Red Deer, Alberta

On Monday, July 15, we had a moving day, we had traveled 100 miles, we were meeting at a Convention Center in Red Deer to park in a parking lot, to be parking in a wagon wheel design and a plane was to fly over for a photo shot. It had rained all day traveling, and still raining when we got to the center, the clouds were too low so it was called off. We then drove to a Provincial Park where we are to be parked for two days, when we arrived we were parking in a group parking area on grass with no hook-ups, then decided to park in the wagon wheel formation here instead. This area was just right for a photo shot, being parked on the grass was a lot nicer than parking in a parking lot.

On Tuesday, when we got up in the morning, the sun was shining nice and bright. We waited until 9:30 when Dan Orchard, Agronomy Specialist for Central Alberta on staff of the Canola Council of Canada arrived. We followed him to the east of the campground to a farmyard for farm tour-equipment and crops. He had talked about the equipment that they use on the canola farms, sprays, and how it is harvested.


Seeder for canola plants


Canola seeds

We then went to another another farm to see the canola plants and to talk about how they grow and mature. When the flowers fall off, a pod is formed and then they fill 5-6 seeds in the pod until harvest time in late Sept. to mid Oct.


Canola plants


Pods forming


Combine for picking canola, check out the top where the seeds are stored and then put into trucks when full.

We then went into the town of Lacombe for lunch at the Agriculture Building. We had a Canola nutritionalist talk and asked for questions after lunch. Everything we had for lunch had canola in it, mushroom soup, pasta salad, chicken breast fried in canola oil, bread with canola and balsamic vinegar to dip and desserts made with canola. They had given us a box of different canola oils, hand cleanser spray, and a pad that the farmers can use in their combines to hold their cell phone and other things in place. Very generous and very informative time for all, we should of had this tour in 2010 when we where on the Yellowhead Caravan, when we saw a lot more fields of canola.

After our tour we returned back to the campground for the fly by photo shot. We all got our chairs and sat in the middle of the trailers, all dressed in red shirts, that they gave out saying, "I parked the wagon wheel" on front and "Maple Leaf Trail Caravan" on the back.


Sitting on chairs inside trailer circle.

We then had a howdy doody and a campfire, before retiring for the night.


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