have

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coffee and things like that.

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I didn\'t do that for years
\'cause I had work to do,

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those things that
have to be done.

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But I have my little
core of friends.

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Now, it\'s getting that there\'s
more of us that are widows,

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so we have that in common.

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So, we\'re consoling each
other for, on that, too.

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- If you get lonely, I always
find that if I go out and

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get on my my horse and go
for a ride, it always makes

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the day seem better.

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Yeah, I\'ve spent a lot
of time on my horse

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the last couple of years.

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And it\'s, it\'s, it\'s hard to
be left alone so suddenly.

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(sobbing)

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We have hardly any family,

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\'cause it\'s just my son
and I, but we\'re making it.

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There\'s been a lot of people
that thought that we couldn\'t do

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it, but we\'ll show
them that we can do it.

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- It\'s not the type of life
that everybody could do.

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I think you have to be a
little special kind of person,

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a little tough.

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♪ ♪

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- I want it
to be a success.

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I want it to be able to run my
own farm and to not feel like a

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failure, to feel
that I could do it,

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and that I could it as well as
a man could, or maybe better.

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- I\'ve learned to be happy with
what I have every day and to

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enjoy the good things, and I
think that comes with all women,

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we all share that
same idea of, um,

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being happy and raising
our kids to be happy.

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♪ ♪

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- Yeah, I love
the farm, I really do.

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Especially coming
from the city, I,

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sometimes I think I surprise
myself even how much I love it.

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♪ ♪

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- It isn\'t easy.

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It\'s a very rewarding life.

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My life is the ranch and
the horses, my grandson,

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and it\'s a pretty
rewarding life.

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And I was riding my horse across
the prairie the other day,

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and I was thinking what could
I do where I could be happier,

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and I couldn\'t be
anywhere happier.

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♪ ♪

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♪ ♪