Horizon summer 2015

SUMMER 2015

A supplement publication of the Newport and Gem State Miner Newspapers

HORIZONAgriculture

flourishes in the Pend Oreille

Valley

2 Horizon| 2015 Summer

Summer 2015|Horizon 3

Published: June 2015Publisher: Michelle NedvedWriters & editors: Desireé Hood and Don Gronningdesign: Desireé HoodAdvertising: Lindsay Guscott, Cindy Boober and Beth Gokey

HORIZON is published quarterly as a supplement to The Newport Miner and Gem State Miner Newspapers

421 S. Spokane, Newport WA 99156. TELEPHONE: 509-447-2433 E-MAIL: [email protected]: 509-447-9222Reproduction of articles & photographs is prohibited without permission of the publisher. See all issues at The Miner Online: www.pendoreillerivervalley.com

Horizon

Editor’s Note:

AdvERtiSERS’indEx

Ramstead Farm offers sustainable,

health foodPage 4

Cattle prices highPage 8

Pend Oreille Farmers MarketPage 12

Raising backyard chickens

Page 16

Low moisture affecting local hay industry

Page 20

Agriculture an important part of Pend Oreille Country

With the fine warm weather and school being out, it would be easy to think vacation time is here.

But for the people who work in the agriculture industry, the warm weather means it is time to go to work. In this issue of Horizon we look at the agriculture industry here in the Pend Oreille River Valley and some of the people who work in it.

There is no doubt about the work ethic of people in the agricultural in-dustry. They work long hours, with no paid overtime or sick leave. They take pride in their work and what they produce and carry on a proud heritage of agriculture production.

In this issue we look at the cattle and hay industries, two of the largest agricultural industries in the area. There is a story about the farmers market that has been in operation in Newport for 20 years, providing a place to buy locally produced goods. Backyard chicken raising is fun, the chickens are likeable and the eggs are great. That’s the takeaway from a story on backyard chickens in this issue. Ramstead Farms, located in the north part of the county, is the topic of another story highlighting their diverse operation.

We hope you enjoy this edition of Horizon and come to appreciate all that is involved in producing the agricultural products on which we all rely.

-DRG

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About the CoverHorizon photo|Desireé Hood

Ramstead Ranch sheep stroll through one of the mul-tiple pastures at the ranch, just south of Ione. The Selkirk Mountains surround the ranch, creating breathtaking views. Cows, sheep, chickens, turkeys and pigs all have found a home at Ramstead Ranch.


Local farm brings healthy, sustainable food home

Miner photo|Desireé Hood

About 60 cows roam the pastures in north Pend Oreille County, a mix of black Angus and Hereford cows. Ramstead Ranch uses an “intensive graze” method to move the fence lines of the pasture so the cows stay healthier and so does the grass.

BydESiREéHood

Eileen Napier wakes each morn-

ing with a list of chores to be

done on Ramstead Ranch, the

farm she partners with Stan and

Jean Hayes. She goes about her normal morning

routine, walks outside to her “putt putt” all-terrain-vehicle and backs it out of the shop. She rounds the opening and stops. About 200 acres of rolling land surround her. The mountains line all sides of the property, pastures roll across the valley

and a few small barns dot the landscape. Sheep roam in a pasture in front of

her, the cows in a pasture to her right.

Chickens peck the ground near a small barn, walking along with Alp, one of the guardian dogs.

She takes one last look at the beauty that surrounds her in north Pend Oreille County, just south of Ione. With a full day ahead of her, she puts her “putt-putt” in gear and heads toward the sheep.

Working a farm is a full-time job, Na-pier, 33, said. There is always an animal that needs attention or a hungry flock or herd. Bookwork needs done and orders shipped. Farmers Markets occur weekly where their products are sold. She said the hours may vary daily, but it’s a full time job.

Daily duties change depending on the day, but the animals need fed and watered adequately everyday. Using an “intensive graze” program at Ramstead Ranch, a temporary fence line is put up for the pas-tures and gets moved regularly. This helps

reduce chemical dependency because animals graze and fertilize a pasture for a few days and then they are moved and the pasture goes into a resting period.

“It means the cows are getting fresh clean feed all the time. It’s breaking the parasite lifecycle and its also better utiliz-ing your grass,” Napier said. “So moving fences is a big deal.”

She said cows are known for find-ing specific spots for their manure and grazing areas and if they stayed in one pasture, the grass would not be as fresh and they are likely to eat grass near where the manure is left. She said this is similar to the way buffalo farms used to be.

“What this is, is a return to feeding

COntinueD On PAge 5

‘It’s kind of a juggling act between what needs to be done outside to keep the animals happy and then what needs to happen inside with the accounting and planning.’

EileennapierFarmer, Ramstead Ranch

Summer 2015 |Horizon 5


eileen napier, co-owner of Ramstead Ranch, holds one of the poults the ranch recently re-ceived. They will be full blown turkeys by Thanksgiving, napier said.

cows the way they were created to be fed, which is grass,” Napier said.

She said the grass seed also has advan-tages from this because cows typically eat only the grass they like and leave the other kinds. This gives the grass a chance to stay fresh and grow.

“If you can prevent them from eating that grass that has that little parasite on it, then it helps to reduce those parasite loads in your animals,” Napier said.

She said she also collects and washes about 50-60 eggs daily from about 90 chickens.

There is also the “business side of

things” for running a farm, Napier said. Keeping books, answering emails and or-ders and shipping out packages are some of the daily duties for Ramstead Ranch.

“It’s kind of a juggling act between what needs to be done outside to keep the animals happy and then what needs to happen inside with the accounting and planning,” Napier said.

She said they are a diversified farm, selling beef, pork, lamb and poultry. They also sell hand spinning fleece to a hand-ful of spinners and free range eggs from chickens.

They have 60 cows, with a calf herd

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE4

COntinueD On PAge 6

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and finishing steers of Angus and Her-eford varieties. They also have Birkshire pigs.

They raise about 70 Romney and Romney cross sheep and a variety of poultry, including chickens and turkeys for Thanksgiving.

“We sell out, they are really popu-lar,” Napier said of their Thanksgiving turkeys.

Meat and eggs can be bought at the farm, at Farmers Markets in Sandpoint

and the Thursday market in Spokane. Napier will deliver in Newport, usually on Saturdays when she is returning from the Sandpoint market. Ordering online is also available.

They sell quarters, halves and whole animals, as well as smaller cuts. She said this is unusual in small farms because a USDA certified butcher is needed.

They butcher the poultry onsite, being a certified farm from the Washington State Department of Agriculture. But


This little sheep is the runt of the litter, smaller than most people’s knees are high at the mo-ment.


Romney ewes with their lambs stand in the pasture at Ramstead Ranch. The lambs were born this spring, said eileen napier, co-owner of Ramstead Ranch.

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE5

COntinueD On PAge 7


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A variety of chickens roam Ramstead Ranch, laying about 50-60 eggs per day.


eileen napier, co-owner of Ramstead Ranch, leans on her “putt-putt” ATV in the cow pasture, and enjoys the surrounding views of the Pend Oreille River Valley.

they are not USDA certified, Napier said, which is needed to butcher cows. They use a couple places in Chewelah and Colville.

“We’re small potatoes compared to most cattle farms,” Napier said.

Backyard farming advice:For the people in the area who want to

buy some animals to start a small farm, Napier suggests starting with chickens. She said they are small and the equip-

COntinueD On PAge 28

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE6


BydongRonning

People have been raising cattle

in the area for many decades but

cattle ranchers haven’t seen this

kind of money paid for beef cattle

before, with prices in the $2 a

pound range, up significantly

from the year before. “It took everyone by surprise,” David

Hoisington said. It was up about a dollar a pound. Hoisington raises cattle and hay on about 270 acres located two miles east of Usk.

George Stuivenga also raises hay and cattle on his 1,200-acre place located northwest of the Cusick. He was shocked by the high prices.

“I took in a load of 13 heifers and got the most I’ve ever got,” he said. Heifers – young females that haven’t borne a calf

– usually sell for less than steers, he said, so the fact that he got $1,550 each for the

670 pound cattle was surprising. The high prices are a result of supply

and demand. The drought in Texas is one

‘It took everyone by surprise.’

davidHoisingtonon the high prices paid for live cattle.

Cattle an agricultural mainstay for area

Cattle prices at historic high, so are expenses


Courtesy photo|Kelly Driver

Mary Lou Driver, 83, watches as her son and grandson load cows to take to range. Mary Lou has been farming for all of her life in the Pend Oreille Valley; first with her parents, John (Major) and elsie Fountain, as well as her brothers, Jack and Bill Fountain at Locke, and then with her husband, Don, and sons, Terry and Ken, and now grandchildren, in Usk.

Courtesy photo|Kaleigh Driver

Driver Ranch cows and calves stand in the barn waiting to be loaded and hauled to range on Cusick Creek.


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Don Driver, left, and Terry Driver, right, load up a mixed load of cows and calves to haul to Cusick Creek.


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reason for the high prices. There was such a selloff there aren’t that many cattle in the country.

Stuivenga says the Canadians haven’t been shipping as many cattle to the U.S., which also contributes to the high prices.

Stuivenga says he’s optimistic cattle prices will stay high. He would like to be able to lease some land in the area to raise more cattle, but there is very little land available for lease, he says.

Over the last several years the Bonn-eville Power Administration and the Kalispel Tribe have bought up land for mitigation for wildlife and fish loss caused by Albeni Falls Dam. “It’s hard to find pasture,” Stuivenga says.

Hoisington has about 41 cow calf pairs. He has a couple bulls he uses for breeding. He just bought a year old Sim-mental bull out of Oregon.

Simmental is a breed of cattle originat-ing in Switzerland. They are one of the

more widespread breeds in the world, with about 40-60 million worldwide.

Hoisington said he spent last winter looking all over the western U.S. for the right bull. He travelled to Texas, Okla-homa and California before he found the one he wanted in Oregon.

By the time he hauled the bull back, vaccinated and registered, he figures he

spent about $3,700 for the yearling. He turned him out with cows right away.

“I didn’t want him to feel too deprived,” Hoisington said.

Hoisington’s cattle will start calving in mid February. Calving season is a busy time for cattle ranchers. It is also

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE9


Driver Ranch cattle move through the meadow after being unloaded on range. These cow calf pairs will spend from June 1 until approximately Oct. 1 on range at Cusick Creek.

‘I lost a cow this winter. ‘every once in a while a cougar will get one.’

davidHoisingtonFarmer



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Terry and Don Driver unload cows and calves at Cusick Creek for summer range pasturing. The cattle on range help reduce the grasses on Forest Service land, reducing fuels for forest fires.


BydongRonning

It’s about 8 a.m. Saturday

morning and the Newport

Farmers Market is starting

to come alive. People pull up

in pickups in the parking lot

behind the Visitors Center in

downtown Newport and start

to unload fresh produce and

starter plants, chatting ami-

ably as they put up their aw-

nings and lay out what they

have to sell.The market will open for business

at 9 a.m., with about seven or eight venders setting up. This year the market is located downtown by the gazebo, in a city park on the right

hand side of the road across from the big blue Seeber’s drugstore awning, by the big wheel and across from Owen’s grocery.

It is a return to the location for the market, which for the last few years has been located by the old Pend Oreille Players Playhouse on South Union.

‘everything we have has to be homemade, handcrafted or homegrown.’

nephiWhiteHead of the Newport Farmers Market

Newport Farmer’s market small, vibrant

Horizon photo|Don Gronning

The sign marks the location of the newport Farmers Market, next to the Pend Oreille Historical Society Museum just off Highway 2 in newport. The farmers market moved back to the gazebo location after a few years on the other end of town.


Robert Douglas has a farm located between Priest River and Priest Lake. He likes to come to the newport market because it is friendly and close.



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A young worker from Royal Highlands puts out starter plants at a recent newport Farmers Market.


Robert Carbono picks up some items from the Royal Highlands stand. Carbono bought about $20 worth of starters to supplement his garden.

“We probably were there since about 2007,” Nephi White said. White is a retired junior high language arts teacher. He worked 30 years teaching in Priest River. His wife, Sally, teaches fifth grade at Newport.

White has headed up the Newport Farmers Market the last few years. The people selling at the market like the new location, he said. It’s more

visible and promotes foot traffic down-town, something Rob Owen, owner of Owens Grocery and Deli, mentioned in a letter of support to the Newport City Council. Owen pointed out that since the market moved he has seen a marked decrease in foot traffic along Washington Avenue on Saturday mornings.

People traveling both directions


ContinUEdfRoMpAgE12


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can see the market, unlike the old location, which was mainly visible to people traveling out of town toward Idaho on Highway 2.

Hailey Porbert of Royal Highlands of Oldtown is setting up onions, kale, char, broccoli, lettuce and spinach, in addition to some plant starts on tables at the front of the market.

“They’re early spring greens,” Probert says. It is her second year to the market. She is the oldest of several in a large family. She has a younger brother helping her set up her greens. The family splits its time between the larger Hayden Farmers Market and Newport, sending produce to each.

She enjoys both markets but wishes she could offer baked goods here, like the family does in Hayden. Idaho and Washington have different rules regarding sale of baked goods, some-thing offered at many farmers mar-kets.

“You can’t bring baked goods here,” she says, unlike Idaho.

“In Washington, you have to have food prepared in a certified kitchen,” says White. It doesn’t have to be a commercial kitchen, he says, but the costs associated with getting certified keep most people from selling baked goods.

Robert Carbono was buying about $20 worth of corn, tomato, cayenne pepperoncini, cantaloupe and other

starts from Probert. “My garden is pretty much all

planted, but I had some space left,” he said.

Robert Douglas, whose farm is lo-cated between Priest River and Priest Lake was putting up plants on a re-cent Saturday. He is putting out cilan-tro, Swiss chard, radishes, boc choy and red mustard, the water streaming

off the plants as he takes them out to put on the table.

“I focus on greens,” he says. He says he likes the proximity of the Newport market.

“I have gone to others but I’m close to here,” he says.

White says the market is a 501(c) 3 non profit. It is part of the Washington Farmers Market Association, a group that supports farmers markets.

White says the association helps make insurance possible for the mar-ket, something the city requires. Mar-kets pay based on gross sales. White says the Newport Market grosses less than $25,000 annually in sales.

Vendors pay a $30 annual fee to


Items are reasonably priced at the newport Farmers Market.

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE13

‘I think you’ll find that we’re one of the least expensive markets in the state.’

nephiWhiteHead of the Newport Farmers Market



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Jean Wakeley , right, visits with a customer. Wakeley has been selling at the farmers market for years and enjoys visiting with people there.

belong to the farmers market and $5 each Saturday they’re selling, says White.

“I think you’ll find that we’re one of the least expensive markets in the state,” he says.

The Farmers Market features local

items, White says. Farmers markets are not flea markets, he says.

“Everything we have has to be homemade, handcrafted or home-grown,” he says.

White raises raspberries and sweet corn on his four and a half acre farm outside Priest River. Raspberries usu-

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE14



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BydESiREéHood

Many people in rural areas

have taken to growing some

of their own vegetables and

raising chickens, moving

away from the chain stores for

fresher items. Pandi Gruver,

a master gardener and back-

yard chicken farmer, fits into

the growing trend. “I just think they are cute and the

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it’s very tranquil. It’s relaxing to just sit and watch them.”

Gruver has 10 hens, which lay about 6-8 eggs daily. Some chickens do not

lay an egg daily.“But they lay more than one every

other day,” Gruver said. “Hard to tell what a hen lays in a week.”

She does not name her chickens. She has blue Wyandotte and Buff Orping-ton chickens. The breeds are friendly and known for being good in cold

Horizon photo|Pandi Gruver

Pandi gruver, a backyard chicken farmer, has 10 hens. They are blue Wyandotte and Buff Orpington chickens.

Backyard chickens bring enjoyment, eggs


I get too attached to them. I don’t want to see them on my dinner plate.’

pandigruverBackyard chicken farmer


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Pandi gruver, a backyard chicken farmer, has 10 hens. They are blue Wyandotte and Buff Orpington chickens.

Backyard chickens bring enjoyment, eggs


Chickens roam in Pandi gruver, a backyard chicken farmer’s yard, after getting a treat of “scratch,” a mix of cracked corn, which is dried and crunched.


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(509) 447-3242Horizon photo|Pandi Gruver

Chickens need fed and watered daily, backyard chicken farmer Pandi gruver said. She gets about 6-8 eggs daily from her 10 chickens.


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ContinUEdfRoMpAgE17

weather.“You couldn’t tell them apart,”

Gruver said. “They do well in the cold winters up here.”

She sells the eggs her family does not eat, to friends, coworkers, neigh-bors and local feed stores.

Backyard chickens need fresh food

and water daily. She said she brings food out to them in the morning and they are ready to be running the yard. When the sun starts to set, the chickens naturally gravitate toward their coup, ready for the night. Gruver makes sure the chickens are in the coup at night, so predators do not get to them.

“They are in their bed when I go out. All I have to do is close the door,” Gruver said. “I have lost a whole flock to raccoons.”

Gruver said she does not raise the chickens for meat, instead keeping them for their eggs. She knows many people breed chickens for meat.

“I get too attached to them,” Gruver said. “I don’t want to see them on my dinner plate.”

Gruver also gives them treats, say-ing the chickens follow her around

like the Pied Piper. The treats are a mix of cracked corn, which is dried and crunched. They may also get a treat of some kitchen scraps and food that she cannot eat.

“They love their scratch,” Gruver said.

One of the enjoyments for Gruver is watching the chickens take “dirt baths.” She said it is fun to watch as they work their way deeper into the dirt, collecting dust between their feathers. They vigorously shake off the dust, reducing oils and helping to maintain their feathers for good insulation. It may also help control parasites.

“They have special places where they take them,” Gruver said.

Keeping backyard chickens is work, Gruver said. The worst part of this keeping the coup clean, but she said her chickens are free-range, mean-ing they leave “droppings” cause they roam free.

“So there are no outside shoes in the house,” Gruver said.

The main difference for eggs, Gruver said, is hers are really “free range,” where some of the store brands say they are but cut corners with fencing. She said they are overcrowded as well.

She enjoys the fact that she has grass, bugs and no cages for her chick-ens in her yard.

She knows her chickens are laying her a fresh egg when they roost deep in a box, with their head high and feathers puffed. They cackle and talk and make “proud sounds,” Gruver said.

‘Watching them roam around, it’s very tranquil. It’s relaxing to just sit and watch them.’

pandigruverBackyard chicken farmer


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BydongRonning

Most years hay farmers are

worried about rain. In early July,

when most cutting starts, farm-

ers keep their fingers crossed,

hoping it won’t rain. Rain on the

hay means potential hay discol-

oration or worse, mold. But this year the problem is not enough

moisture earlier in the year. This spring’s unusually warm weather delayed the hay season in the Pend Oreille River Valley.

“There’s no snow pack or rain,” David Hoisington said. He grows hay north of Cusick. “But you take what the good Lord gives you.”

Jim Hiebert, a long time hay farmer, puts up 500-600 ton of hay a year on 600 acres he farms off Tweedie Road, near the Idaho-Washington State line.

“After the second week of April, we haven’t had more than two one hun-dredths of an inch (of rain),” Hiebert says. He said the lack of rain hampers the nitrogen fertilizer. “You have to have rain to take it into the ground,” he says.

Hiebert irrigates part of his property, enabling him to get two cuttings on the field he irrigates. He figures he will use something like 777,000 gallons of water on his hayfield, pumped 180 gallons a minute through three lines, 24 hours a day.

Hiebert can do that because he has senior water rights to a nearby creek.

Terry Driver is one of the county’s big-gest hay farmers. He puts up 2,000 tons, with 700-800 ton going to Japan. The timothy hay is used in Japan to feed dairy cattle and racehorses.

The hay will be loaded onto semis and shipped to Ellensburg, where it will be fumigated and compressed. It will be trucked to the coast and shipped by boat to Japan and other countries.


Jim Hiebert has senior water rights to a creek near his ranch. He is able to get two cuttings on his irrigated land, something that is important in this drought stricken year.

Lack of moisture means slow hay year



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Steve Fountain maneuvers a bundle of hay onto the waiting semi at Locke. This is export hay destined for Japan.



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Jim Hiebert paid $50,000 for this bailer. The machine makes 5 feet wide round bales, wide enough the cattle don’t tip them over when he rolls them out to feed.

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE20

Last year timothy hay was selling for $220-240 a ton. Grass hay sold for less, about $185 a ton. This year, who knows?

“It depends on competition,” says Driver, who has been selling hay to Japan for 30 years.

Bill Ives also grows hay in the central

part of the county. He says hay prices may be up over what they were when he was a kid, but so are costs.

“Fertilizer used to be $67 a ton,” he says. “Now it’s $530 a ton.”

Ives uses 182-200 tons of fertilizer to get 300 tons of hay, a timothy grass mix.


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Jim Hiebert raises hay and cattle on land he owns off Tweedie Road just off the Washington-Idaho line. Hiebert, 72, puts up about 500-600 tons of hay that he mostly sells locally.


Matt Weddington loads hay onto a truck owned by Jimmy Watterson Trucking from ellensburg at Fountain Ranch at Locke. This hay will end up in Japan, where it will be fed to racehorses and dairy cattle.

Most of his hay goes to the coast for horse feed.

Farmers will start cutting soon, but not before July 4, says Ives.

The harvest will take about a month, with crews working frantically to get the hay in.

Things are quite a bit different now than in days of old. Today the hay is mostly cut, raked, baled and loaded by

machines. That’s not how it was when Ives was in high school. Then the hay came off a baler and a person picked it up and put it on the hay trailer and took it to the barn, where it was stacked by hand.

“I remember one year in high school when a friend and I put up 1,100 bales in one day,” Ives said. “We got 5 cents a bale, to split. I think we got $27, which seemed like a lot of money.”

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE22

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Robert Karr, left visits with some friends at the Farmers Market. Karr is credited with starting the first farmers market in newport.

ally come ripe in July, he said. But with all the sun, they may be a little earlier this year.

White says greens are popular now. By the end of June carrots should start appearing.

In mid July the new potatoes will start to be sold, with more and more produce coming as the season pro-gresses.

The Newport Farmers Market was started in the 1980s by Robert Karr, White says. It was called the Earth Market and was located on a lot on Washington Ave., across from what is now Rancho Alegre.

Jean Wakeley of the Artful Farm has been selling at the market for years. She sets up as a vendor, selling a vari-ety of starter plants and other items.

“It’s a lot of work,” she says. “But I enjoy it. I like talking to the people.”

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE15

Now he and his son, Corey, put up all the hay by themselves.

Hiebert, 72, remembers how he did it when he was a kid.

“When I was growing up, we didn’t bale hay, we used a buck rake,” he said. They would use a tractor to push the rake to move loose hay into a pile to be picked up.

Modern hay production involves a lot of machinery and not as many people.

The hay is cut, then has to dry for about four days before you can bale it. When it gets rained on while it’s down, that’s when the hay can mold and discolor.

After the hay is cut and dried, it is baled. It can be baled in small bales weighing about 40-60 pounds, larger bales weigh-ing about 130 pounds or big round bales weighing 900 pounds.

The big round bales take the weather better and are easier to feed.

Hiebert spent $50,000 to buy a baler that can make round bales 5 feet wide. He rolls out the round bales to feed his cattle and when the bales are too narrow, the cattle tip them over.

George Stuivenga puts up about 1,200-1,500 tons of hay. He bales in 60-80 pound traditional bales. He sells most of his hay locally.

He will deliver hay.He figures the hay harvest will get

underway in earnest about the first week of July or so.

Ives says crews cut 12 hours a day when hay harvest starts.

“We start about when the dew goes off about 8 a.m. and will work until about 8 at night,” he says.

The saying ‘make hay while the sun shines,’ won’t be an empty cliche here in Pend Oreille Valley over the next few weeks. That’s exactly what farmers will be doing.

HAy

fARMERSMARKEt

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE23


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July 31-AuGuST 2kAlISPel POwwOw: Kalispel Tribe, 509-445-1147

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AuGuST 8vINTAGe FReNZIe: Newport City Park, 509-671-9963

AuGuST 8-9PeND OReIlle POkeR PADDle: Organizer, 509-447-4821HyDROPlANe BOAT RAceS, PeND OReIlle RIveR: State Line Outboard Racing Association, www.slora.com

AuGuST 11-15BONNeR cOuNTy FAIR: Director, 208-263-8414

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AuGuST 22OlDTOwN lAwNMOweR RAceS: Organizer, 208-448-2129

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Events CalendarSummer 2015


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We Service All Makes and Modelsment is light. She said cows also do fine in this area, but all animals need protection from the basic elements. She said chickens especially need out of wet weather.

“You need less infrastructure to take care of chickens, and I would definitely think about how much time you have to make sure they are getting the care that they need,” Napier said. “You do your best to make it nice on the animals. If they are covered in mud, they are not happy. They are wet, they are cold.”

Napier said with backyard chickens or cows, the hardest thing for new farmers to deal with is the manure. If the animals pick one spot, they are going to fowl it and overgraze it, she said. Multiple pastures are best for rotation, but she knows this is not always possible. Her best advice, re-duce the animals’ stress and it will reduce the farmer’s stress as well.

She said sheep have a variety of pur-

poses and recommends knowing what the sheep will be used for. They have fibers that are soft and coarse, wool that falls off the sheep, big sheep for meat and small sheep for pets.

“For every region of the world, there are breeds that are very specific to that

region,” Napier said. “I think goat might be the most widely eaten but I think sheep is probably the second most widely eaten across the world as a staple.”

Ramstead Farms history:


The guard dog Alp, an Akbash, is one of the “property managers,” said eileen napier, co-owner of Ramstead Ranch. The dogs keep predators away from the sheep and chickens.

ContinUEdfRoMpAgE7

‘What this is, is a return to feeding cows the way they were created to be fed, which is grass.’


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eileen napier, co-owner of Ramstead Ranch, works to free one of the young sheep who caught himself into the fencing of the turkey area.

a time for predators. “I lost a cow this winter,” Hoising-

ton said. By the time he found it, it was too late to tell what killed it.

“Every once in a while a cougar will get one,” he says. He says he once had a cougar living in his barn.

A couple years ago, his mother cows were nervous when he would go out in the night to check on them while they were calving. He figures it was because wolves were nearby.

But so far he hasn’t lost any cattle to wolves, at least none that he knows for sure.

“That one last year was question-able,” he says.

Stuivenga, who has 46 mother cows, 30 calves, 10 yearlings and a couple bulls, says his cattle haven’t been bothered by wolves.

Stuivenga’s cattle calve a little later, in March and April.

“The main thing about calving is to make sure they stand up and get co-lostrum,” he says, referring to the nu-trient rich first milk the mother gives. Stuivenga says it takes about two months for his herd to finish calving. He says the breed he raises, Angus,

don’t have much problem calving. When calves are born, they’re vac-

cinated and males are castrated. Then the calves are turned out for the sum-mer with their mothers. There is some expense to that but with ranchers typically raising hay, too, one of the biggest expenses is feeding their own hay. With hay selling about $185 a ton, every ton they feed is money they don’t get, Hoisington says.

“Last year I fed 120 ton,” he says. Add an occasional vet bill and the expenses add up.

Hoisington sells his cattle in the fall, in mid to late October. He hauls them to the closest stockyards in Davenport in his ¾-ton pickup, hauling five or six of the 600-700 pound cattle at a time.

The auction used to be located in Spokane, which was far more conve-nient for Hoisington and many other area cattlemen.

“Instead of driving 45-50 miles, you have to drive 90,” Hoisington says.

Cattle sales are quite a bit different than they were at Spokane, where the weekly sale was a social event as well as a cattle sale, with ranchers from throughout the region getting togeth-er to drink coffee and visit.

The Internet has done away with the need to be physically present to buy cattle. Instead of a packed auction house, with cattle brought in and an auctioneer calling out the bids, most of the cattle these days are sold online.

“There are only a couple people there,” said Hoisington of the Dav-enport sale. The people bidding are scattered around the country. “The buyers just sit at their computers and click buy,” Hoisington says.

While Hoisington sells his cattle in the fall, another cattle producer, Terry Driver, takes his to the feedlot in Othello in the fall to fatten up. There they are fed over the winter and sold in the spring as 1,350-pound, choice fed cattle.

Driver doesn’t sell all his cattle that way. Some he sells to individuals. Hoisington also sells beef to individu-als and family members.

“It depends how much they’ve helped over the year,” he laughs.


ContinUEdfRoMpAgE10

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Napier grew up in Louisiana. She loved animals and the outdoors, with horses being her main exposure to large animals while growing up. She moved to Fort Collins, Colo., and at-tended Colorado State University.

“It wasn’t until I was in college that I started to realize there is a better way to grow food and also raise meat that is more sustainable,” Napier said.

She said it is better for the animals, people and the environment.

“This is not something I grew up doing, and it’s definitely a passion for me,” Napier said. “Something I came to want to do. This type of food movement is empowering.”

In college, she majored in Spanish and social work, not an agriculture field. However, she wanted to figure out a way to fit farming into her life.

“It is definitely social in that you are connecting people with food that is better for their health,” Napier said. “It’s empowering people to make deci-sions about their diet, the way their dollar is spent to support the local economy.”

She moved to Pend Oreille County in 2008, after having a small farm

in Lewiston, Idaho, with the Hayes. They started with chickens and added animals from there.

“And we transitioned the farm up here and grew as we did,” Napier said. “Everything was kind of going well.”

And, it continues to go well today.

Napier walks to her “putt-putt” after a long day, and knows that the animals are all fed and watered and ready for a night. She puts the ATV in gear and slowly putts toward the house. Even after a long day, she still looks over her shoulder at the beautiful oranges, reds, yellows and blues lighting up the mountains in the Pend Oreille Valley as she pulls the vehicle into the shed and walks into her home.

‘It means the cows are getting fresh clean feed all the time. It’s breaking the parasite lifecycle and its also better utilizing your grass. So moving fences is a big deal.’



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Horizon summer 2015

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