Rain, rain go away, at least for a few days. 

Many local farmers in the area are probably wishing this would happen so they can complete their fall harvest. Heavy rains over the past couple of weeks have prevented farmers from completing their harvest and Starland County Agricultural Fieldman Al Hampton said harvest right now is, “at a stand still.”

“It is getting extremely wet in most of our area and that is going to cause us some grief. As strange as it is, you go from really, really dry conditions early in the year, and now we’ve got actually really, really wet conditions,” he said.

He told The Mail that although the area is on track for about average rainfall, it has received most of that rain in the last month. That equals about seven to eight inches in Morrin and areas close by. 

“There is a little bit of harvest that has been done. Most of the peas are completed. Cereals and Canola, basically guys have barely got started on, I doubt we’d be 20 per cent completed. Harvest in Starland would be maybe 20-25 per cent that would be about it,” he said. 

“It can be a long drawn out process,” he explained, “particularly with really wet soils, and wet fields, that will make everything a little more of a struggle.”

The other side of it is, Hampton explained, there are many fields that might have had a second growth or crop that came up at two different times, those ones are still presenting a problem because of uneven maturity from dry conditions in the Spring and early Summer and now wet conditions in late Summer.

Hampton said because of the Canadian dollar being down, the commodity price is much lower than last year, and even lower than years previous to that. 

“With our Canadian dollar sinking, it softens the blow a little bit as far as at least price wise,” he said, continuing by saying any farmers looking to buy equipment would expect to pay a much higher cost because it is based on the US dollar. 

Hampton said the small amount of frost we had at the beginning of September wouldn’t be as much of a factor on the harvest as the amount of rain that has fallen. 

“It is going to cause some significant downgrading to cereals I would think. Malt barley is going to be fairly valuable because there isn’t going to be too much Malt barley around with the type of weather we are having,” he said. 

“The ground at least on this heavy clay is starting to get to a point where it is at full field capacity and water is starting to stand in areas. That is going to be a bit of a problem. We are getting into the time of year where we are going to have more darkness than daylight and things don’t dry out that fast,” he said. 

Hampton explained that in years past, many times harvest has taken place in October and he predicts this will happen this year as well. 

Looking back 13 years, Valerie Nelson, founder of the Familias Saludables in Roatan, would have never guessed that her work would have made the impact it does today.

Nelson was through Drumheller last week and took a couple minutes to sit down with The Drumheller Mail.  From those humble beginnings, her work now encompasses a holistic approach to families facing AIDS and poverty in Roatan. What started as saving babies who could have very well died, is now preparing them for adulthood.

“If we can look back at the 13 years we have been there, it has changed tremendously. In that first year, we had 49 per cent transmission of (HIV) from mother to child. And that first year 29 of our babies died,” she said.

While they made modest gains in the first few years, about 10 years ago the Morgan Jayne Project was born. 

The Morgan Jayne Project was founded by Fred Makowecki in memory of his daughter, Morgan. Knowing Nelson for years, they partnered and began providing infant formula for babies to curb the spread of HIV from mother to child. This had a profound impact.

“The Morgan Jayne Project and Drumheller became involved and brought us all sorts of formula, it made a world of difference. In the past four years, we have had a zero transmission rate,” she said. Those types of outcome rates I could never get in Canada in 40 years.”

“If the Morgan Jayne Project didn’t come to the rescue, I think the project would have been dead, we wouldn’t have been able to save those kids, that’s huge.”

In simple terms, the clinic and the Morgan Jayne Project have saved numerous babies lives.

The project has caught the imagination of Drumheller residents who have been unwavering in their support for the Morgan Jayne Project. Every year the community has supported the annual Christmas Miracle, bringing gifts to children who would never have had Christmas.

With its success, brings new challenges. While the clinic and the Morgan Jayne Project continues to work with new families, they continue to support the children as they grow.

“As a result of saving these babies lives, we have more children. It seem obvious, but then we started looking at how many kindergarteners and Grade 1 kids we have.”

Suddenly they found themselves in the school business. The public system in Roatan was not serving students as well as it could and many of the children coming from the clinic were also stigmatized by AIDS.

“We looked at these kids whose lives we have saved, and asked what is our responsibility to them,” she said. "Obviously our responsibility is to educate these kids so they have a better future.”

This year the Charmont Academy was born in a small donated house renovated to five classrooms. It is named in dedication of a Drumheller boy named John Charmont, who was tragically killed in an explosion at a Mexican resort. He was a strong supporter of the Morgan Jayne Project.  It has 50 students. It is giving these children a chance at a future.

“They are going to change the world from the inside. These are going to be the future mayors of Roatan, council members, doctors and lawyers, and we are going to be with them every step of the way to give them the best education we can,” said Nelson.

 While the Morgan Jayne Project has had a profound affect on the students, it is also making a change for the better in Roatan. The project has not only gained trust among the families, but the islanders and the leaders. This was made abundantly clear to Makowecki on his last visit to the island when he was greeted coming out of the airport with a sign welcoming the Morgan Jayne Project founder.

“The emotional support is there,” she said.