Black Diamond NOW

Let's Eat

Among the fastest growing segments of the home delivery economy is food.  This is certainly not a new phenomena, with dairy, bakery products, meats and grocery store items delivered to both city and rural dwellers dating back to the early 1900's.  Mainly perishable items before people had their own automobiles and refrigeration.

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, 93.001.066, circa 1908

Pizza chains pioneered home delivery of prepared ready to eat meals in the 70's and 80's.  Now, even before the coronavirus crisis sparked our current surge in demand, home delivery of food has become a major growth market - both ready to eat and ready to cook, which seems particularly popular with seniors. 

Following are a few charts recently prepared by the consulting firm Statista that forecasts revenue in the Online Food Delivery market to reach nearly $25 billion in 2020.  These estimates were published in January and one would expect these numbers to be even higher now given our country's current state of affairs and pressures to reduce commuting.

Although direct restaurant to consumer delivery still accounts for the largest share of this market (e.g., like Domino's Pizza delivering their own food), the real growth is happening with deliveries from companies like Grub Hub and Uber Eats that make no food products themselves, but instead deliver food from the menus of multiple restaurants.  Even Domino's now delivers food from other restaurants and we now have dairies like Smith Brothers Farms in Kent delivering a substantially broadened menu to include not just milk, cheese and eggs, but other prepared food as well.

In this way, restaurants can focus on their business of preparing food and even small restaurants can now have their menu widely available to a much larger audience.  The "Platform to Consumer Delivery" companies focus on the logistics of getting food from the restaurant to the consumer and don't prepare food themselves.  Much like Uber and Lyft, who have largely displaced conventional taxi businesses, Grub Hub "crowd sources" their drivers, which both improves flexibility and reduces fixed costs.  So if you order on line for a dinner piping hot and ready to eat when you arrive home from a long work commute, you will have lots of choices and though still somewhat more expensive than a "dine out" dinner, the value of convenience continues to escalate.

Is the U.S. leading the charge?  Nope - China is way ahead.

I expect we are going to see a whole different world of home delivery in the next 10 years, not even accounting for the rapid advances in new delivery technologies, such as the use of robotics, autonomous driverless vehicles, drones and delivery directly into the trunk of your car or even into your refrigerator.  Interesting times.

 

Udderly Good

When you think of home delivery service, what first comes to mind?  No, not Amazon silly.  The pioneers were dairies with their "Udderly Good" milk and cheese products.  They were called Creameries back in the day and as pasteurization became standard practice, it became safer to deliver milk and cheese products longer distances and with a longer shelf life. 

At one time, we even had Milk & Mail delivery service as shown in the photo below of the Parcel Post delivery wagon at the A.L. Brown Farm in Nisqually.

Image courtesy of Washington State Historical Society, 1943.42.31461, Asahel Curtis photographer, circa 1914

To broaden distribution required packaging milk in much smaller than milk-can size units that also would last longer in homes.  Along came glass milk bottles (first patented in 1874 and widely adopted across the U.S.  by the 1920's) and home delivery of milk became the retail model widely followed.

Before we had delivery trucks, we had horse drawn delivery wagons - some even carrying Ice Cream.

Image courtesy Washington State Historical Society, 2010.108.17, circa 1905

As time went on, family dairies were often consolidated into others and cooperatives of dairy farms were formed to both collectively process milk and market it directly to retail outlets and consumers.  Familiar local names include Carnation, Meadowsweet and Smith Bros. Dairy in Kent.  Carnation Farms also got it's start in Kent, before eventually moving north.

Home delivery of milk products became big and essential business lasting well into the 1950's.  Why this long?  By then, more and more people had cars and were able to go to the grocery store to pick up their food.  Reliable refrigeration, however, was lacking in most homes until the mid 50's.  In our case at Lake Tapps, for example, our refrigerator consisted of an ice box.  Our mother also liked the non-homogenized type of milk which saw yellow cream settle out at the top.

Image courtesy Washington State Historical Society, 1943.42.27130, Asahel Curtis photographer, circa 1913

Building milk delivery trucks also became big business and an important part of Kenworth Motor Truck Company/ PACCAR business in Renton.  Who among us haven't seen this type of truck before?  Strikingly similar to current models.

Image courtesy Museum of History & Industry, 1983.10.4968.13, Webster & Stevens photographer, circa 1932

Where is the home delivery business for dairy products today?  In a word - GROWING at double digit rates.  Why?

• Milk remains a relatively inexpensive source of protein and though not part of vegan diets, it's fresh and a staple in most family diets.  
• Milk and dairy remain well marketed.

Image courtesy Washington State Historical Society, 2014.136.67

And of increasing importance:

• Home Delivery!

Local dairy Smith Brothers Farms has been offering home delivery service of dairy products for many years and recently has seen it's delivery subscriber base grow significantly.  

Image courtesy Dairy Foods Magazine

Image Courtesy Smith Brothers' Farms'

One of the big changes in recent years has been the significant growth in the product line being offered by Smith Brothers for home delivery.  Now, with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic likely having long term consequences, accelerating demand growth for home delivery services, it will be interesting to see where they take their business from here.  I encourage you to visit Smith Brothers' Farms' website to learn more.  Very interesting.

 

 

It's the Culture!

What began in Washington State in 1900, represented a significant technical breakthrough in it's time, is still in high demand today and is just plain yummy?  The answer, of course, is Cougar Gold cheese and you don't need to be a Cougar to enjoy it.

Still made in Pullman like in the good old days, Cougar Gold and other "cheeses" in the family are a real treat and great comfort food during these gray days and times of doldrum.  What was the breakthrough?  As cheddar cheese ages, it can be a bit "gassy", giving off small amounts of CO2 that can make packaging a problem.  If packaged in cans, the gas can cause them to bulge and break open.  WSU Creamery and Dr. Norman Golding, working in conjunction with the U.S. Military in the 1930's, developed a cheese recipe that didn't produced carbon dioxide in the aging process.

"This culture is still maintained at the Creamery as it has been for 60+ years, much like a perpetual sourdough starter maintained in bakeries. That culture makes Cougar Gold slightly different than a traditional cheddar, lending a slightly nutty, creamy flavor."

Today, the WSU Creamery is a thriving part of WSU's Food Science Department, making upwards of 200,000 cans of cheese a year, or close to 400,000 lbs, is financially self sustaining and a learning lab to about 70 students each year.  And you can have it delivered to your home too - a real necessity these days.  You can buy it online at WSU Creamery Cougar Cheese .  

Not sure how I ended up focusing a blog post of Cougar Gold.  I guess it's because I've been doing a lot of reading lately about the growth of home delivery services, a trend now accelerating as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.  Somehow I got distracted as I was reminded I should order some Cougar Gold.  Lot's more about the history, current trends and consumer demand for home delivery services in future posts - there's a whole lot going on and much more than just Amazon.

Horseshoe Lake Flood Reduction Project

As previously posted Surprise - Horseshoe Lake Once Looked Like a Horseshoe , Horseshoe Lake is fed only by groundwater with no lake outlet.  Thus, when groundwater levels are low due to a lack of rainwater, the lake dries up.  When groundwater levels rise due to heavy rains, the lake then often floods - threatening the 14 homes around the lake and area infrastructure.  As a result, dating back to the early 1990's, King County periodically found itself installing portable hydraulic pumps and pumping flood water out of the lake first to Rock Creek/Lake Sawyer and more recently to infiltration basins south toward the Green River.  King County has previously pumped down lake water levels in 1991, 1996, 1997, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014 and in 2016.  As one can see, flooding is not an anomaly, but a frequent problem.

After numerous studies and the evaluation of alternative dispersal fields, it appears that a long term solution is now in sight.  Ironically, while many people have immediately pointed a finger at Master Plan Developer Oakpointe as the source of the problem (and they are obviously not), they do have an area on their property that appears to offer a viable solution and one that keeps water pumped from Horseshoe Lake totally outside the Lake Sawyer watershed - a real win-win.  The following map shows Horseshoe Lake, where permanent pumps will be installed, and the planned water line leading to planned infiltration ponds for Oakpointe's Reserve at Woodlands development.

According to King County, the project SEPA process was to be completed in 2019 with completion of Environmental Review and Permitting in May 2020 and construction beginning in 2021.  Under current conditions, there is no telling when this project may move forward, but I'm sure it would be a relief to residents at Horseshoe Lake to have these problems finally behind them, and for King County too.  For more information, follow this King County link to Horseshoe Lake Flood Reduction project.

1918-1919 Flu Pandemic in Washington State

As ER Docs, our daughter and son-in-law now find themselves in the front lines of 1st responders fighting today's coronavirus.  Unfortunately, failure of our leaders and institutions to act responsibly early on leave them without adequate tools to address the crisis and risk being overwhelmed by people needing testing and care, in addition to being at great personal risk themselves. So yes, I am upset by the current state of affairs.  What can we learn from what Washington State experienced during the flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919?

Image courtesy CDC, circa 1918

For the record, nearly 5,000 people died in Washington State during the 1918 flu pandemic and 500,000 across the country.  Seattle and other urban center deaths exceeded other parts of the state with 1,441 deaths in Seattle and Spokane with 528, but the virus found a way all across the state and many more died.

Image courtesy CDC, circa 1918

As history buffs will recall, this virus war was being waged at the same time as WWI was ending and resources were spread thin. Yet, in some parts of the country and despite the need, some leaders still refused to use fully trained African American nurses despite severe shortages of nursing staff still deployed with the troops. Somehow, however, many leaders at least here in Washington State at the time found a way to respond, albeit not as fast as one would hope in retrospect.  Ironically, some of the same measures being used today in our state mirror those measures used back then - such as closing public schools and limiting public meetings.

But …….., in this day and age, vital equipment such as test kits, respirators, and the critical equipment needed to protect our front line responders such as our daughter Hillary and son-in-law Dan, remain in very short supply and put them at personal risk.  They need our help to get people's attention to the dire needs RIGHT NOW.  Please contact any and all in D.C. to tell them to begin doing their job!!!

The Price Men Paid - 2

In most industries, the introduction of new technology can be expected to improve safety in the workplace.  Logging in the pacific northwest is clearly the exception.  The 1920's saw (no pun intended) widespread use of donkey engines, high lead logging practices and the introduction of log trucks and gyppo loggers.  Long gone were the use of oxen and horse teams dragging logs along skid roads to sawmills - replaced by logging railroads and eventually log trucks.  By 1930, log trucks are estimated to be hauling 50% or more of the load, displacing rail and giving berth to independent gyppo loggers.  With steam power providing the muscle and spar trees rigged with cables, yarding and loading could now being done in the "air", much faster and requiring far fewer men to do the work.  But a loggers' work now also became a lot more dangerous and deaths surged.

Data Source: Industrial Insurance Commission of the State of Washington, as reported in "More Deadly than War", Andrew Prouty, Garland Publishing, 1985

The great depression finally slowed the death toll, though accident rates remained extremely high.

Data Source: Industrial Insurance Commission of the State of Washington, as reported in "More Deadly than War", Andrew Prouty, Garland Publishing, 1985

Note:  State data for the year 1960 is not available.

Data Source: Industrial Insurance Commission of the State of Washington, as reported in "More Deadly than War", Andrew Prouty, Garland Publishing, 1985

Surprisingly, while death rates for loggers did fall significantly, there was little change in death rates at sawmills during the 44 years spanning 1924 thru 1968.  And despite improvements, death rates for loggers continued to be extraordinarily high.  How could our society allow this to happen?  A total disregard for human life?  Add in all the non-fatal disabling accidents and I find it incomprehensible for this to have happened in "modern" America for such a long period of time.

Has there been improvement since 1968?  I still have some work to do to get this data and will post when I have it.

The Price Men Paid

With passage of Washington State's Worker's Compensation Insurance program in 1911, employers were for the first time required to report safety records annually, including employee accidents as well as deaths.  Though it was likely only the larger employers initially in compliance with the extensive reporting requirements, at last lawmakers and union labor advocates were able to begin seeing the extent of danger in the workplace and it was shocking.  Though logging and sawmilling were far and away the most unsafe work environments, you name it, we had it all from coal mining to longshoring to railroads to construction and the list goes on.  Following is a snapshot of accidents and fatalities by workplace as reported for fiscal year 1914-1915.

Data Source: Industrial Insurance Commission of the State of Washington, as reported in "More Deadly than War", Andrew Prouty, Garland Publishing, 1985

My gosh, over 6,000 accidents in logging and lumber in one year alone, over 100 of which were fatalities - and this annual number of deaths more than doubled in the years ahead.  There was now at least some compensation for those injured, disabled and families of those who were killed, though for loggers, 90+% were unmarried and most were bereft of family.

Data Source: Industrial Insurance Commission of the State of Washington, as reported in "More Deadly than War", Andrew Prouty, Garland Publishing, 1985

Big Money in those days and a Big Problem.  We should not underestimate the importance of the 1911 Workers' Compensation Insurance legislation for shining a bright light on what was a much bigger problem than anyone knew - and in logging and sawmilling it was going to get a lot worse before it got better.  

 

 

1880 to 1911 - The Lethal Hey-Days of Northwest Logging

Bestowing statehood on Washington State in November 1889 officially recognized our region as a coming economic and trade powerhouse.  With just 160,176 MBF* of lumber produced here in 1880, government estimates for state wide production had grown to 1,061,560 MBF by 1890, 1,428,205 MBF in 1900 and a whopping 4,097,492 MBF by 1910.  Our state thus leapfrogged all others, becoming the Number 1 producer of lumber in the country by 1909.  California and Oregon trailed far behind, ranked just 7th and 17th respectively.  

As promoters proudly pointed out, Washington State's 318 sawmills and shingle mills now employed 2,768 men in sawmills, 2,346 at shingle mills, 2,530 in logging camps and 1,700 in bolt cutting.  We were now producing enough lumber each year to build a fence that spanned all the way around the world's equator.  Unfortunately, there was also a soft underbelly to all of this apparent success.  

• By some estimates, approximately 70% of merchantable timber was being left in the woods to rot - wasted because it was too expensive to transport to a mill.
• Turnover of loggers in logging camps reached as high as 600%.  The common joke was that logging camps had three crews - one coming, one going and one working.
• Single men accounted for 90% or more of the workforce in the woods.
• Camp life was less than a "healthy" environment, with alcohol abuse and fighting quite common.
• Though not often spoken about, the toll in lives lost and disabling injuries was enormous and growing at an accelerating pace.

Fortunately, this was a time when labor unions had power and influence - publicly focusing attention on the men's working conditions.  The result in 1911, the State Legislature passed the Workmen's Compensation Act of the State of Washington.

The Act accomplished at least two critical goals - (1) shining a light on the horrible conditions and danger faced by logging and mill workers and (2) provided at least some compensation for the losses suffered by workers and family as a result of their work environment.

Before "no-fault" employer funded Workers Compensation came to be in the State, workers faced an enormous uphill battle.  Employers were gratuitously willing to pay a standard $75 burial fee for those killed.  But workers and/or their families had to bring a lawsuit in civil court and "prove" that the company was at fault for a workers' injuries or death to receive compensation for their loss.  Given the mountain in front of them, only about 10% of workers/families filed suit and of these, just 10% or so were successful.  And if successful, guess who got the money - their lawyers received most of the settlement, followed by the employer's insurance company for "administrative services", leaving little to nothing for workers.  Yikes, what a system.

Fortunately, with courts becoming clogged and a strong union presence, the Legislature took action.  And soon, with a State Agency collecting information about how big the industry safety problems really were, change finally began to come to the industry.  However, with logging and sawmill technologies also changing rapidly, becoming even more dangerous in the process, it would be a long time before safety became the priority it needed to be.  More about the post 1911 years in a future post.

* MBF = Thousand Board Feet

Raker Teeth

What technological innovation first made logging in the northwest possible?  If your answer was "raker" teeth on crosscut saws, go to the head of the class.  When loggers first arrived here, standard practice was to fell trees by chopping them down with a felling ax.  Can you imagine? 

Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, KIN045, Darius Kinsey photographer, 1890

Crosscut saws had been around for decades in the Midwest and northeast, but simply didn't work on large diameter softwood timber such as douglas fir, spruce and hemlock when trying to fell a tree.  Ok for bucking, but not felling.  They became bound up and clogged quickly in the moist and sticky pitch fiber/sawdust produced, making it impossible for even the hardiest of loggers to push and pull their "misery whips" back and forth cutting through a tree.  The innovation - add raker teeth to saw blades.  

Image courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service

The raker blade acted as a chisel to scoop out the wood between grooves scribed by the cutting teeth.

Additional fine tuning of saw blade design followed.  Notice the curvature added to both felling and bucking saw blades - further reduced sawblades getting bound up.  Bucking saws also were modified with raker teeth to make them more efficient.

Image courtesy U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service

Now, loggers could use their axe for cutting notches in the tree for supporting "springboards" and use saws for sawing.  It may seem obvious that "sawing" is more efficient than "chopping", but at the time, it was no small game changer.  Add a few chisels to limit binding up and you were good to go.  And don't fall off the springboard!

Courtesy University of Washington Libraries

Felling a 16 Foot Cedar

During the early days of logging in the northwest, it was not unusual for loggers to leave big timber standing.  Armed with ax and saw, determined loggers could fall a large tree, but once downed they often could not economically transport it to a mill, or even find a mill that could handle it.  One solution was to split the log, making it easier for a team of oxen or horses to drag along a skid road - but this significantly degraded the logs' value, particularly for douglas fir and western hemlock.  The exception was granddaddy cedar.

Image courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-63834, Darius Kinsey photographer, circa 1902

The image above shows a 16 foot in diameter cedar being felled in the Sedro Wooley area of Washington.  Once felled, the log could be readily split and bucked to length, making it easier to transport and in sizes suitable for a shingle mill.  Sad to see these granddaddies felled, but by the same token amazing at what these loggers could do. 

For more about cedar, follow this link to my earlier post Cedar - The Gold Standard.

Navigating Traffic

With all of the building going on in our area, particularly in Maple Valley, traffic patterns are changing and sometimes in surprising ways.  To adapt, I find myself increasingly relying on our car's navigation system to determine the best route, whether local or to more distant destinations.  In my earlier post Traffic Headaches, I focused on how our routing has changed just to get to our exercise club in Maple Valley, and improve safety at the same time.  What if we want to go to other places where it would seem we are more dependent on SR169 or perhaps Kent-Kangley?

To better understand Kent-Kangley centric routing options for us today, I chose to model making a visit to Trader Joe's market along 132nd Street/Kent-Kangley Road, just past Lake Meridian on the way to Kent and chose 3 different points of origin - our home at the north end of Lake Sawyer, Lawson Street in Black Diamond and traffic coming from Enumclaw, just to see how people are impacted differentially.  First, here's our routing from home in the morning, recorded at 8:47 am.

Not surprisingly, we were routed the "back way" along Covington Sawyer Rd. to by-pass Covington as the fastest route.  The routing from Lawson Street also offered no surprises, avoiding Kent-Kangley nearly all the way by taking Roberts Drive/Auburn Black Diamond Rd.  This one was recorded 8:59 am.

I did find it surprising that the projected arrival times for all three routes were about the same.  How about coming from Enumclaw at 9:11 am?

The preferred route according to Google?  Take SR169 to Green Valley Road, follow Green Valley Road, head north on 278th and up the hill to connect with the Auburn Black Diamond Rd and then following the same route as coming from Lawson Street.  Black Diamond is now also circumvented altogether.  Interestingly, taking SR164 from Enumclaw down to Auburn and then up Hwy 18 taking another "back road" to Kent-Kangley and Trader Joe's was only 5 minutes slower despite being 3 miles longer.  Going against traffic I guess.

What about returning in late afternoon?  Here's the routing map returning to Enumclaw recorded at 3:37 pm.

No change in Enumclaw routing and only 2 minutes slower than earlier in the day, at least on this day and time.

No change in Lawson Street preferred routing either, recorded at 4:06 pm, though now the apparent incentive to avoid SR169 and Covington is even greater.  The same is true for Judy and I, at least on this day, if returning home at 4:04 pm.

As one might expect, traffic routes that avoid Covington and Maple Valley, whether beginning from Enumclaw, Lawson Street or the north end of Lake Sawyer, appear to be consistently faster than the main thoroughfares.  One might also expect that the incentives for avoiding routes through the cities of Covington and Maple Valley will only increase.

Caveat - I use these maps recorded on a single day at discrete times only to illustrate the importance of modeling current and future traffic flows and making improvements at key locations as close to concurrently as possible, including intersections outside of town, including SR169/288th and SR169/Green Valley Road in King County.  This means working hand in hand with our neighbors, Covington, Maple Valley and King County, to prioritize and fund these improvements.  We can't do it alone.   And as individuals, I encourage us all to be involved with our City of Black Diamond to maintain this critical priority focus.

Thank you Google Maps and navigation tools, making our travel safer.

Truck Logging Circa 1921

By 1920, northwest logging had been largely transformed from a skid road horse and oxen regime to one dominated by donkey engines, high lead logging practices and logging railroads.  Because these technologies were capital intensive, particularly the railroads, the industry was largely dominated by the well capitalized big boys - such as Weyerhaeuser and St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company.  The end of WWI, however, placed the industry on the cusp of another major industry sea change - here came the log trucks.  Following the war, plenty of surplus trucks became available for the right price.  Soon, gone were the first generation log trucks, replaced by vehicles with much more powerful engines and better braking systems.  Solid narrow tires without tread, were replaced by wider pneumatic tires with tread, driving on much improved dirt roads.

The following photo taken in 1920 shows an early "open air" model being loaded using a spar tree boom.

Image courtesy Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-79123, circa 1921

Note the lift capacity of this boom rig!  The use of log trucks literally exploded from here with, by one estimate, over half of all logs transported to sawmills by truck in 1930.  Log trucks also served to transform the industry competitive landscape - giving birth to what became known as gyppo loggers, both loved and hated by many.