Thursday, July 29, 2021
Business
LABEL
ThE OBsErVEr — A1
AgLife
B
Thursday, July 29, 2021
The Observer & Baker City Herald
SUZANNAH
MOORE-
HEMANN
WALLOWA COUNTY
Thriving
despite
pandemic,
wildfire
CHAMBER CHAT
Nothing says
‘summer’
quite like …
elephant ears
Wallowa Mountain
Bar & Grill
opens in Wallowa
Y
ou know summer is
here when you see the
brightly colored flyers
hanging in store windows of
this event or that event. You
don all the sunscreen you can
find, grab the cash and head
over. You see the cars lining
the streets and have a nostalgia
wash over you as you gear
up for the summer festivals
you’ve been to for so many
years. You visit with people
you haven’t seen in ages while
you buy yet another lump of
cotton candy. The smell of
corndogs, burgers and — yes,
my favorite — elephant ears
hangs in the air, for hours after
the last vendors close their
shops.
Sure, if you’re like me,
you’ve been to all of these
events a million times before.
But, go again. Explore each
festivity with new eyes: look
for the familiar faces to catch
up with; explore the shop
you haven’t checked out for a
while; go ahead and just grab
the junk food (I couldn’t say
it better than Karin at The
Local when she said, “Hey, it’s
okay to have ice cream before
coffee!”).
You live here. You work
here. You play here. So, take
the opportunity to re-explore
the towns, shops, vendors —
the places that make Union
County “home.” The Grass-
roots Festival of Union, the
Union County Fair, Elgin’s
Riverfest, Cove’s Cherry Fair
and North Powder’s Huckle-
berry Festival — and all the
other events that make summer
“summer” in Union County
have a way of bringing out the
youthful nostalgia in us.
At this point, I’m not run-
ning between antique cars or
playing tag with friends —
and, yes, I might stretch a little
more frequently to keep my
back from stiffening up — but
I still get the flutter of excite-
ment as I look from booth
to booth, exploring the won-
derous offerings, hunting for
treasures. Sure, I gravitate
toward measuring spoons,
tea towels, tools and home
decor much more than I ever
remember doing years ago,
but I’ll be the first to admit
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
Corey Kirk/Baker City Herald
Mark Crowder, owner of Rain Barrel Ciderworks in Baker City, said shifting from selling his products in kegs to bottling the cider
has helped his business survive the pandemic.
A new avenue for sales
Owner of Rain Barrel Ciderworks said bottling helped keep his cidery afloat
By COREY KIRK
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY —
Like most other busi-
ness owners over the
past 18 months, Mark
Crowder has felt the
effects of the pandemic.
And Crowder, who
is Baker County’s only
commercial hard cider
maker, is ready to move
toward a more normal
situation.
Crowder, who started
Rain Barrel Ciderworks
in 2019 in Baker City,
said one of the chal-
lenges during the pan-
demic has been to pre-
serve the quality of his
perishable product.
“Just trying to keep
the cider from spoiling
because I keep it in
storage,” Crowder said.
“I’ve been keeping
them in these totes
which I ferment them
in, but to avoid oxida-
tion I had to switch to
a new storage means,
and that allowed me to
keep the cider from get-
ting oxidized and going
bad so I can keep it for
several months longer
then I would normally
like to kept it before
releasing. So I found
ways to work around it,
basically.”
With restaurants and
bars closed or severely
restricted for much of
2020 and into 2021,
Rain Barrel Ciderworks
suffered due to the lack
of wholesale orders.
So Crowder, who
previously had sold
most of his cider in
kegs, decided to focus
on bottling his product
to broaden his retail
sales options.
“I only had done a
couple of limited bot-
tlings of two of my
ciders so far,” he said.
He had to buy some
new equipment to facili-
tate the bottling.
Although it’s been a
tough year and a half,
Crowder, who moved
to Baker City in 2017,
credits places such
as Terminal Gravity
Brewing in Enterprise
and Great Pacific in
WALLOWA — The coro-
navirus pandemic and the
Elbow Creek Fire, while both
devastating, have had their
silver linings for the Wallowa
area. It’s there where Jason
and Patty Skillings opened
the Wallowa Mountain Bar &
Grill.
“Everything around here’s
been closed with the COVID
thing,” Jason said of the
former Horseshoe Bar & Grill
on Main Street. “They shut
this one down, so we thought,
‘What a better time to start
one up.’”
The influx of hundreds
of firefighters into town has
proven a boon to the establish-
ment, but one they see as an
opportunity to be of help.
“You just do what you’ve
got to do. We just try to keep
everybody happy and make
sure they have a place (to eat),”
Patty said. “We’ve told them
that if they come in later, just
let us know and we’ll make
sure we get them something.
If we have to turn the grills
back on, we’ll do that for them.
There’s so many shifts, when
they come back into town and
need someplace to eat, we’ll
get that for them.”
The establishment opened
June 7, Patty said.
“We have been very busy,”
she said Tuesday, July 20. “We
haven’t been open for a week
because of some pipes, and our
customers are saying, ‘When
are you open? We want to be
back. We’re missing you.’ But
we plan to open tomorrow
morning at 6 a.m.,” she said.
Plenty to eat
The menu is not unique, but
looks tasty.
A fairly standard breakfast
menu features items that have
tickled the palates of many.
“The Wallowa Mountain
Breakfast is pretty popular,”
Patty said, referring to the
three-egg order that comes
Corey Kirk/Baker City Herald
See, Summer/Page B3
See, Cider/Page B3
Bottling has opened new retail sales options for Rain Barrel Ciderworks in Baker City.
See, Grill/Page B3
Crop prices spur spending on farm machinery
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
SALEM — Higher crop
prices have lifted farmers’
spirits in 2021, spurring
a powerful appetite for
new farm machinery after
years of lackluster demand,
experts say.
Unit sales of new trac-
tors over 100 horsepower
rose 23% during the first
half of the year, while
unit sales of four-wheel-
drive tractors surged 32%,
according to the Associ-
ation of Equipment Man-
ufacturers. Unit sales of
self-propelled combines
increased 11% in that time.
“Commodity prices are
a pretty good indication
of how farmers feel, and
if they feel good, they’re
going to invest in cap-
ital equipment,” said Curt
Blades, AEM’s senior vice
president of ag services.
Large machinery sales
plummeted during the
early days of the corona-
virus pandemic but recov-
ered enough to end 2020
aGCO/Contributed Photo, File
Farm machinery sales have risen sharply in 2021 as growers reap the benefits of higher commodity crop prices.
on a positive note.
An upswing in com-
modity prices, partly
buoyed by foreign demand
for U.S. crops, has con-
vinced farmers to spend
more readily on major pur-
chases in 2021, Blades said.
Exciting new automa-
tion technology has also
helped, as has the solid
market for used machinery
that’s ensured high trade-in
values, he said.
“You don’t invest a
half-million dollars in a
combine unless you feel
pretty good about your
future in the next few
years,” Blades said.
Growers are now prob-
ably seeing their stron-
gest net returns since 2013,
which also marked a high
point of investment in
machinery before years
of weaker demand, said
Michael Langemeier, a
Purdue University agricul-
tural economist who tracks
the industry.
“Looking at the U.S.
as a whole, 2021 is going
to be better than anything
from 2014 to 2019,” he
said.
With a better income
outlook, farmers are now
more willing to replace
their machinery — both
because some of it is
wearing out, and also to
reduce their tax obliga-
tions, Langemeier said.
The enthusiasm for
investing in machinery
doesn’t appear much
diminished by the higher
cost of steel and other
inputs, which have made
equipment more expensive,
he said.
“Even though the costs
are higher, the returns are
strong enough to offset
that,” he said.
See, Crops/Page B3