Collins Excavation, LLC

About Collins Excavation, LLC

Selah sits where the Yakima River cuts through a gap in the ridge, orchard rows climbing the benches on either side and sagebrush hills standing dry and pale above them, and winter here rarely means deep snow so much as a hard, sudden cold that locks up a gravel lane overnight. Collins Excavation, LLC runs the same loaders and graders through January that it runs cutting building pads in July, because a driveway frozen into ruts or dusted with an inch of high-desert snow needs the same steady blade work as any other grading job. Orchardists in the Wenas and up toward Selah Butte need their lanes open early, before the frost fans start and someone has to drive the rows checking for damage, so the plowing often starts in the dark with headlights catching frost on bare apple branches. The Yakima River valley holds cold air low some mornings even under a clear sky, the kind of still, blue-white morning that looks nothing like a storm but freezes a driveway just the same. Getting that lane open before the orchard day starts is a small piece of a much bigger season, but it's the piece that makes everything after it possible.