While no two farmers follow the same schedule, winter is generally devoted to more “indoor” tasks. Marci Green from Green View Farms in Spokane County points out that many bookkeeping tasks, such as paying bills, marketing crops, payroll, monitoring budgets, and cash flow, happen throughout the year. In this Q&A,…
During winter, the fields may be sleeping under the snow, but that doesn’t mean farmers are. In shops across Eastern Washington, farm equipment is being cleaned and repaired, all in preparation for another year of hard work. Rob Wilkins, parts supervisor at Papé Machinery in Tekoa, Wash., believes the work…
Crop rotations date back thousands of years. Back then, farmers may not have understood the science behind rotating crops on the same land from season to season, but they used it in practice for crop production. Since then, science and experience have expanded our agricultural knowledge exponentially. Modern-day farms in…
Like many farm families in Eastern Washington, the Heaton family’s roots go back more than 100 years, when Julia and Joe Stark settled near Hay, Wash., in 1908. The Starks, with their two daughters, Marie and Alice, grew wheat and raised cattle and hogs along the Snake River above what…
Before Doug and Kelsey Tanneberg’s family settled near Mansfield in Douglas County, they hopscotched across the country, from Denmark to Minnesota to Davenport, Wash., beginning in the late 1800s. The desire to raise cattle prompted another move west to St. Andrews, Wash. “I said to my granddad, Jens, ‘Why did…
Brad and Jody Forgey’s farm sits high above Asotin on Anatone Flats, where one can see for miles. The farm was started by Brad’s great-grandfather and passed through his grandfather and uncle to him. They grow wheat, barley, hay, alfalfa, and raise calves. This year, the Forgey’s harvest included the…
New Orleans might be the Big Easy, but there was nothing relaxed about this stretch of the Mississippi River. Where transportation and recreation shared the river in La Crosse, the lower river (below St. Louis, Mo.) was almost entirely dedicated to industry, with little to no recreation, especially around New…
Driving south from Memphis, the group arrived at Ergon Marine & Industrial Supply in Vicksburg, Miss., located on a big bend of the river, where Port Captain Lee Hogue talked about some of the issues users on the lower Mississippi River face, such as channel maintenance and strong currents and…
The group, now joined by Upper Mississippi Waterway Association leaders, Gary Williams, executive director, and Jeremy Putnam, president, arrived in Memphis. While this was mostly a travel day, the group was able to fit in a last minute tour of one of American Cruise Line’s (ACL) vessels that was docked…
After arriving in Minneapolis the night before, the Columbia-Snake River System group traveled to La Crosse, Wis., to attend a meeting of the Upper Mississippi Waterway Association (UMWA). At the UMWA meeting, the Pacific Northwest group spoke about the issues on the Columbia and Snake rivers, specifically the efforts to…
