Vintage plowing days set at Pomeroy, Colfax

It is about time to get out the old horses, mules and vintage farming equipment once again. Spring Farming Days and the plowing bee are coming up in Pomeroy and Colfax.

The annual event takes farming back to its roots by highlighting the horse and mule farming operations that were the common farming practice before automatic machinery was available.

Spring Farming Days will be in Pomeroy this weekend, April 1-2, at the Garfield County Fairground.

It will be is hosted by the Eastern Washington Agricultural Museum, and the event is booked for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. In addition to seeding 13 acres through vintage farming practices, the event will also include exhibits at the agricultural museum with specials available.

RV spots will also be available that weekend at the fairgrounds, and those can be booked by calling 509-751-6751.

The fairground in Pomeroy are located at 99 Fairgrounds Road.

The vintage plowing bee is also set in Colfax and has been booked for the weekend of April 15-16.

“It’s going to be Easter weekend,” said Stan Riebold, a longtime organizer of the event.

The event will be catered by Jenny Meyer from Endicott Food Center. Meyer said she has been the caterer for several years now and enjoys being part of the action.

“That’s the kind of stuff I really like,” she said.

Meyer said she will likely cater the meal to the Easter holiday.

“When it’s on Easter, that day I try do ham and scalloped potatoes,” she said. “Most generally, I do pulled pork sandwiches.”

Meyer comes in with a crew that includes her daughter, daughter-in-law and granddaughters, and sometimes a friend or two, depending on their availability. She said she enjoys the interaction with the farmers, though she does spend the majority of her time there in the kitchen getting everything ready.

“It’s pretty much the same people I’ve seen for a lot of the years,” she said. “They remember me from year-to-year. I’ve been doing it for quite a while.”

The 15 acres at the Palouse Empire Fairgrounds will be seeded with spring wheat, said Riebold.

“It’s all horse drawn. We plow the whole thing, work it down, drill it and seed it with spring wheat.”

Sometimes, the field has been seeded with barley as a rotation crop. The field will be harvested at the Labor Day Harvest Bee which launches the Palouse Empire Fair week.

“It goes to finance the activities of the threshing bee,” he said. “And the landlords for the land get a third of it, too.”

“It’s always Labor Day weekend,” Riebold noted.

Riebold also said he is not sure how many people will come out, but he hopes to see a good crowd.

“We hope to keep enough people interested.”