By Bob Spiwak
It’s been a couple of fall-like mornings lately — this morning’s low temperature report at the SLIME gathering was 45 degrees. To put that in perspective, it is a mere 13 degrees above freezing. As if to underscore the group’s somewhat unusual collection of storytellers, newsmakers and out-and-out liars, the most commentary about the chill morn emanated from three guys wearing short pants.
We are wishing, along with many others, best wishes for a speedy recovery for Becky van Steenkiste, who yesterday had a pretty bad accident when her horse took a misstep on the slippery ground. No other details at this time, and we’re hoping to have her back in circulation within the week.
Thumbing through the American Automobile Association magazine a few days ago we came across a photo of a painting by Thomas Moran depicting a Green River, Wyoming, vista. (It’s a familiar view — in fact, we named our new dog after the Indian name for the river, Seed-skee-dee, before the white people changed it to its current unimaginative designation.)
What makes this worthy of mention is that the original painting is hanging at the Tacoma Art Museum as a gift from the Haub Family Collection — that’s Erivan and Helga Haub, owners of Sun Mountain Resort. There will be “a fresh look at Western American Art Museum’s new Haub Family Galleries” which will open Nov. 15.
And from other far reaches comes news, far too comprehensive for this space, printed and online from the Capitol Press, an agricultural publication that covers the entire Northwest. In its Aug. 15 edition, there’s a big story with pictures about the emmer wheat project, a decade old here in the valley. The protagonists, Sam and Brooke Lucy of Bluebird Grain Farms, are focusing on certified organic grains, mostly emmer, the oldest wheat known to man, according to the article. It’s a good read. We learned a lot from it and it is free online, or you can subscribe to the publication.
