'Crops looking strong as harvest continues,' says Colfax Gazette 8/16/2018

Crops looking strong as harvest continues

By Will DeMarco, Whitman County (Colfax) Gazette 8/16/2018

As the 2018 harvest rolls on, growers are reporting encouraging crop numbers.

Pacific Northwest Farmers Co-op Grain Division Manager David Weitz at Colfax said the area's harvest this year is 20-30 percent better than average with 75 percent of grain harvested so far.

"It's been a fantastic harvest," Weitz said. "We have good quality wheat and huge yields."

Weitz attributed the local harvest's success to a combination of high rainfall in the fall and winter, followed by largely cool temperatures this spring and summer. He added that last week's heat wave doesn't seem to have impacted local crops.

"The wheat has not been stressed at all this year," Weitz noted.

Wheat protein is low this year, Weitz said, which he explained is good news for soft white wheat, but can adversely effect hard red winter wheat prices.

Finally, Weitz said falling numbers, referring to the stage at which protein and starch in wheat kernels break down, are not a significant worry for local growers this year.

"I'm seeing a lot of farmers with smiles on their faces," Weitz said.

Mike Bagott, assistant manager at Palouse Grain Growers, called the harvest in his neck of the woods "pretty spectacular overall" with around half of winter wheat harvested so far and spring wheat forthcoming.

"Everybody seems to be pretty happy, especially in relation to the past couple years," Bagott said.

Bagott explained that 2016's harvest was hit hard by falling numbers and 2017 saw low crop yields, but said neither of those issues concern local farmers this year. He also commented that crop prices are meeting or exceeding averages this year.

Echoing Weitz, Bagott said the local weather has cooperated this year to result in a strong harvest.

"If you think about the summer overall, it's been pretty cool," Baggot explained. "We haven't had the longer stretches of brutal heat like years past."

According to Washington Grain Commission Chief Executive Officer Glen Squires, approximately 150 million bushels of wheat are expected to be harvested across the state, up from 142.5 million in 2017.

The statewide winter wheat estimate as of Aug. 10 is 77 bushels per acre, up four from last year, and spring wheat is projected at 48 bushels per acre, which is an increase of three from the previous year.

The state average of winter wheat heads is rated at 42.3 per square foot as of Aug. 10, according to a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. This marks a dramatic increase from 35.7 per square foot in 2017. The USDA does not make projections on spring wheat heads.

This year's crop appears to be of high quality, too. The USDA rates 90 percent of Washington's winter wheat and 78 percent of spring wheat as either "good" or "excellent" condition.

Dennis Koong, deputy director of the USDA Northwest Field Office, said winter wheat harvest is 70 percent complete as of Aug. 10, which is down from 71 percent this time last year and below the five-year average of 77 percent. Spring wheat harvest was estimated at 35 percent, compared to 39 percent at this time in 2017 and the 48 percent five-year average.

Helped along by an usually wet fall and winter, Squires said this year's harvest outlook is positive across the board.

"It's a good crop. We've been fortunate to have good soil moisture this year, which has definitely helped," Squires noted.

According to Squires, the statewide protein content average is rated at 9.3 percent.

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After 30 years, annual Pullman festival is known for much more than its chili

After 30 years, annual Pullman festival is known for much more than its chili

By Katie Short, Moscow Pullman Daily News 8/15/2018

The National Lentil Festival marks the start of each new fall semester at Washington State University. The festival celebrates the pulses that make the Palouse different from anywhere else in the world, and over the past 30 years, it has put the little city of Pullman on the map.

George Sharp, who was the director of the National Lentil Festival from 1990 to 1998, said the idea originally came from Jim Crow, the late manager of WSU's Beasley Coliseum.

Before 1989, Sharp said Pullman hosted a Harvest Festival the third week of September.

But, he said, Pullman's annual celebration did not stand out from the nearly 3,000 other harvest festivals throughout the United States in a given year.

It was Crow who said, "Why don't we celebrate what we have here?" Sharp recalled.

And it was then the idea of the National Lentil Festival was born.

Crow always had big dreams for the festival, Sharp said. So big that in 1991, just two years after the festival got its start, Crow booked Jerry Seinfeld as the headlining entertainment for the festival.

However, no jokes about lentils were made because Seinfeld canceled his performance after his show - Seinfeld - was signed for a second season.

The cancellation made national news, Sharp said, and only generated more publicity for the Lentil Festival.

"I sent him a letter that said 'Dear Jerry, thanks for canceling' and he sent me a signed picture back that said 'Dear George, thanks for not having me' - I still have that signed picture somewhere," Sharp said.

Sharp said in 1989, he was the first person to dress as Tase T. Lentil, the official mascot of the Lentil Festival, and in 2014, he returned to Pullman to be Tase T. Lentil again for the 25th anniversary parade.

He said the Pullman Chamber of Commerce held a contest the first year of the festival and let the Pullman community name the Lentil Festival mascot. He said a Pullman first-grade teacher was the one who came up with the name Tase T. Lentil.

In 1998, Sharp left Pullman and moved to Olympia, but he said he regularly talks to parents who say their child is attending WSU and has gone to the Lentil Festival.

"It is always on the weekend kids go back to school," Sharp said.

Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson said he has only missed one festival in 30 years and enjoys how it is used to encourage student participation in the community.

"We're as close to campus as we can get without being on campus," Johnson said.

In recent years, the Lentil Festival has grown so much it now extends from Reaney Park to the parking lot just below the WSU Steam Plant.

The festivities last for two full days and include a parade, live music, a beer and wine garden, a 5K fun run, basketball, mini golf, and softball tournaments, a lentil pancake breakfast, food demonstrations by local chefs and free lentil chili - one of the festivals main attractions.

In the 1990s, the city of Pullman was awarded the Guinness World Record for the largest bowl of lentil chili, current festival director Britnee Packwood said.

She said the bowl used to cook the chili can hold 600 gallons of lentil goodness.

The year Pullman set the world record, Johnson said the festival had so much chili they were using the radio to beg people to bring buckets.

The following year, once the record was set, the festival didn't require as much chili, he said, but people were still bringing buckets to fill.

In recent years, the festival has packaged and donated any left over chili to the Community Action Center, which in turn distributes it to the food banks, Johnson said.

"(The Lentil Festival) did two things for us: It put Pullman on the map from a festival standpoint and from a food standpoint," Sharp said.

TASE T. LENTIL WAS WINNER IN 1989 OF NATIONAL LENTIL FESTIVAL 'MYSTERY LENTIL' NAME GAME CONTEST

POSTED 8/12/2018, IMMEDIATELY BELOW IS LINK TO STORY WHICH INCLUDES LINKS TO NATIONAL LENTIL FESTIVAL RADIO COMMERCIALS FROM OVER THE YEARS  … THANKS TO ROD SCHWARTZ

https://pullmanradio.com/lentils-lentils-lentils-radio-radio-radio

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Oh, did you wonder about photo of Taste T. Lentil, mascot of Pullman's National Lentil Festival, with Garth Brooks?  Here's the story:

Country superstar Garth Brooks is performing five shows in Portland in April 2015.  This brings back memories of 1993 when Garth performed twice in Pullman.

His back-to-back sold out gigs were Saturday, Aug. 7, and Sunday, Aug. 8, 1993, in Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum at Washington State University.

Garth’s shows were the largest events ever held at the coliseum, Jim Crow, then its director, to the Moscow Pullman Daily News. The shows set the building record for attendance (11,800 for the first concert and 11,400 for the second), gross sales, and were the first sellouts in coliseum's history.

This photo is of Garth posing with Pullman's National Lentil Festival mascot Tase T. Lentil, portrayed by George Sharp, then National Lentil Festival director and later to become Pullman Chamber of Commerce executive director. It was taken in a Coliseum room before the first Pullman performance.

As a promotional item, George had post cards made of the photo and asked people in Pullman and on the Palouse to mail post cards to family and friends inviting them to the 1994 National Lentil Festival. While the post card promotion was effective, it caused confusion since some recipients thought Garth was going to perform at the 1994 festival.

To clarify, Garth did not perform at the 1993 National Lentil Festival. He was in Pullman and performed at WSU in August 1993, but not as part of the festival.

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NATIONAL LENTIL FESTIVAL’S UNSUNG HEROINE:
SHE NAMED TASE T. LENTIL

There's an unsung heroine of the National Lentil Festival.

She's Jan Gaskins.

The National Lentil Festival started in 1989. In September of that year the name of the festival's mascot was announced after a "Mystery Lentil" name game contest.

Of 204 entries, submitting the winner was Jan Gaskins, a teacher at Pullman's Jefferson Elementary School.

Hail to Jan Gaskins for naming Tase T!

Lost to time are names of all of the other entries; however one person with a long memory says two of them were "Lenny Legume" and "Yvonne Lentil."

Lewiston Trib Sept 19, 1989: PULLMAN -- School children sent off helium filled balloons,   Mayor Carole Helm gave a speech and Pullman's "mystery lentil" got a name Monday during kick-off ceremonies for the National Lentil Festival. The festival's 8-foot-tall, lentil-faced mascot was christened Tase T. Lentil which was the winning entry in the Mystery Lentil Name Game Contest. Jan Gaskins, a Jefferson elementary school teacher, won $100 for submitting the name. A total of 204 names were submitted, said Kristi Kurle, festival chairman.

Lewiston Trib Sept 13, 1989: PULLMAN -- The official festival kickoff is scheduled at 10 a.m. Monday at Sunnyside School. Local officials will speak and the winning entry in the "Mystery Lentil" name game will be announced. The costumed lentil character will appear at all lentil festival events. Name contest entries can be submitted until 5 p.m. Saturday at Balloons Etc., E. 246 Main St.; Flowers by the Laurel Tree, E. 470 Main St.; and Busters Food Emporium, E. 1005 Main St.

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WSJ covers the Palouse; reporter enamored with Moscow, hardly gives Pullman time of day 7/27/2018

A Grain Escape to the Palouse

The swoon-worthy landscapes and small-town charms of this Northwest region

WSJ/Wall Street Journal, July 27, 2018 2:32 p.m. ET,

https://www.wsj.com/…/a-grain-escape-to-the-palouse-1532716…

TRAVEL

A Getaway to the ‘Tuscany of America’

The Palouse—a scenic farm region on the Washington-Idaho border—is often compared to Tuscany, but with pie shops and ice-cream socials

The view on the drive up Steptoe Butte along the Palouse Scenic Byway.

Sunrise from Steptoe Butte, Wash.

The Latah Trail, a 13-mile path between Moscow and Troy, one of the area’s many rails-to-trails paths.

Along the Latah Trail. The Palouse encompasses some 4,000-square miles of farm country.

Strawberry rhubarb pie from the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen in Deary, Idaho.

Artisan cheese at Brush Creek Creamery, which shares a space with the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen.

Tanner Collier at Lodgepole restaurant in Moscow, Idaho.

Lodgepole serves sophisticated takes on regional staples such as guajillo chili-dusted fried garbanzo beans.

Rebecca Ashbach at the Lodgepole restaurant.

The Hunga Dunga Brewing Co. in Moscow, Idaho.

Hunga Dunga Brewing Co. in Moscow, Idaho.

Sunrise from Steptoe Butte, Wash. BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By Matthew Kornberg, Wall Street Journal,
July 27, 2018 2:33 p.m. ET

MY WIFE AND SON laughed at me when, for the third time in less than a mile, I stopped our rental car, stepped onto the gravel road and took yet another wholly inadequate cellphone picture of the rolling fields that surrounded us.

Soon they clambered out too and fell quiet. We were in the Palouse, a roughly 4,000-square-mile agricultural region that straddles the Idaho-Washington border. Intensely fertile, the region is defined by its dune like hills, formed eons ago by windblown silt.

The hills, gold and green with grains and legumes, undulate without pattern or rhythm; every bend in the road reconfigures the landscape in unpredictable ways, leaving you feeling just a bit off kilter, in a perpetual low-level swoon.

This is farm country; not anyone’s idea of a tourism hot spot. The unusual topography draws photographers and cyclists, but even if your relationship to those pastimes is casual at best, it is an easy place to fall in love with. At the heart of the Palouse are two cheek-by-jowl college towns, Pullman, Wash., and Moscow, Idaho, with populations of roughly 33,000 and 25,000, respectively. They’re about a 10-minute drive apart.

When I asked Nancy Ruth Peterson, a lifelong Muscovite and president of the Latah County Historical Society, to characterize the difference between the burgs, she said “Moscow is a town that has a university. Pullman is a university that has a town. I’m probably going to get into trouble for saying that.”

Rebecca Ashbach at Lodgepole, an urbane New American restaurant in Moscow, Idaho.

Rebecca Ashbach at Lodgepole, an urbane New American restaurant in Moscow, Idaho. PHOTO: BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

And indeed, even during a mid-July visit, when most of Moscow’s 12,000 students were gone, the town felt alive.

We based ourselves at the modishly refitted Monarch Motel, just a block off Main Street. On an evening stroll, I stopped to watch the Palouse Peace Coalition string up tie-dyed banners saying “peace” in a dozen or so languages, as they’ve done nearly every Friday night since 2001.

I asked coalition member Bill Beck when the peacenik contingent had taken root in the region; he told me that many of its cohort had been there for decades, noting a “huge number of back-to-the-landers” who came to the area in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

“Most people come here because of the universities. It’s this incredibly quiet, beautiful town,” he said, gesturing down the block toward Book People of Moscow, the largest of three independent bookshops, “with some intelligentsia.”

For dinner that night, we went to Lodgepole, a smartly decorated New American restaurant. Delivering a dish of very snackable guajillo chili-dusted fried garbanzo beans, the waiter told us that legumes and pulses are a big deal in these parts.

The chickpeas in your store-bought hummus may well come from the Palouse, and every August, the National Lentil Festival takes place over in Pullman. Delivering the check, he suggested we visit the town’s farmers market the next day.

We woke up early the following morning to heed this advice. Parents deposited their kids at Main Street’s Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre for free Saturday morning cartoons before loading up on wiffle-bat-sized stalks of rhubarb, braided garlic and lush greens. Some browsed crafts like ivory-colored horsehair pottery, made with clay mined nearby in Deary, Idaho.

Horsehair, singed on the ceramics after firing, left jagged tangles of dark lines. The lighter lines came from the hair of Appaloosa horses—notice the middle syllables (ap-PA-LOOSE-uh)—believed to have originated in the region. The market’s prepared-food stands reflected the area’s diversity: Shanghai dumplings, Egyptian pastries and for me, tamales filled with local lentils.

The Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, in Deary, Idaho.

The Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, in Deary, Idaho. PHOTO: BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

At Paradise Creek Bicycles, just behind the tamale stand, we rented bikes and decided to take advantage of the area’s rails-to-trails paths. We rode the 7-mile Bill Chipman Palouse Trail to Pullman, a wide and flat path with frequent turnouts featuring interpretive and historical signs.

For all that Moscow and Pullman have to offer, we took the greatest pleasure in exploring the region’s smaller towns, and the byways between them. In Uniontown, Wash., we visited the soaring art space Artisans at the Dahmen Barn, easily identifiable by its fence, made from more than a thousand steel wheels. Inside, among the workspaces, we grabbed a free “Photography Hot Spots on the Palouse” map, marked with the area’s most photogenic barns, abandoned houses and lone trees. Its detailed rendering of small, usually unpaved farm roads that vein the landscape proved invaluable.

Over in Deary, at the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, which shares space with the Brush Creek Creamery, we had a lunch of grilled-cheese sandwiches and pizza, followed by a heaping wedge of berry-lemon chess pie—alone worth a trip the Palouse. And after a Sunday morning hike among the towering red cypress trees in the Idler’s Rest Nature Preserve, we went to the town of Palouse, Wash., for its annual Ice Cream Social.

As the Auf Gehts German Band played in the gazebo of the riverside Palouse City Park, we lined up for slices of home-baked pie, topped with ice cream scooped by the Palouse Royalty—teenage girls in black gowns, white gloves and tiaras.

Wheels of locally made cheese at Brush Creek Creamery, which shares space with the bakery.

Wheels of locally made cheese at Brush Creek Creamery, which shares space with the bakery. PHOTO: BROOKE FITTS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Sitting on the grass beneath the towering pines at the Social, we talked to brothers Don and Richard Scheuerman of Palouse Heritage, who are working to revive the landrace grains that were first farmed in the region a century and a half ago.

“All these towns have something special,” said Richard, a former professor at Seattle Pacific University and the author of several books on the region. Don cut in to say, “Our little town, Endicott, is on the edge of viability with about 300 people, but it has been that way forever. Our big thing is Fourth of July. Big fireworks. It’s really quite spectacular for a rinky-dink little town.”

For year-round spectacle, it’s hard to beat the view from Steptoe Butte, about 13 miles northwest of Palouse. It is no Devil’s Tower—pictures of it are typically underwhelming but photos from it make you see why travel writers have taken to calling the region America’s Tuscany.

When the sun hangs low in the sky, the colors and contours of the hills deepen, and photographers line the roadway that corkscrews up a thousand feet above the surrounding landscape. Diehards will come out for sunrise, about 5:30 a.m. during the summer. We were not diehard, and found sunset to be sufficiently breathtaking.

It was another sunset drive, over back roads from Pullman to Moscow, that convinced me that this might be America’s most perfect agrarian landscape. The just-risen full moon bobbed and weaved over the hilltops like a vesper sparrow chasing a dragonfly. It only stopped when I pulled over to snap another picture.

THE LOWDOWN / On the Loose in the Palouse

A Getaway to the ‘Tuscany of America’

ILLUSTRATION: JASON LEE

Getting There From Seattle, Pullman, Wash. is about a 4½-hour drive or an hour flight directly into the Moscow-Pullman Regional Airport. Spokane International Airport is about a 90-minute drive from Moscow, Idaho.

Staying There The Monarch Motel, a refitted motor lodge in Moscow, Idaho, offers simple, stylish rooms, just a block off Moscow’s Main Street. From $79 a night, moscowmonarch.com.

Eating There On Moscow’s Main Street, Lodgepole serves sophisticated takes on regional staples 106 N. Main St., lodgepolerestaurant.com.

At the Pie Safe Bakery & Kitchen, in Deary, Idaho, flaky-crusted pies are the stars, but dishes like pizza and salad that take advantage of Brush Creek Creamery’s output are terrific too. 307 Main St., piesafebakery.com.

The Mediterranean-influenced cuisine at the Black Cypress in Pullman reflects the Greek heritage of chef-owner Nick Pitsilionis, a French Laundry alum. 215 E. Main St.,theblackcypress.com.

For a taste of the Palouse, wherever you are, flour from landrace grains can be bought from Palouse Heritage. palouseheritage.com

Exploring There Bikes can be rented hourly, daily and weekly from Paradise Creek Bicycles in Moscow. 513 S Main St, paradisecreekbikes.com.

The Palouse Scenic Byway website offers a thorough guide to Washington’s side of the region. palousescenicbyway.org

Fluoridation of drinking water in Pullman, at WSU, and in Moscow

Source: Info found on Internet on 7/28/2018

Fluoridation of drinking water in Pullman, at WSU, and in Moscow 

• The City of Pullman Water Department does add fluoride to its water.

• Washington State University began fluoridating its Pullman campus drinking water on April 13, 1988.

• The City of Moscow Water Department does not add fluoride to its drinking water; however, there is naturally occurring fluoride in the water and some wells have more than others.

Comets in Bend, Oregon, 7/7/2018

2018 Junior Olympic  

Region 13 Track & Field Championships July 5-8 2018 at Summit High School in Bend, Oregon. One photo of Mahama family members and  Comets Coach Mike Hinz before July 7 competition. Another photo shows Summit High’s track. It’s a Mondotrack, the same track surface used at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Summit High was one of the first high schools in the nation - and the first in Oregon - with Mondotrack. (Photos by PULLMAN :: Cup of the Palouse blog.)

Gladish gymnasium

Photo of Gladish gym by Robert Ashworth, Bellingham, Wash., from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository. Photo apparently taken 5 September 2017