Ag Journal Daily Record Summer 2018
Rain has mixed impact on first hay cutting ■ New owners at Ward Rugh ■
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Table of contents
Ag Journal Editor Joanna Markell Publisher Heather Hernandez Advertising Contact us: Ag Journal 401 N. Main Street Ellensburg, WA 98926 509-925-1414 The Ag Journal is published three times a year by Kittitas County Publishing LLC. Contents copyrighted 2018 unless otherwise noted.
On the cover: Jack Lambert / Daily Record
A tractor bales hay along Manastash Road in Ellensburg.
Rain has mixed impact on first cutting Page 4
New owners at Ward Rugh Page 8
Memories of ranching life
Wrangling living history
Page 16
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Rain has mixed impact on first timothy cutting
Jack Lambert / Daily Record
A tractor bales hay along Manastash Road in Ellensburg on Tuesday.
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By KARL HOLAPPA staff writer
T
he first cutting of timothy hay in the Kittitas Valley is underway, and two weekends in a row of precipitation in mid June has created uncertainty about pricing. Carl Jensvold, president of the Organization of Kittitas Valley Timothy Hay Growers and Suppliers, said it’s too early to tell what effect the rain had on the crops. He said some of the hay was put up before the rains on June 16, but there was a lot of hay that most likely got rained on that day. Jensvold said farmers often must cut the hay because of maturity and the hay dries out because irrigation is shut off in advance of the cutting. “Hay can take a shower and still go up and look pretty good, if we have good drying conditions following it,” he said. “It kind of depends on how mature it was, and how close it was to being baled when it got rained on. That affects the quality.” Jensvold said farmers began putting up hay that had been rained on at the beginning of the week following the rain and time will tell how the rains affect the quality. He said the valley has gotten a little more precipitation than normal and more than the farmers had expected. “I think more crop was on the ground than normal,” he said. “It’s not atypical for hay to be on the ground right now. We can take a small shower but when we get a pretty good drenching that’s when it has the potential to affect the quality of the hay.” Jensvold said early June is generally more susceptible to rain
than later in the summer. “I’ve seen some pretty good thunderstorms in July too,” he said. “All of us take a pretty good gamble when we start cutting hay and we use the best information we have.” Jensvold said in mid-June some farmers were just beginning to cut depending on their location in the valley and that cutting will continue for at least a couple more weeks. He said first cutting is generally wrapped up by the Fourth of July.
ALFALFA, ROTATION CROPS
Jensvold said most of the first cutting of alfalfa has been completed in the valley. He said the next cutting will come sometime around mid-July. “I think it looked pretty good,” he said. “I think the quality was high.” Jensvold said he’s seen a lot of Sudan grass in the valley as a rotation crop this year. Other predominant rotation crops are spring and winter wheat. He said some farmers are growing sunflowers, but it is less common than the others. “There’s not a lot of growers that do it,” he said. “It’s a niche market and you’ve got to have the equipment to deal with it.”
EXPORTER PERSPECTIVE
Jeff Calaway, president of Calaway Trading said the rain affected
Jack Lambert / Daily Record
A combine cuts hay in Ellensburg on Wednesday. farmers’ plans for the year. “Obviously the frequency of the rains and the timing wasn’t ideal,” he said. “It basically guaranteed that somebody was going to get hit.” Calaway said the mid-June storm was a counter-clockwise rotating front that spun off the Rocky Mountains. “Those are hard to forecast,” he said. “They tend to be worse.” Calaway said some farmers got their hay up before the rain, but
5 | 2018 Ag Journal - Summer
the hay left on the ground will be over mature, negatively affecting the quality. He said the grade will depend on whether the hay was almost dry or freshly cut before the rain, and what quality the hay was before it was cut. “The impact of rain is largely dependent on more than just one factor,” he said. “Any rain degrades the quality and brings the value to the customer down.”
See Hay, Page 6
Daily Record photos
Jack Lambert / Daily Record
ABOVE LEFT: A baler drops bales of hay in a field along Sorenson Road east of Ellensburg in August. ABOVE RIGHT: A combine cuts hay in Ellensburg. BELOW: Fields of cut hay wait to get baled along Manastash Road in Ellensburg.
HAY Continued from Page 5 Calaway said the delay caused by allowing the hay to dry out for longer can make the harvest more difficult for farmers because it results in more hay being ready to bale and put up at the same time. He said this creates problems with the color of the hay, which is one of the things that is appealing to buyers. “Every day it sits on the ground, it degrades a little bit in color,” he said. Calaway said the hay that was put up before the rainstorms was high
quality. He said the impression in the market is that there’s more timothy in total tonnage then there has been in the past and because of that customers were bearish on price. “Now with rain you will have customers being anxious about getting enough high-quality product and that will cause pricing on non-rained-on quality material to strengthen,” he said. “The real question today is what the price is going to be for rained-on timothy, and nobody knows that answer yet.”
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Daily Record photos
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New owners at Ward Rugh
Karl Holappa / Daily Record
New Ward Rugh owners from left, Corey Rogers, Andy Schmidt and Craig Leishman outside their Ellensburg headquarters Monday.
E
By KARL HOLAPPA staff writer
llensburg-based hay exporter Ward Rugh has new owners. Employees Corey Rogers, Andy Schmidt and Craig Leishman finalized the deal in early March, a process they said was 10 years in the making. Rogers said prior owners Rollie and Marla Bernth began to plan for their retirement from the company in October 2007, and they began to work out the details of the transfer last year. He said the transi-
tion was both seamless and transparent to the company’s growers, customers, parts suppliers and vendors. “There were no issues at all,” Rogers said. The three have a combined 60 years of experience at the company. They will continue in their positions they held prior to the ownership transfer. Rogers handles export sales to Japan, Leishman handles purchasing in the Columbia Basin and sales to Korea, and Schmidt handles purchasing in Kittitas County as well as domestic sales. Rogers serves as
president and CEO of the company while Leishman serves as vice president and secretary and Schmidt as vice president and treasurer. “It was the most natural to move forward with the company and to continue with the Ward Rugh legacy,” Rogers said about the transition.
WARD RUGH: THEN AND NOW
Ward Rugh started the business in 1934, originally focusing on trucking. The company began selling hay to the horse racing industry in the 1940s. Rugh’s daughter Marla and her
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husband, Rollie Bernth, joined the company in 1978. Rugh passed away in 1995. Around the late 1970s, the company began to move into international export. That sector now accounts for 95 percent of total sales. The company now has approximately 45 employees on the payroll. The primary market is Japan, followed by Korea and the Middle East. They also sell a small amount of forage to the Chinese market. Timothy hay is their primary export product. Over the years, the company has
shifted from race horses to dairy and beef cattle as their main consumers of forage. Rogers said they still focus on their roots with exports to horse markets. “It’s a good market for us but it’s not the largest,” Rogers said. “It’s very small in comparison to overall export.” Rogers said despite new markets popping up in other countries around the world, Japan will continue to be the company’s primary focus and they place a high level of emphasis on the relationships with their Japanese customers. “The customers we’ve been selling hay to in Japan we’ve been working with for 40 years,” Rogers said. “We’re going to probably taste a bit of these emerging markets and have a bit of a diversification into those markets but we’re still going to concentrate on Japan by far. That’s our first priority is to make sure we have our hay for our Japanese customers. If we have an excess supply of anything then we start looking at other markets, but our priority is to get our Japanese
customers their supply.” Rogers said as new owners, they will continue to focus on niche markets and maintaining their decadesold relationships with customers. He said those relationships are his favorite part of working in the industry. “My favorite part is the building of grower and customer relationships and the camaraderie you get working with growers and customers over many years,” Rogers said. “It’s business but you’re also friends.” Rogers said a conservative growth plan for the company focusing on those established relationships is how they will move forward as new owners at Ward Rugh. “As far as I’m concerned we’re comfortable where we are at right now as a mid-tier export company,” Rogers said. “We all do a lot of little things to make it work. If it’s working, don’t change it. That’s not to say five years down the road we might want to look into some growth areas and hire more staff, but for right now I think we’re comfortable where we are at.”
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An employee of Ward Rugh Inc. of Ellensburg operates bale compression machinery in late September 2017 on second-cutting timothy hay.
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Big Apple Country & Gifts
Eastern Washington ranchers wrangling a living history
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Harry Harder drives cattle during a roundup on his family’s ranch near Lamont.
10 | 2018 Ag Journal - Summer
By THOMAS CLOUSE The Spokesman-Review LAMONT, — Tucked within miles of barbed-wire fences and basalt columns southwest of Spokane reside what’s left of the American West: Ranchers who scratch out a living from hard work and prairie grass. Henry and Linda Harder live in a place where history flows as full as the swollen creek that feeds emerald-green grass, wild flowers and song birds. “It’s a good place to be,” Henry Harder, 52, said as he watched his herd of Hereford cows and their calves. The Harders ride the tail end of an industry full of aging Washington ranchers who rely on beef prices that can fluctuate because of everything from droughts in the Midwest to threats of a trade war in China. While the industry
is dominated by huge commercial operations, a few small ranchers like the Harders remain. They live a history started by Henry’s great-grandparents, Hans and Dora Harder, who came to these grasslands in 1881 from Germany. They settled near Kahlotus, Washington, where they raised sheep and sold horses to the Palouse Indians to make ends meet. The remnants of their axhewn, split-rail cedar corral, built in 1896, survive at the old homestead. The main window of the ranch home outside of Lamont reveals the same view that Lt. James Alden chalked in 1859 that he later memorialized into a painting. Alden, who would eventually become a U.S. Navy admiral, stood on the same hill 159 years ago as part of an inland expedition for the United States Coast
Survey. Behind the home is the field of honor where ranch trucks, former military vehicles and tractors of past, present and “maybe someday” get equal billing. The mechanical hulks bake in the sun next to a tin-roofed barn that is losing its long battle with thunderstorms and blizzards. Inside hang leather saddle bags and fence posts stamped “U.S.” — as in U.S. Cavalry. “You can see the Blue Mountains on a clear day,” Henry Harder said. “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t live here.” Some 8 miles past the bend in the road outside of Lamont, which counts its population with tally marks on the city sign, is Harder’s Hangout. Along the gravel road out of town sit abandoned foundations, shelter belts of trees used to block the wind and flat spots that once
marked homesteads. The road passes the saloonturned-school house that hasn’t hosted a math lesson for decades. The holes in its interior plaster walls now make homes for barn swallows and western kingbirds. As the farmers left the land, through death, bankruptcy or a neighbor’s offer, the remaining ranches grew. That is a national trend that continues today, said Sarah Ryan, the executive vice president of the 1,200-member Washington Cattlemen’s Association. “It’s really challenging in Washington . to get started in ranching,” she said. “If you don’t have family, it’s tough. You might have someone willing to let you run their place and get ownership, but how do you get financing?”
See Ranchers, Page 12
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RANCHERS Continued from Page 11 Even if a descendant has the family land handed down, he or she may have to downsize just to pay off the inheritance tax, she said. “It feels like it comes at you from every direction in agriculture,” Ryan said. “At the same time, it’s the greatest lifestyle. What’s more rewarding than the success of raising an animal and producing something that is safe, wholesome and nutritious.” Henry Harder’s father, Carl Harder, had to sell his 180 cows in 1985 as he faced the financial challenges of kids in college, high interest rates and too much debt. “I always dreamed of owning my own cows,” Henry Harder said. “You’ll never get rich at it, but you’ll have a pretty good life.” Henry and Linda married in 1993 and moved to the current ranch
house. Three years later, Linda cashed out the $10,000 she had socked away for retirement while working for the Soil Conservation Service and they bought their first 10 cows. The Harder herd now includes 147 cows, 38 heifers, 143 calves and seven bulls. “Every cow here today was born here. I’m proud of that,” Linda Harder said. “You improve your herd by introducing new genetics. And you can’t build your good genetics if you don’t buy good bulls.” The Harders are trying to grow their herd, which Henry said must have 200 head just to make the operation pencil out. They expected to get about $942.50 for a 650-pound steer at current prices. “We were getting ($1,300 to $1,430 for the same steer) six years ago,” Linda said. “That was wonderful. But, it’s very cyclical.” The Harders own or lease about 3,000 acres to support their herd, which often must be moved to pre-
vent over grazing in an area where grass often turns brown by midJune. They also run cattle on 2,000 acres owned by an uncle. “If you count all of the aunts and uncles, we run 12,000 to 13,000 acres,” Henry Harder said. “There is a slug of us Harders.” He will never forget what his grandfather, Harry Harder, told his dad in 1964 just before he died. “He told my dad, ‘It will be harder to keep it than it was for me to put it together.’ “ A rancher must be a mechanic, welder, veterinarian and homesteader all wrapped into one. “If you said there is nothing to do, you’ve never left the house or you are lying,” Henry Harder said. “There is always something you need to do.” The family uses a homemade ATV trailer, which has recycled aluminum hazard signs for walls and an old-iron hay spike welded onto an axle to allow ranch hands to roll out the spools of barbed wire needed for fencing.
Asked how much time he dedicates to fencing, Harder replied: “Not enough.” Post-hole diggers mostly find rocks just below the soil’s surface, so Harder’s grandfather bought a jack hammer in the 1950s to bore holes into the basalt. “Fire can go through, and that post (in the jackhammered rock) will still be there,” he said. The family uses a 1982 Chevy flatbed to haul hay. It has a front bumper that got pulled outward when a young ranch hand failed to understand that you don’t allow slack in the tow chain before you hit the brakes. Its left front blinker light hangs by its wires. But it runs, and that’s good enough. “It’s a low-budget operation,” Harder said. The family found 13 rattle snakes in the front yard last summer. Linda Harder handles the ranch’s bookwork and her favorite thing in all the world is Amazon, followed by the UPS driver who delivers what she needs.
1775151 RODEO 12 | 2018 Ag Journal - Summer
“Before that, you had to go to Spokane to try to find what you were looking for,” she said. “And nothing ever breaks down until nothing is open.” Even something as simple as phone service was an adventure at the ranch. The remnants of the old phone line sit slack on the aging poles all the way from the Harder’s turnoff to Lamont. In 1996, the family buried 5 1/2 miles of cable, which the phone company donated as long as the Harders installed it. Prior to that, Henry had to check the phone line by horseback whenever they lost service. He would ride out, shimmy up the pole with climbing spikes on his boots and put alligator clips on the phone line. “If you had a dial tone, you knew it’s good to town and the problem was behind you,” he said.
See Ranchers, Page 14 AP
Jody Turrey, Linda Harder's son and Henry Harder's stepson, brands a calf as farrier and family friend Mike Lewis holds its tail out of the way during a day of branding following roundup at the Harder's ranch near Lamont.
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RANCHERS Continued from Page 13 When he couldn’t find the problem, he kept searching. Each of the 26 miles of line had 16 poles to check. “In the old days, I’d have to do that four or five times a year,” Harder said. “I wouldn’t trade those memories for nothing.” Just before Mother’s Day, the family started gathering forces for the annual cattle drive and branding. The crew included sheep rancher and veterinarian Jill Swannack and Mike and Stephanie Lewis, of Graham, Washington. Mike Lewis said he has worked 29 years for Boeing and 26 years as a farrier, a specialist who trims and shoes horses. “One of my clients is a nephew. (The Harders) said they needed help,” Lewis said. “We came out and helped them a couple years ago. They can’t get rid of us now. We love ‘em.”
Among the six riders was 20-yearold Thailor McQuistion, Linda Harder’s step-granddaughter, who will work at the ranch as a hand this summer. “I’ve been helping for eight years,” McQuistion said. “I’m probably not going to make a career out of this, but whenever I get the chance, I come down and help.” The crew hauled the horses and riders in a trailer over to one of the family pastures and began the drive that would end back at the ranch. Linda rode a newly acquired mare Kit Kat. Within minutes, the horse had bucked Linda off, and Henry raced over in a truck to check on her. “I had a notion yesterday,” she said. “As soon as I felt her about to buck, I bailed.” Linda landed on her shoulder and back, and the fall bent her glasses. She would later have to go to town to get treated for a mild concussion. “Congratulations. You bought a horse,” Linda said as she passed the reins of the skittish horse to Henry.
Henry and Kit Kat then trotted off to catch up with the drive. “He’s a lot bigger to buck off,” Linda said of her husband. As the line of horses advanced, the cows started to bawl, calling to their calves. They nervously looked about and began to bunch up into a herd. The cows approached the fence along the road, prompting one of the Harder’s new Black Angus bulls to stick his swollen neck over the fence. The parade of bawling cows passed by as the bull watched with long strings of saliva swinging down from his mouth. Eventually, the riders, including the Harder’s 24-year-old son, Harry, popped over the basalt ridges and ravines and herded the cows toward an open gate. Among them was Henry Harder on Kit Kat. “He’s happy being out there,” Linda said as she watched. “We have a heckuva time finding good horses.” Just a minute later, Kit Kat went one way and Henry went the other.
The saddle slipped, and Henry bailed off a just a few feet off the ground and hit with a thud. Choice words were spoken. Kit Kat scampered over the hill as she kicked at the empty saddle riding on her side. Despite the horse drama, the riders got the bawling cattle pushed to an open gate, where they followed the loaded hay truck down the road to the corral. “You are always learning,” Harder said. “Herding calves is like herding field mice: They go everywhere.” Within a few minutes, the cows and calves were confined to the corral near the ranch. Henry and Linda then trucked out enough food to feed a small army. “Today was, well, I don’t know what it was,” Henry Harder said. “It’s never pretty.” “Are the cows in the corral?” Linda shot back. “There’s the right way and there’s the Harder way,” Henry replied. “Just when you think you have everything figured out, that’s when it jumps up and bites you.”
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Henry and Linda Harder, reflected in a mirror, laugh as Henry describes his great-grandparents Hans Harder, and his wife Dora Harder at their ranch home in Lamont, Wash. Hans and Dora immigrated from Germany and settled in Kahlotus where they started ranching cattle and sheep.
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Memories of ranching life By MARGO CORDNER For the DAILY RECORD
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hen my family and I moved to Ellensburg from Renton in 1968, we had no clue what we had embarked upon. We purchased Shamrock Farm on Hungry Junction Road for $48,000 (120 acres) and added addition acreage, purchased 110 head of cows that were calving in January. I remember the old timers were telling me how they use to bootleg liquor from our house. Under the house there was a small hidden area with a cement door to cover the liquor, as the story was told. While we were moving in, there was a knock on the door. In the entrance, there stood Mary McManamy, Lydia Taylor and
Dorothy Hand with a homemade apple pie inviting me to join the Woldale Thursday club. They took me under their wing. Lydia gave me my first starter to make homemade rolls. I have never forgotten. That winter, we were up all night bedding down the cows so the calves would not stick to the ground. You see, it was 23 below zero with several feet of snow on the ground. To add to the difficulty, I had a baby two month prior to the day. Driving the truck while feeding the cows, holding a baby, in that weather was a new experience. I remember how terribly exhausted I was feeding a baby, taking care of a 2 and 4 year old, shoveling snow off the roof and bedding down the cows all night. Our winters were
much more severe than today. That’s the life of a rancher. My husband and I would go to the livestock sales yard every week to watch the sale, have homemade pie and socialize with some of the nicest people I’ve ever known. The farmers and ranchers are a different breed. They work hard and will give the shirt off their back to help you. This I know because they did for us. In the spring, three couples came walking up our driveway to help us with our branding. I made a big pot of stew, homemade bread and apple pie. We all went to work and later enjoyed the feast. No one could afford to hire help so we were always there for each other when needed. We had a lot to learn and over time, we did.
I don’t believe that we would have ever made it if it wasn’t for the help of these wonderful people. As you read this, they know who they are. Thank you. I have never forgotten. Our entertainment was renting Reecer Creek School house or High Valley for a couple of dollars. We would bring sleeping bags for the kids, record player, beer and dance to country music all evening. We all had a ball. I have so much to be grateful for. I have been blessed to have been able to come to Ellensburg 50 years ago. A different time and way of life. Those were the good old day. Memories of a lifetime.
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Bumblebee blues BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Hundreds of citizen scientists have begun buzzing through locations across the Pacific Northwest seeking a better understanding about nearly 30 bumblebee species. Bumblebees, experts say, are important pollinators for both wild and agricultural plants, but some species have disappeared from places where they were once common, possibly because of the same factors that have been killing honeybees. “It’s really important for us as humans to study these species systems for animals that are the little guys that make the world go around,” said Ann Potter of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, one of the entities in three states — Oregon and Idaho are the
others — participating in the threeyear Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas project. Researchers hope to accumulate enough information to recommend ways to conserve bumblebees and their habitat. “There’s more and more interest in restoring habitat for pollinators,” said Rich Hatfield of the conservation group, the Xerces Society. Citizen scientists are being dispatched to selected 2.5-acre (1-hectare) sites with insect nets, plant and bee guides, and an app for smartphones so findings can be recorded, photographed, mapped and sent to a central database. Researchers say just more than 200 have signed on to visit 400 sites through the end of August. More volunteers are needed, Hatfield said,
Pacific Northwest pollinator in trouble
especially to work in more remote areas. Bees are captured and put in a chilled cooler so they go into a state of lethargy. Diagnostic photos are taken, and the bees are released unharmed when they warm up. Bumblebees, unlike honeybees, don’t overwinter in a hive. Bumblebees build nests, typically in holes in the ground, and generally only number a few hundred individuals by the time fall arrives. Any honey they produce they consume. With the arrival of winter, all bumblebees die except a few fertilized queen bees that in the spring head out alone to start a new nest and produce worker bees, beginning the cycle over. “Here’s a species that spends a big part of its life as a vulnerable
queen,” said Andony Melathopoulos of Oregon State University. Bumblebees have “this really fascinating solitary phase.” Honeybees are imports from Europe brought in as agricultural workers to pollinate crops. Native bumblebees also help pollinate crops. But when it comes to native North American plants and some crops, the more robust bumblebee with its ability to “buzz” pollinate by grabbing onto an entire flower and shaking the pollen loose is for some plant species the only insect up to the task. The Western bumblebee, once considered common and widespread, has disappeared from much of its former range. Clues as to why Western bumblebee populations have plummeted are being
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sought in the current study. “We really don’t know a lot about them,” said Ross Winton of Idaho Fish and Game. “The more we learn, the more concerned we get.” The Pacific Northwest Bumble Bee Atlas could ultimately be an example for other states interested in learning more about how bumblebees are doing. “It is a model for other states,” Melathopoulos said. “I think everyone is looking at the Pacific Northwest and this initiative as a test case.” The study is being paid for by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Idaho and Washington, and in Oregon by another government entity called the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research. Collaborators include the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Idaho Fish and Game, Oregon State University, The Oregon Bee Project, the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the Xerces Society, an environmental group that works to conserve invertebrates.
AP
A western bumble bee (Bombus z) lands on Canada goldenrod.
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