Another Busy Sunday

It seemed like we had just gone to bed, when the radio came on to wake us up this morning. It had been a short night, but it was time to get going again. We drove down to Menno from Ponderosa Falls RV Park in time to take a quick trip up the hill to check on how the newly planted winter wheat on our ranch was doing. You could see from a distance that there was definitely a greenish cast to the hillside --

As we got closer and could look down the rows, we could see that it was all pretty well up and doing well --

I realized this week when I was talking to some folks that many people don't understand how we raise wheat in our part of Washington State. This is dryland wheat in an area of the state that only averages 7-9 inches of rain per year. Therefore we raise a wheat crop on half of our ground every year. The other half of the ground lies fallow (not in crop) to gather moisture for the next year's crop. Wheat is planted right after harvest on the ground that had lain fallow the year before. It is planted in deep furrows (4-5 inches deep), deep enough to get into moisture that is sufficient to sprout it. We then hope that it won't get rained on until it sprouts and is up. That way the ground won't form a crust which won't allow the tender shoots to come through.

Those nice green rows will spread out (stool) some before winter and develop a good root system. It then goes dormant in the cold winter -- hopefully with a nice snow cover -- and doesn't start growing again until the following spring.

Before the Mennonite settlers brought the winter wheat seeds with them when they came from Russia, Americans only raised wheat that was planted in the Spring. If they didn't get sufficient rain, which often happened, the crops failed. The winter weed varieties are what made America a "breadbasket for the world."

This year the fields around Menno Mennonite Church were in crop and what you see are the fields of stubble left after the wheat was harvested. These stubble fields will be tilled later and then left to lie fallow until next year.

After church we went into Ritzville and had sandwiches and bean and bacon soup with an 85 year old friend. It was a delight to spend a couple of hours chatting about everything and anything with Earl. He has recently published a memoir, A Pebble in the Water, which details much of the history of his pioneer family.

We arrived back at Ponderosa Falls just in time to watch the last day of bull-riding in Tampa, Florida. It was another good but busy day.

A Disappointment...

We picked up a brochure at a North Dakota Rest Area about the Germans From Russia Heritage Society here in Bismarck. The brochure said they had all kinds of information and records about the Germans who had emigrated into Russia, then to the United States.

Forry knows very little about his family. A couple of years ago we were contacted by a lady from Portland, Oregon, Sherrie Stahl, who gave us information about his great-grandfather Konrad (Conrad?) Hardt who was a shopkeeper in the village of Brunnenthal, Samaria, Volga, Russia. Ms Stahl has made a study of the village and its inhabitants. Forry had not even know his great-grandfather's name before our contact with her.

When we saw the brochure, we decided to stay in Bismarck an extra day in order to visit the Society and see what information they might have. They are housed in a lovely building a few miles from the KOA Kampground.

The building is full of books, ledgers and microfiche records. But, we were very disappointed to discover they had NO information at all about the Germans who were in the Volga area. Their records are all of a later group that came from the Black Sea area.

The very nice lady at the front desk told us that while they had archives of the Black Sea groups, there was another set of archives in Lincoln, Nebraska that were focused on the Volga Germans...

I wish we would have known that earlier this year when we were in that state...