Appreciation for the farming life

Farming life and the essential work of producing food for the world has long been celebrated in art, literature, and essays.

Richard Scheuerman, an educator, author, and 1972 history graduate from Washington State University, wrote three books that take a deep dive into art and books about farming. He covers a huge span of time and geography, from the Bible to modern literature.

In those three volumes—Hallowed Harvests, Harvest Hands, and Harvest Horizons—Scheuerman calls for all of us to keep farms and agrarian work top of mind. Our very existence depends on a part of our society, where our food comes from, that often gets forgotten or ignored.

He talked with Washington State Magazine editor Larry Clark about the themes of the books, how we need to appreciate food production, and more about art and literature that speaks to the nature of farming, harvesting, and the agrarian life.

Read more about the books in a Washington State Magazine review (Spring 2025).

Buy the books at Triticum Press or Palouse Heritage Farm.

Transcript

Ep 37 WSM podcast - farming life

[00:00:00] Farming life in the essential work of producing food for the world has long been celebrated in art literature and essays. Richard Scheuerman, an educator author in 1972, history graduate from Washington State University wrote three books that take a deep dive into art and literature about farming. He covers a huge span of time and geography from the Bible to modern literature.

welcome to the Washington State Magazine podcast. We bring you stories of Washington State University alumni and more. I'm Larry Clark, editor of the magazine. I talked with Dick Scheuerman about his three volumes, hallowed harvests, harvest hands, and harvest Horizons. He calls for all of us to keep farms and agrarian work top of mind.

Our very existence depends on a part of our society where our food comes from, that often gets forgotten or [00:01:00] ignored.

Well, thank you for joining me today on the magazine podcast. Great to be with you Larry. Always a fun time for me to come back home here to the rolling hills of the Ouse country. Yes. And the rolling hills of the Palouse country are displayed prominently in the three books that you've done on agrarian art and.

In and literature and are raring themes. And I'm really excited today to talk to you a little bit about these three books and how they came to be and some of the themes that are, that are interlaced throughout these volumes. By all means, it, it certainly is the genesis of the work here with the, with the hills given my nativity to this area and, and they do feature prominently in my thinking about all three of the volumes.

They're arranged chronologically. So the first volume, hello Harvest is more of the ancient [00:02:00] world up till early modern period. Uh, harvest Hands is a look at more modern interpretations, particularly in the American scene and modern European art. And then Harvest Horizons is a look at contemporary issues mm-hmm.

In art and literature.  Yes, and the, you have spent a, a lot of time and space with these volumes and clearly, you know, you've spent a lot of time thinking about it and working on this and gathering these beautiful examples of artworks throughout the ages. But I wanna go back just a little bit.

First of all, where were you born? and you know, you mentioned your nativity, so Yeah. Well, I was fortunate to be raised here in the plume country, Larry. I was uh, born in, in Colfax, just down the road, raised on a [00:03:00] small grain farm between the rural communities of Endicott and St. John in Whitman County.

And so graduated from. Endicott you know, in the late sixties and was really blessed just with an incredible rural faculty and I actually. Dedicate volume three to two members of that group that had great influence in my life. Dave Wells and Dan Bertel, who are still with us, and just great people as well as a couple others who have, have passed on.

Louise Braun, grew up in Viola, Idaho, and brilliant intellectual and incredible teacher. And Arden Johnson, who herself was an art teacher. So, yeah, I, I grew up a farm kid and was surrounded by agrarian experience and lived there until. I came to WSU in the early 1970s and uh, and uh, did a degree in history here and then went [00:04:00] on to study Russian and literature and some other topics.

When you spent a lot of your working life at Seattle University, is that right? Seattle? Uh, Seattle. Pacific University. Pacific University, yeah. My last 10 years I was in. Education, private and public schooling for 35 years. And my last 25, I directed the master's in teaching program at Seattle Pacific University.

 And during that time, you've written a number of different works about the Palouse country, about different. Things within Washington State history as well, including a wonderful book about chief Ayaan. Yeah, the Ayaan story has been of interest to me for most of my life. Actually growing up here in the area, I, I was very interested in the stories of.

Of our region, our ancestors. You know, when you grow up in small towns, as you know, you came from small [00:05:00] community too.  Uh, you know, some of your best friends are 80 and 90 years old. And and as a boy I remember elders in our community telling stories of the first of our people who immigrated here in the 1880s, and they established friendships with the native population.

So that actually was the beginning of my interest. In the Kaan story, wanting to know who were those people. And actually just last week I visited with some who became fast friends up on the Colville Indian Reservation. So I spent time there and the Umatilla Reservation, Yakima and Es per and and uh, that also has an aspect of of the agrarian story.

 Uh, a lot of those leaders, chief Ayaan, chief Moses. Uh, you know, they, they were farm people. They, they, they established farms because of their association with the Hudson's Bay Company and, um. So, yeah, growing up as a boy, those [00:06:00] experiences were very interesting to me and laid the groundwork then for books like this.

WSU Press just came out with celebrating Palouse Country as a 30th anniversary edition of that that talks about our part of the world here and the inland Pacific Northwest. And they're just yeah, there's always another story to tell and they're fascinating for me. Well this you know, I'm glad you, you talked a little bit about your inspiration for those other books because I'm really interested in how you were inspired to do this three volume series that covers so much fascinating material around the, the art of farming and agriculture and agrarian life generally.

You know, the real origin of, of this I tracked back Larry to 1989. That's when I. Uh, came back here my first 10 years of teaching in tool administration. Were in the Wenatchee Valley in Central Washington and we still my wife and I really consider that a second home. And we have [00:07:00] great friendships there.

And I had uh, taught for several years there in the cashmere area, and then I became assistant superintendent at Wenatchee and just had a great time. Uh, but after 10 years, uh. Uh, my father had fallen ill here and we still had the farm, and an opportunity came back to help establish a school cooperative with the Endicott-St. John Schools. And so I was hired to be administrative assistant there and also teach and help uh. Really facilitate the organization of the cooperative, which was a innovative way to, to basically save rural schools and became a model for different parts of the northwest. And um, I met a retired superintendent from California who had come up to our area named Bill Smick.

Bill had a foot in the school world, and he was also a farmer in this area. And he asked me this is in the [00:08:00] summer of 1989. I had just recently come back and he, he, for some reason that I do not remember exactly, he. Wanted to come up and visit the Spillman farm here at WSU. He was doing some work with some of the researchers on plant genetics and and so yeah, we just had lots of common interests and he asked me if I wanted to, bummer.

I come along and visit, which we did.  And even though I had been a member of farmhouse fraternity here at WSU on my undergrad days, I had never been to Spelman farm. I knew a little about Spelman and Dr. Vogel. Orville Vogel was the godfather of our fraternity here at WSU and so I knew a little bit about his story and plant genetics and counted him a great friend and he knew my father and others that [00:09:00] were from this area. And so anyway, I came with Bill and, um, it was the first time I actually saw on these test plots. Uh, these grains of yesteryear, I guess I'll call 'em, you know, things that I remembered my grandfather talking about Turkey red.

And Pacific blue stem and the Jones Fife. And I just had, I remembered those names and Bill showed me them and he introduced me. To the head of the research unit there a fine fellow named Steven Jones.  And I kind of took that in the back of my mind. I remember taking a lot of photos.

Then fast forward about 10 years ago. And I was serving with uh, Alex McGregor, a businessman and agrarian [00:10:00] historian here from our region Sure. On the state museum board. And we were, I was teaching at Seattle Pacific at the time, and we went to the state fair in Puyallup and took the grandkids and went to a building at the state fair in Puyallup. That was kind of a fundraiser. They were selling things and they had a box of old postcards. And I, I just, I remember thumbing through the box of postcards and I saw this incredible painting copy of a painting by an. An artist named Robert Atkins and called the Harvest Field.

And you know, sheaves in the background, sunset and all this. And it just, it really spoke to me and uh, cheap old Richard didn't fork over 25 cents to buy the thing, but it just go on [00:11:00] the way home. I remember just telling, why didn't I buy this thing? It was beautiful and it, it just, uh.

It just stayed with me. And so not long after Alex and I were at a meeting of the state board, we walked across the street to have lunch and on the uh, on the table where this cafe, where these old magazine covers, and there was a cover there from a 1930s edition. Uh, Fortune Magazine when Fortune was founded, it was an art and business magazine, not just business.

Oh, and high-quality paper. And today they're collectible lithograph covers. And and here was this beautiful. A semi-abstract view of a grain harvest scene. And I thought, you know, I'm not gonna lose this again like I did that [00:12:00] that Atkinson postcard. So when we went to pay for our bill, I asked the guy, I said, you know, somebody's gonna drop mayonnaise on this thing. They were using it for like place mats for the meal. 

And I said, this thing is beautiful. Can I buy it from you? He said, well, whatever the price of your sandwich is. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Go ahead and I'll sell you the print. So that was the start, Larry of the great adventure. And it, yeah, for about 10 years I took a deep dive into the story of agrarian art.

I couldn't find anything definitively written about the entire, I mean, there were. Obviously there's all kinds of information about Van Gogh and painting his last dozen beautiful masterpieces of the grain fields or Willa Cather and her novels about, you know, Midwestern farm life. But I couldn't find anything kind of telling the whole story going back in time to [00:13:00] ancient times.

Sure. Bible Old Testament Bible, Boaz, Bible Yes. From Sunday school and the story of the significance of. And cleaning and the kinsman redeemer and the biblical messages that were, you know, part of. Our lives growing up that we had studied and then taking it all the way down to Yeah. Modern times. You know, the Jim Gitz who painted this incredible work for the cover of the Third Volume and Seattle artist who, by the way, whose family roots are in Colfax.

I found out.  So that's kind of the shorter version of how all this came to pass. Well, it seems to me that, you know. Dick, that one of these things, this is like when you dig into something and all of a sudden you uncover more and you uncover more and uncover more. Kind of like what, you know, I've read about with archeological digs, you know, where there's always something else.

Um, that's right. But I did, I do wanna mention too, before I, I move on and before I forget that, [00:14:00] uh, I, I noticed the magazine covers that you listen in here. And as a magazine editor, of course, you know, I. Gravitated toward, you know, the cover of Colliers. Oh, and all these other, these other beautiful magazine covers that really celebrated the agrarian life, you know, and they showed harvest, and they showed crops. So I did really appreciate that and I thought, you know, you probably knew that I gravitated to those quickly. Well, I'm glad you pointed it out because it focuses on how significant agrarianism and the harvest experience was in the era.

You're talking about the twenties and thirties when those magazines, Harpers and others would, would feature these scenes. This was commonplace, whereas today it, it's a whole different sort of mass media look often, and if you, you know, grab popular magazines, they tend to celebrate more spectacle.

And I encountered in the process of this, this beautiful quote by [00:15:00] Polish ethnographer Katarina Za, who talks about harvest being the fundamental responsibility and endeavor that humanity has pursued. Since time immemorial.  It's just a powerful expression, Larry, of how close we are even if mass society doesn't always understand or appreciate it, the work of farm people everywhere in the world. We live in a very modern moment where often. We just take for granted, you know, the incredible dedicated work of farmers here and around the world to sustain all the rest of society.

Uh, in earlier times this, everybody participated in this in ways and it was known much more closely. and we've, we've seen in recent [00:16:00] years with the with the pandemic and others, just how fragile our food systems are right in this country and in the world. The war in Ukraine, the disruption of food systems.

And so we've kind of had some wake up calls recently about how significance this is. And and I hope part of what we've done, and I'm grateful for Carol O. Callahan, the founder of Triticum Press, to put these books out to kind of draw attention to that significance. 

That actually leads to one of my other questions, and I think you maybe addressed this a little bit.

You know, these are three volumes that, that cover a wide range of art and society and history and. Different perspectives. Is there a particular theme that goes through all of the works that ties it all together? 

[00:17:00] Yeah, good question. Uh, well, I, I would say the primacy of agrarian experience. That it really doesn't matter what anybody does in terms of how important it is for our culture, the wider world, we need, you know, we need doctors, we need lawyers, we need teachers, we need sanitation workers.

Our society is incredibly complex, but it all rests on our capacity to consume three healthy meals a day. And in places where that is put at risk it threatens, you see that in entire construct that we consider modern society.  And therefore the more attention that we pay. To its viability and sustainability becomes to my mind an [00:18:00] important through line that you know, is, is uh, is part of what is being depicted in in these great works of literature and art and also music from ancient times. 

Well, that's definitely something I saw when I was reading through the books too, you know. Uh, there is this absence within our modern society of examples of what we eat. And it's, you're absolutely right. It's fundamental to who we are and how we function as a society.

And it needs to be celebrated and shown. And, you know, there were a lot of things that I really enjoyed and I love art anyway.  Um. And some of these, if, you know, when our listeners, if they pick up these books and they should, you know, they'll, they'll really gravitate too to some of the artworks in there.

I mean, you mentioned Van Gogh earlier.  For [00:19:00] example, and I can't think of a, of an artist. From Europe at that period who's more iconic? Well, except maybe Monet, you know, so, you know, just displaying this. And as a side note, I, the great p privilege of going to the south of France a couple of years ago to ARL and Oh wonder some of the other places and actually got to see in person some of these areas and, you know, his vision of capturing the, the agricultural life Yes.

Was, was something special. Yeah, it, it is. I, I haven't had a chance. I, I've made a number of trips to Europe, but I've, I've not been to to France to see these great treasures. Uh, I've I've, I've gone to what was the largest American exhibition two years ago in Detroit of Van Goghs works ever shown here in North America.

 and it was just an awesome experience. And we, I've, I've tried to track down [00:20:00] and I have an appendix in volume two of all Van Gogh's Grain Field works and museums everywhere in the world.  Been able to pretty well track 'em all down. One's in Honolulu by the way, so let me know when you're ready to go.

We need to go track. Take a look at that one. I'm on board. Uh uh But yeah, they're, they're incredible and they really attest to his. A vision for agrarian experience and the vitality and the renewability of life through what he saw as, um, as, as the, the, the farming experience. And it, it's, it's so consumed his thinking that uh, you know, really.

Ultimately led in some ways to his vaccination with what he saw as a, as a incredible. Uh, way of life that was being threatened by [00:21:00] industrialism at the time. You know, many of those great works that you see with these colorful panoply of, of grains and fields. You'll see the, you'll see the dark smoky towers in the background and what the, what the implications are for the labor force and the wellbeing of mankind and, uh.

Uh, you know, there certainly have been progress on a wide variety of technological fronts since Van Gogh's time, but we have to keep in mind what the proper balance should be so that we don't threaten. Uh, the very vitality of what he was expressing through his art. Uh, the, the same with Monet. And it's interesting you mention Monet.

I've been reading a little more about him lately. The, these things are like the song that never ends uh, because I've been reading about one of Monet's, well, you know, we saw that movie recently about the monuments men.  And it got to, it got me to thinking is, was there any. Nazi looted art that [00:22:00] were works like this, that we're talking about the great European masters from the 18th and 19th century.

Well, sure enough, there were several. One of 'em was Monet's view of a harvest field at uh, um, in Northern France and. It, it was looted in the forties and reappeared in an art gallery in Europe in the 1960s, and it was sold to an American investor. And in the eighties it, it was seen somewhere by the family of the original owner.

Hmm. And it led to this landmark case in American law. Uh of, of who, who owns the work? If, if someone bought it for a considerable amount of money.  It was purchased in the early sixties, I recall for $31,000. A Monet, as you well [00:23:00] know, a Monet today would sell for 80 million. Exactly. Yeah. and so who owns that?

The original family or someone who purchased it? Uh not aware of, of its provenance. And in that, it be, it became a very important case and surprisingly the investor wasn't allowed to keep it. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And so anyway, this, you know, so again, it's, it's another interesting case where agrarian art.

Comes with very significant implications in this case for, you know, American case law. Sure. Well, I think you know, you mentioned, you mentioned this and I think this, from what I've seen, this is a through line also with these three volumes. You know, this idea of trying to make sure that we hold onto this agrarian life and.

You know, have that balance there.  And you see it in a lot of [00:24:00] pieces. And it seems to me like the medieval pieces are some of the older pieces you show in here. And actually going back to the Bible even.  You know, it, it was a celebrated existence. You know, it was a way of life that everybody recognized was vital to life.

Yes. Yeah. The Jewish year was organized around the harvest sequence. And and so this is commemorated in, in the holidays, the, the,  The, um festival of the booths and the harvest traditions. And and again, as we touched on earlier you know, books of the Bible I list in here in volume one series of some of, uh.

The real signature verses that talk about the blessings of the harvest. And again, in, in contemporary society, we, we just kind of take for granted that we're gonna get uh, three meals every day. And I, I can't remember who the [00:25:00] uh thinker was who said any culture is nine meals away from anarchy.

Mm. and it's true.  We get, we get dependent on this without realizing that again, there is a, a fragile nature to this, but you know, the Lord's prayers give us this daily, our daily bread. By, by the way, that expression, I'm told, I'm not a Greek scholar, but I'm told that is the only time. In scriptures that that particular word is used, it's a single word.

We translate it with two daily bread. Uh, but the implication is. N not to, not to take this for granted. I mean, we go down and we buy for three weeks. I was talking to my sister the other day going to, somebody went to Costco and Costco and spent a thousand dollars because they were planning for the next month's food.

 So, get it while, you know, before the price goes up. Uh, [00:26:00] but daily Bread talks about the necessity of being grateful every day for what you have and not assume that it's just gonna be there forever.  And all the more importance for what we attach to farmers'. Hard work to make this blessing available and create a, a stable society where others can do what they're called to do.

 But ultimately rests on the health of the soil. And and the conscientious work of our agrarian community. Yeah, it's so true. And one thing in these books that I think really shows that are some of the beautiful plates, you know, there are full color plates in here, as well as you know, all, any number of illustrations that really.

Highlight exactly what you're saying. And so I guess one of the things from my perspective, whenever I look at a book, I like to think about what went into it.  [00:27:00] So was it difficult? What were some of the challenges of collecting so many prints and plates and pulling that all together? And then curating, you know, what came together in these books?

Yeah, that, that's a fascinating question, Larry, that I ha I haven't really thought much about that before, but, but I'm glad you asked it because it, it, it does ring true in my memory about some of the challenges of assembling this when, when I started. Uh, because of work I had done with some of the other books that you've mentioned.

Uh, and I did a harvest history with Alex McGregor called Harvest Heritage from WSU Press. And you know, the drill with your work in publishing, you gotta contact owners of these things and get permissions and all and all this and you know, when the project started yeah, I was dealing with that, but, uh.

But very soon, of course, with the early work, with the medieval material, um, [00:28:00] and early modern. Uh, what, um, US copyright law gives you this opportunity to, you know, gather copies of things. I, I think it's a, it's, it's a rolling it's a rolling year. I think it's a hundred, so, you know, probably 19. Uh, 24, 25 or something is where the magic mark is.

I can't remember. I had to go back and look it all up. And I started uh, after contacting a number of institutions to get permissions. It takes time. They usually want a royalty of some kind. And you know, it's based on your projected sales. I mean, all this stuff gets very complicated.  And, um.

And then you know, betray a family secret here. At one point one of my daughters said, you know, gee, dad, you can just go on eBay and probably find a few of these things. And so that was a very, very dangerous thing to, to tell me because I I found that, yeah. In fact, that you, the the Fortune [00:29:00] cover mm-hmm.

There, there was a, there was a, a sister uh, by Peter Helk, a sister cover, if you will, that was done by fortune. That, that was also beautiful done in, in these muted yellow gold and green tones of a, of a threshing scene with a train going by in the back. Hey, for 25 bucks I can get this thing on eBay.

Hmm. And uh, so that led me down this long, long road. Uh, of, of of starting to acquire these works because then you know, I didn't, I didn't have to go through all the permission process. I could own them and ultimately those would be part of the collections here at the Archives and Museum at WSU.

Uh, and even works counter proofs and others I had mentioned by Rembrandt and others are, are affordably available. [00:30:00] And so that was a big breakthrough. And then the other thing related to that, Larry, that I found really interesting when I started this work, um, yeah, we all know how wonderful the resources on the internet are to go anywhere and, you know, just gather all kinds of incredible access to these institutions.

But the, some of the works we're talking about that in terms of those that were copyrights had been renewed and that includes some priceless work by the van Goghs and the Monets and others of the world held in places like the Getty Museum and the New York Metropolitan art Museum. Those, those were protected.

And so, uh. Uh and sometimes I would contact these places and get them, but other times, you know, it, it was just too much to afford to try to get permissions. and so initially I did not [00:31:00] I wrote about them, but I, I didn't feature them. About five years into the project, I would go back and I'd visit some of these institutions online and there was a big.

Change in attitude. And with your experience. You might know more about this than me, but I noticed about five years ago I, I'm not mentioning the Getty and the Met by accident and the Louvre and others in Europe, they began making those publicly available. I did notice that. Yeah.  and so by the time I started working then with Trium Press to put these into book length works.

Uh, those were available for reproduction, and I am so grateful that we were able then to feature great works of the European Masters uh, in, in these volumes.  Well, it [00:32:00] certainly, your, your hard work paid off, you know, in, in these volumes. You could definitely see it, you know, among these pieces.

You know, we've talked about a lot of different things already in the artwork. Uh, do you have any particular favorites, anything that really just grabbed you?

Yeah, so, so that's sort of like, like asking who's your favorite child, of course, because there, there, there is just this incredible kaleidoscope of possibilities. Um. And, and so I, I, I won't claim a, a single because these are just treasures across the board. And in each of the volumes, I will say one of the most notable was the great French artist, August uh, mite.

And, um, he was a contemporary event. Go and just did these incredible and monumental. Harvest scenes in France from the late 18 [00:33:00] hundreds in what we would call uh, an impressionistic, almost expressionistic style in in which the, it's like the heat just emanates off of these. When you see these hanging.

And I was stunned when I went to the Fry museum in Seattle and found one of his foremost examples is is there in their permanent collection. Oh. and that's it actually, that we, so our listeners in Seattle can still, yes. You can go to their, you can go to the fry and it's, it's hanging in the, in the center of of the, of the museum.

It, it is the, i, I believe it's the largest. Uh, painting in the families the Great House collection, or I can't remember the name of the founder, but, but it's, it's in the center there and it's just a stunning piece. Uh, by the way, they also, the Fry also has Winslow Homer. Oh. Uh, and and examples of graying [00:34:00] art uh, that he produced back in, you know, post Civil War and that era.

Um, in terms of a literary figure, maybe a little bit of a peculiar. A choice. But, um, this project led me to be absolutely fascinated by a novel by Zane Gray. Uh, called the Desert of Wheat because it's about our area here in the inland Pacific Northwest. Zane Gray was the Earnest Hemingway of the early 20th century America's most popular author, you know, writers of the Purple Sage and all this, and kind of began, you know, this whole movement of romantic romantic.

Cision of, of of the American West and the experience, and mostly known for these, you know, shoot 'em up, bang up southwestern adventures. But he was, he was already quite famous by 1917 when he decided kind of [00:35:00] take a break from it all and head out to the beautiful Pacific Northwest with his wife, Dolly and others.

And so he came out here and he was feed at a dinner. In Spokane at the Davenport Hotel. Oh, and who should be there, but Duncan Dunn Regent from Washington State College, and I'm not sure, and I, I've tracked a little down how all this came to pass. So it wasn't a total surprise. But Duncan Dunn challenged him.

To focus his attention on some of the great stories and the drama that was happening here in the Pacific Northwest during that time. And I, I, I think Zane Gray was looking for a little bit of a change of pace and, um, one thing led to another and he wound up crafting this incredible story that became the desert of wheat, which was.

Uh, of course 1917 we're talking World War I era.  [00:36:00] And and, and a rather controversial novel, interesting. In, in several ways beautifully written his and by the way, uh. Dear Alex McGregor can quote at length the opening lines of, of, of the novel, and they are evocative. Uh uh, and uh, so this is the story of a German family living here at a time when there's considerable anti-German warfare uh agitation and uh, and how the younger generation has to adjust to this.

Uh, and to prove his patriotism. Young Kurt uh, leaves his girlfriend, dear Lenore, and goes off to the fight in the front and in France and is horribly injured. And so you, you have these various subplots on the one hand, the farmers here. All organizing against the [00:37:00] IWW Wobblies who were trying to organize the bendle stiffs, the common workers who seek to go from $2 a day to $3 a day, you know, for a 16 hour work day.

 And were castigated for it. Um. And so you have this whole tension between, you know, landowners and socialist leaning workers, immigrant workforce.  A lot of this contemporary in our day. And and at the same time, in some ways, a, a very conventional author, writer. Coming up with what is a kind of anti-war novel, really?

Uh, yeah. Yeah. Because Kurt comes back horribly injured, and it's Lenoir, this agrarian northwest paragon of ancient Greek series and the earth mother who nurses him [00:38:00] back to health and and and wellbeing. And it, it's it's a beautiful story and one that that I hope to, uh. To explore a little more fully.

I think that sounds great. You do lead off, um, I believe it's, is it, is it Harvest Horizons that has the Zane Gray? I, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I remember reading about it and I, I haven't read, I have to admit, I. Um, desert of weep, but now I will, I do remember seeing gray paperbacks around my grandparents' house.

My, that was my grandfather's favorite author. Yeah. You know, sad to report his mansion in Los Angeles was just burned in the Eaton fire. Oh no. Yeah, yeah. I lost it. Tragedy.

Well, thank you for, for those things because those are a couple things that I think our listeners can definitely follow up on. They can go to the fry in Seattle and then they can read Zane [00:39:00] Gray, look up Desert of Wheat and read it. Can I read those opening lines? Yes, please do. A thousand hills lay bare to the sky and half of every hill was wheat and half was fellow ground.

And all of them with shadow valleys between seemed a lot big and strange and isolated. The beauty was austere as if the hand of man had been held back from making green as home sight, as if the immensity of the task had left. No time for youth and freshness. Yeah, the scene was heroic because of the labor of hands.

It was sublime because not a hundred harvest nor three generations of toiling men could ever rob. Nature of its limitless space and scorching sun and sweeping dust of its restless, aged long creep back toward the desert that had been here was grown the most beauties, the. Richest, finest wheat in all the world, strange and unfathomable that so much of the bread of man, the staff of [00:40:00] life, this, the hope of civilization.

And that really does capture so much of what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that he was here.  Yeah. So he, he was able to see that. Yes. and I know for many of our listeners, and for you and I. We've seen that.  You know, just the, the beauty of the Palouse and its hills just covered with wheat and other crops too.

Yes. Wow. In the course of putting this together I was asked to give a talk at a conference. There's a society devoted to Zane Gray the z Gray West Society, and they, they happened to have their national convention in Oregon several years ago. And, uh. And I, I don't remember how they heard about what I was doing, but somehow I got invited to say a few words.

Zane Gray's grandson was in the audience. Oh. And um, um, got acquainted with several folks in their society. And about two months later, I get a letter in the mail [00:41:00] and it says, the long lost scrapbooks of Zane Gray showing the. Showing pictures of him in the fields here at Eastern Washington that had not ever been seen since his time nor ever published Huh uh, had been found.

They, they were in a storage locker in a, in some California storage thing that had lost its owner or whatever, I don't know. and somebody had found it and and uh, got a hold of the society and they kindly. Uh, permitted us to to reproduce images and so we were thrilled Again, it's just one more example of new discoveries.

Uh. Things from times past just always, always come up. I, I swear there isn't a week goes by that, that something like this doesn't, we don't come across, whether it's the looted art story or  These discoveries by Zang Gray's uh, [00:42:00] photographs of our area. So it's yeah, it's been quite an adventure and uh, it's just been a.

Thrilling opportunity to help contribute to to a, a grand story that our farming families you know, are, are really the ones with their hands in, in, in the dirt that have brought all this to pass for everybody else's benefit. A Absolutely. And I think, you know, as a, as people read these books and give some thought to, to what you're saying about making sure that agrarian life is front and center.

Are, are there some other things you would want to tell listeners, anybody who listens to this podcast about agrarian life? What, how can they connect it to their daily lives? I mean, they may be in downtown Portland. How do they connect it to their life?

Well, that's a, a fundamental leading question for [00:43:00] our day. These these aren't stories and principles that should be lost in the sands of time. As I as we've shared, they have high relevance to our present day to assure dependability and resilience of our food systems. Earth Care. And if you'll permit me, I'll read a few lines from from uh, harvest Horizons, that, that, that, that speaks to the relevance for our day and how people can participate in, in a grand story that's been here since Time Memorial.

That would be great. Thanks. Whether on a Columbia Plateau Farm or in a Seattle high rise. One may live with fidelity to place by learning and practicing domestic arts and community building family care and homemaking may not require moving back to the land. Though new paradigms for remote working are facilitating rural residency in any setting, folks can summon moral courage [00:44:00] to eat together, show shop locally to support practitioners of local crafts, connect young people to worthwhile endeavors and affirm the values of environmental care.

Policies and practice of self-reliance and promotion of the common good that characterizes republicanism in the ancient world are relevant more than ever in an era of threatened landscapes, endangered species, and marginalized labor ethicist, Julie Kraus characterizes Wendell Berry's ongoing literary conversation about these matters as a sacred harvest for renewing the common good.

By promotion of connections among people, landscapes, and spirituality in the context of farm work for participation in the market economy or middle work for healthy imagination and discernment, Barry calls for the external standard of such endeavors, the great economy or the kingdom of God. The [00:45:00] goal is to promote abiding, abundant, harvest, and the long-term wellbeing of individuals in community.

In spite of dreams of space colonization, exploration of terrestrial neighbors, near and far has been shown that in the words of science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, there is no planet B. We need to be stewards of what we have, and I commend those folks who are at work here at the university and farmers across the country for seeking.

The, the true value of stewardship, not in the greenwashing ways, but in ways that really assure future generations will benefit, as we've done well said, and these three volumes, I think also take that idea and show it to us through literature and through music and through art. [00:46:00] And I think readers can really, really get a hold of that if they look at these, these books.

And so I guess my last question then for you is, how, how will people get these books? Where do they go? Oh, well thanks for asking. Uh, yeah. Trium Press Trium Latin word here for for wheat is a small Pasco based publisher doing great work. And you can just google tri press.com and and information there is available about ordering.

And it's also available Larry through plu heritage.com, which is site our family has a small farm that we continue to uh, raise heritage grains. And there's a section there on the dropdown menu about publications. And the books are also available then@pluheritage.com. And, [00:47:00] uh, certainly appreciate the interest Larry and and very grateful for the opportunity to share here with a, a very favorite periodical in our household, Washington State Magazine.

Well, thank you for that and I really appreciate it, Dick. Um, this is great and a lot of food for thought. I'm sorry for the pun. Well, great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Dick. It was great talking with you today. Thanks for listening. You could find links in the show notes to review the books and where to find them.

If you enjoy the Washington State Magazine podcast, please share it with your friends and leave us a good rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Thank you. This episode was produced by me, Larry Clark. Our music is by WSU, emeritus Music Professor and composer, Greg [00:48:00] Gki.