Walla Walla Spring Time

My mother was born in Hay, Washington in the early 1920s.  She was the only girl in her senior class and the two other boys were related to her.  During college, her family moved to Walla Walla, Washington to farm which is where I grew up (actually Dixie which is about 10 miles away).  Walla Walla is on the edge of the Blue Mountains and has some of the best wheat ground in the world (some years yields exceed 150 bushels per acre on dry land).  Part of the topography is fairly steep ground.  On our home place, we had some slopes in excess of 40 degrees and those could be fun to harvest in the summer time.

My cousin took this photo and posted on facebook and I thought I would share it with our readers.

In this photo you can see the foothills of the Blue Mountains in the background and I would guess that the hill in the upper right corner of the photo easily exceeds 30 degrees for most parts of the field.  We always get asked why we farm on such steep ground and I have two responses (1) when you can get 130 bushels per acre and (2) when you can look at a scene like this every day when farming “why not”.

Paul Neiffer, CPA