High Water, Raising Reindeer & Holiday Time

High Water, Raising Reindeer & Holiday Time. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Lake Coeur d'Alene is at its highest December level since 1995 due to last month's heavy snowfall that melted earlier this month. The lake has gone higher than 2,128 feet above sea level in December just 15 times in the last 105 years, but there was no danger of that happening recently because the officials allowed enough water to escape the lake.

Well some people raise cattle, pigs, sheep but at the Tip Top Ranch in Bowdle, South Dakota David Knecht and his wife Carla raise reindeer, camels and llamas.  They got into the reindeer business 11-years ago and today you could have a reindeer like Ol' Saint Nick.

KNECHT: The little males and females are pretty much the same now for about the last 5 or 6 years they’ve been going for about $3500 a piece. And we only have about 5 or 6 a year out of the 9 or 9 females we have. We’ll have about 5 or 6. And it’s like anything I suppose if you had a lot of them or there were a lot of them for sale in the United States which there really aren’t, I’m sure that market would decline.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange report.

(GRANGE)

This is going to be a busy day for most of us. Either last minute gift buying or trying to get from here to there. It is also Christmas Eve which has a special meaning to all of us no matter what your beliefs. Whether it’s on the home front or the front lines, we can all pause a moment and think about friends and loved ones both near and far.  That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at the Northwest Ag Information Network.