Cows and Houses

 After we left Sauble Beach, we had a lazy drive through the country, stopping at this large flooded pond in a farm field.  Mrs. F.G. seems to be enchanted with cows, so every time we passed some she pulled over to let me take pictures. 

This flooded pond was at quite a distance, too far to tell if any of these birds were anything but Canada Geese., but there were lots of them!

Cows are always curious, ready to stop and look at you, probably wondering if you've brought any feed.

This one had a memorable face!

Several miles later and we came upon a group of Charolais gathered close together.  I expect most cattle outside these days are just getting some fresh air; they're certainly not grazing.  You have to look twice at this group to count all six of them!

And then we were driving through Kilsyth, the little village where my grandfather ran the general store for several decades.  My grandparents, along with three great aunts, still lived in the village when I knew them.  Most people I speak to have never heard of it!  But now progress has come to the place, in the form of large prestigious homes in a small block on the corner of town.  Feels like a culture clash to me!

Sauble Beach

Last Sunday afternoon we decided to go for another drive, and this time we ended up at Sauble Beach.  This is one of Ontario's most beautiful beaches, an 11 kilometre stretch of sand on Lake Huron, almost directly to the west of us.  It's the second longest beach in Ontario, after Wasaga Beach, directly to the east of us.

We actually rented a cottage here about 40 years ago.  It was a tiny little building, but it was right on the water.  However, we've never been back since, so we wondered what it would be like.    

We started out going west on this drive, aiming for straight through Owen Sound.  This is the valley of Keefer Creek. 

Then it was down over the cliff of the Niagara Escarpment, and into the valley of Owen Sound.

After a stop at Tim's to pick up hot chocolate, we eventually ended up at the north end of the  beach.  As you can see, this is one of the access points, and that sign on the right is emblematic of the efforts they're put into policing the beach - no dogs, no fires, no littering, and above all, no vehicles.  When we visited cars drove up and down on the beach and parked there - what a change!

The result is that dunes have built up substantially; in fact you hardly ever get a glimpse of the lake, even though we were driving down Lakeshore Blvd. the road closest to the lake.

This is the main public access point, with washrooms.  As you can see, this part of the beach is owned by the Saugeen First Nation.  There has been a long extended lawsuit here, finally settled in favour of the first nation.

Going out on the ice is one of the biggest dangers on this beach.

For the most part our drive just extended past dune after dune; you'd never know Lake Huron was out there!

Finally, at a low point between the dunes, we did see the lake, and two people, apparently trying to fly a kite.  And that was the end of our drive down Sauble Beach.  We have little inclination to return.

And Out the Front Door...

 The biggest change occurred outside the front window, for that's where the snow was originally piled the highest.  And that's where the most flower shoots poked up, primarily Daffodils.  

The kidney shape of our front garden, not quite free of snow .

The remnant of that huge pile of snow beside the driveway, still covering half the garden.

You have to take a close look to see the Daffodil shoots.

From another angle, once I was outside, the snow is almost gone.  It disappeared a little more every day.

Not much left.

Oh, but I forgot, it's March!

Our own little flag.

And two neighbours' flags.  As  you've probably heard, Canada is now into a national election campaign.   It's an important election for Canadians, given DT's assault on our country.  I'll likely be unable to stop my self from commenting!

It is March After All!

 You may remember the gigantic piles of snow we enjoyed this winter.  I can't quite believe it, but they actually disappeared pretty quickly, thanks to 4 or 5 warm days and steady breezes that just soaked the snow up into the atmosphere.  The river was flowing full, but not  even any significant flooding that I heard of.

This is the huge pile of snow that was left here on Mar. 11th, just less that two weeks ago.

 The snow melted fast over just 3 or 4 days, leaving the view out back mostly free of snow.

And it just kept on melting.

Immediately after the snow disappeared, the first Hellebore were in bloom.  You'd almost think they were blooming under the snow and just waiting!

But of course, as my title alludes, this is March in southern Ontario!  We've all been there before.

And then the next day the cycles repeated itself, though it's still a surprise every time it happens!

Again the Hellebore were ready and waiting!  So it will continue!

DT's Endgame

Since Trump has been throwing tariffs and the threat of tariffs toward Canada, I, like many Canadians, have been both worried and puzzled.  Why is he picking on Canada, one of America's best long term allies?  Why does Canada rank with Mexico, which has genuine drug and immigration problems at the southern U.S. border, and China, which more than any other country in the world, has taken over the U.S. consumer market?  

And why the continuing spew of insults (or are they threats?) about Canada becoming the 51st state?

It seems to me that Trump has something personal against Canada.  Maybe as Maebeme in her comments two posts ago suggested, he wants our resources, water, lumber and oil.  I still can't say what is going on in Trump's brain about the long run for Canada.

But in a more general sense, we do now have some ideas.

Based on negotiations in Washington last week, Canadian officials came away with the understanding that DT plans three approaches to reducing the U.S. global international trade deficit of $1.8 trillion.  First is a budget with billions in program and tax cuts, the second is the ruthless reduction in agency staffing that Musk is over-seeing, and the third is tariffs.   

In Trump's mind, in spite of the turmoil that they are creating for the American stock market, tariffs will bring in enormous amounts of money to the U.S., while encouraging manufacturing to return to the U.S.   I'm not sure either of these are true, but on Apr. 2nd, Trump will announce tariffs of various levels on countries around the world.  At least Canada will no longer feel picked on!

But what does he have in mind for Canada?  Like many Canadians, I suspect he really is after our natural resources.  Though he's constantly saying the U.S. doesn't need our oil, gas, or lumber, he hasn't said much about our water or those critical minerals.  Others have suggested that what he really wants is an integrated North American economy, which would be a big step toward annexation.

But I think it may be even more than that, and simpler at the same time.  I suspect that Trump has a big map of North America pinned to his bedroom wall and he looks at that map and thinks wouldn't it be a great legacy to create one huge country, including both Greenland and Canada?

I think we're going to see a lot of nonsense in the next four years!

We will shortly return to regular programming.

Understanding Canada's Dairy Tariffs

One of the most outlandish figures DT has shot toward Canada is referring to our exceedingly high dairy tariffs.  Unfortunately this is one of those stories where the part of the story not told is the interesting part.  If DT isn't outright lying, at least he's being dishonest and misleading. 

It all goes back to the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, a trade agreement negotiated by DT during his first term in office and described by him as 'the best trade deal ever made'.  Under that agreement, a compromise was reached on one of the many topics covered, dairy products.  Canada and the U.S. operate very different regulations governing dairy production, so a new idea was introduced, tariffs that do not apply below a certain level, with higher tariffs that apply once that level is reached.

Let me explain.

Canadian dairy production operates under a supply management system, wherein farmers need to own a quota for selling a certain amount of milk and other dairy products.  Quotas are allocated to provinces, designed to match dairy production to public dairy consumption.  Prices go up slightly for everyone, but it protects our small dairy industry.  There's a quota but also a guaranteed price, and tariffs control foreign competition.  Trump has always wanted access to the Canadian dairy market.

The American dairy industry is less fettered by regulation, and farms are on average considerably larger.  This allows higher production, but milk gets over-produced, and prices drop, leaving farmers scrambling for government subsidies.  There are no subsidies in Canada, just a guaranteed price.  But with high production you can easily understand that the American dairy industry wants access to Canadian consumers.  

So a compromise was reached in CUSMA, allowing U.S. access to a certain level of the Canadian market.  There are different rules for different products (primarily milk and cheese), but on average I understand the U.S. has access to about 16% of the Canadian market..  Below that level there is only a minimal tariff (7.5%) or no tariff at all.  That level has never been reached so no high tariffs have ever been charged.

Only if that level were ever to be reached would the higher tariffs Trump has moaned about kick in.  They never have, in spite of the fact that Canada imports over a billion dollars of American dairy products while the U.S. imports something over $300 million worth of Canadian dairy products.

There are of course other differences between Canadian and American dairy production.  Perhaps the most notable is the use of growth hormones in the U.S. which are illegal in Canada.  The FDA says these are safe for humans, but Canada says they can impact the cow's health.  The result is that many Canadians simply don't want to drink American milk.

And I should point out that American dairy farmers have indicated they would love to have a system like Canada's supply management.

So the story of Canada's 250% dairy tariffs is misleading at the least, but of course Americans who don't understand that Trump signed the agreement that put those tariffs in writing, may see that high figure as Canada 'ripping off' the U,S.  In this as in some of Trump's other pronouncements, the part of the story not told is the interesting part.

Help Me Understand How Canada is "Ripping Off" the U.S.

I'm writing this mainly to push myself to understand the topic of trade balances, and in a plea for help.  If you have any comments at all, good or bad, please let me know.

DT has described international trade in one phrase, "They're ripping us off".  And he's applied it to many countries, not just Canada.  Of course this infuriates me, so I've been trying to understand it.  DT goes beyond that and says Canada wouldn't survive as a country without the big subsidy the U.S. provides, so we might as well become the 51st state!  This infuriates me even more!!   Unfortunately I'm not an economist, so understanding this is an uphill battle for me!

The most recent figures I could find are for the first 3/4 of 2024.  In that period the U.S. imported about $420 billion from Canada and Canada imported about $350 billion worth of products from the U.S.  The difference in that trade balance is widely referred to in negative and positive terms.

If Canada exports more than it imports from the U.S. (as we do) that means we have a trade surplus with the U.S. and they have a trade deficit with us.  "Ripping us off" in Trump's terms, seems to mean that we're selling more to you than we're buying from you.  Trump would like every country in the world to buy more from the U.S. than it sells to the U.S.  A negative trade balance = 'ripping us off'.

The simplest answer to this is for the U.S. to simply stop buying our stuff!  Trump himself has said that the U.S. doesn't need our oil, gas or hydro power, our lumber or our autos.  So why don't you just stop buying them?  For oil, the answer is that it would take a long time to change the U.S. refining capacity, even if that was the economically sensible thing to do, which it isn't.

Canadian crude oil, which is really a bitumen product, requires a different refining process, and many of the refineries in the Midwest have been built to process that 'heavy' crude.  You can't just switch overnight!  Reducing Canadian imports would require re-tooling the U.S. refining capacity, especially in the Midwest, an enormous financial investment.

In spite of that, if we just remove oil and gas from the trade balance, as noted above, the situation would be reversed, and the U.S. would have a trade surplus with Canada, keeping DT happy.  Last year the U.S. imported $170 billion worth of Canadian oil and gas.  If that is set aside for a moment, the U.S. has a large trade surplus with Canada, of about $100 billion.

So as DT has suggested, why doesn't the U.S. just stop buying our oil and gas, though all the Midwest drivers might be a little frustrated, not being able to buy gas for their pickups!

The same can be said about autos, where the trade is actually fairly well balanced at the moment.  But if DT wants to stop Canadian imports, which account for about 8 or 9% of American consumption, it would require construction of about 6 entire new assembly plants, a task which would take more than a few years.  DT can rant and rave, but industrial-level change unfolds slowly.

And in what sense is the U.S. trade surplus a 'subsidy'?  It simply reflects your purchase of our products.  That's not the U.S. subsidizing Canada!  Canada is not 'ripping off' the United States simply by selling you things.

Another accusation DT has made is that Canada is one of the "worst tariffing" nations on the planet.  In fact, the most recent data I've seen shows that Canada ranks below the U.S., and both are quite near the bottom of the scale.  DT seems to have a talent for exaggerations intending to stir up trouble rather than any interest in facts!

But I've got a further question.  Why aren't trade balances expressed in per-capita terms, that is, why don't they take into account different populations.  The simplest statement of this problem is that we don't buy enough from you to offset the products you need from us.  But how can a country with about 1/8 the population ever expect to buy an equal amount to balance your imports?  It makes no sense.

I look forward to your comments.

Reference:  I've relied heavily on a report by TD Economics entitled 'Setting the Record Straight on Canada-U.S. Trade'

It's Melting Fast Now!

 I don't think I've ever seen snow disappear so fast as overnight last night.  The temperature is up around 15°C and it's been a windy two days.  A lot of snow is vanishing through sublimation; the wind just sucks the moisture out of the snowbanks.  As commenter mentioned yesterday, fog appears over the fields as evidence of the water vapour being sucked out of the snow.  But there's so much melting going on that we also have water running out the base of the snowbanks and forming a tiny river down the side of the road.

Last night when we turned out the lights the golf course was still mostly white; this morning it's half green.

And when we got back from church just 3 hours later, there was even less snow.

Take a closer look out there between the trees.

More snow gone

And yes, our crane snowstick has re-emerged, after about 2 months of being buried!

Out front you can see the water seeping out the front of the big dirty snowbanks.  And you can never get away from the big Canadian flags on our street!

Best of all a few Daffodil shoots that had been up an inch or too but buried underneath the snow are now visible, the first sign of spring flowers at our house.  And I saw a Robin the other day too.  Spring is here!

How Does Snow Melt?

 I've always been puzzled over just how snow melts.  I know and have observed the conventional way we think of it, where the snow turns to a liquid, water, and runs down the gutter and into the nearest stream.  But since we've lived here, looking out at a wide expanse of snow behind us, and big snowbanks out in front of us, I've become aware of a different way snow melts - by sublimation.

Sublimation is the process by which a solid (like snow or ice) turns to water vapour in the atmosphere.  So looking out the window I see the big snowbanks, still 2 feet of snow mostly, 3 feet in places, and it's 10°C out, and there isn't even a trickle of water running down the driveway.  It's all just disappearing into the atmosphere.

The big snow bank on our neighbour's property butting up against our driveway.

The other side of our driveway, lots of snow but no water trickling down the drive.

And our front sidewalk, all bare but no melting water visible!

While I was standing there I caught the big flag down the street between the trunks of our little birch trees.

Part 2 of Our Sunday Afternoon Drive

The rest of our drive last Sunday consisted of driving home, but it's a nice drive up from Eugenia to Meaford, and we saw a Bald Eagle!  What a surprise!  They have recovered of course from the DDT scares many years ago, but they are still fairly infrequent in an inland location like this.

As we drove off the causeway and left Lake Eugenia we passed under the Osprey nest.  This has been here, and occupied during the breeding season, as long as we can remember.  The nest just seems to get bigger every year, and this year features some scraps from a torn blue tarp.

We drove through the village and headed north, passing under the new Eagle's Summit Nature Reserve, purchased by the Bruce Trail Conservancy a few months ago.  This is one of the big cliffs along the Niagara Escarpment, one I've actually walked out to see.

Then it was down the long hill into the village of Kimberley, a place we're both very familiar with.

It was after we'd gone up the long slope of the valley on the other side that we spotted the Bald Eagle sitting in a field beside the road.  Too far away for good photography with a phone, this photo is uncropped to show you what we saw.

I cropped this photo down as far as I dared, and frankly I'm astonished that it turned out this well.  It was impossible to tell what it was eating, but there were obviously remnants of an animal that had been torn apart, perhaps a coyote kill.

Then it was on to Meaford where I've noted in previous years the big willows turning bright yellow.  I'm counting five of them in this photo, the blue waters of Georgian Bay beyond.

And here's one of those willows as we got closer.  We always watch for the willows turning, one of the obvious signs of spring here.  Thank goodness, it's about time.  Still 2-4 feet of snow in the front yard, but it's sunny and melting quickly now.