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East Oregonian
CHEESE: Will sell at local
farmers markets and stores
Continued from 1A
As for the rest of the
heifers, they will provide
milk for the Smiths’ new
creamery dubbed Smith’s
Tiny Farm, or STF. Belinda
said they could be making
cheese by January, if all goes
according to schedule.
Bob, a sixth-grade teacher
at Sandstone Elementary
School and retired Navy hull
technician, began building
the structure for a small chee-
semaking facility in June.
The couple currently has five
milking cows, and Belinda
said they will eventually end
up with eight, milking three
every day and processing
cheese with 30 gallons of
milk at a time.
“There’s just not a lot of
creameries around,” Smith
said. “It seemed totally
reasonable and practical to
us.”
The Smiths will sell STF
Creamery cheese at local
farmers markets and stores,
though that could take some
time. It takes at least 60 days
of aging before soft, raw milk
cheeses are ready for market.
Belinda Smith said they
will use whole cream milk
to make their cheese, which
could be pasteurized or not,
depending on the style.
Making cheese is a
science, Smith insists. Her
initial trials included making
Colby, Gouda, pepper jack
and cheddar in small batches
in her kitchen last winter. She
and Bob taste tested each one
with their prayer group at
New Hope Church, to rave
reviews.
“We begged them to be
honest,” Smith remembers.
“We had a Gouda with garlic
in it that everybody just
loved.”
Smith said she and her
husband take pride in being
largely self-sufficient making
their own food. In addition
to their cows, they also raise
chickens and run a commer-
cial greenhouse, growing a
variety of vegetables such
as tomatoes, onions and
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Belinda Smith leads Red, a six-month-old miniature
Jersey calf, out of his pen before giving the animal
over to zookeepers from the Woodland Park Zoo in
downtown Seattle.
Contributed image
The logo for Smith’s Tiny
Farm was created by Rob-
ert Smith, of Hermiston.
peppers.
The inspiration for STF
Creamery came from Yvonne
Carroll, who owns and oper-
ates the Umapine Creamery
in Milton-Freewater with her
husband, Brent. Smith said
they met last year through
Carroll’s
daughter-in-law,
Erica Turner-Carroll, and
spent a day together making
180 pounds of cheese up at
the Umapine farm.
Throughout the process,
Carroll said the Smiths came
to realize that cheesemaking
would be doable, that it would
be OK to make mistakes and
OK to experiment.
“You could tell they were
getting excited,” Carroll
said. “It’s about thinking and
relaxing and enjoying the
process.”
Smith said they have
ordered
cheesemaking
equipment, including a
60-gallon vat, cheese press
and vacuum sealer, through a
company based in Maryland.
The machinery should be
delivered sometime in the
next three weeks. Until then,
Smith said they are wrapping
up their permit for a confined
animal feeding operation
through the Oregon Depart-
ment of Agriculture.
Carroll said getting that
CAFO permit is the hardest
part of starting any creamery.
“It’s all the regulations,”
she said. “You have to have
a CAFO permit that dictates
how your waste is going to
be used.”
The payoff, however, is
being able to set up at farmers
markets and meeting people
from throughout the region,
she added.
“It’s just a fun place to be,”
Carroll said. “I think they’ll
have a blast, and I think
they’ll be well received.”
There are still finishing
touches to be done on their
milking parlor and building,
but Belinda Smith said she
and Bob are looking forward
to getting their new business
off the ground.
“This is the lifestyle we’ve
chosen,” Belinda Smith said.
“It just seems like the right
thing to do. And it’s fun.”
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
MARIJUANA: Three residents testified
Continued from 1A
Without the parks buffers,
marijuana stores would have
a much larger area to operate
in, including most of the
downtown area.
Restoring the park buffers
would leave only a handful
of commercial zones unaf-
fected, including sections of
Southeast Nye Avenue near
the Red Lion Hotel, a section
of Tutuilla Road between
Olney Cemetery and Grecian
Heights Park and an area just
southeast of Highway 11.
Out of the three Pendleton
residents who testified, two
were in favor of removing
the buffers and one was
against.
If the city was going to
set strict parameters around
where marijuana shops could
locate, resident Greg Brown
said the city should look into
stored that sold alcohol and
their proximity to schools
and parks.
Judy Witte said she had
already cast her ballot under
the assumption that there
would be park buffers, and if
the council changed its mind,
she would have voted differ-
ently. Witte did not indicate
how she voted for the three
marijuana-related measures.
Councilor Chuck Wood
agreed with Witte and said
the council needed to be
consistent in the zoning
rules.
Wood moved to retain
the park-buffer language and
make some other changes
from the planning commis-
sion’s draft, which won
unanimous support from the
rest of the council.
City Manager Robb
Corbett said the council
would need to approve a
special marijuana business
license at its next meeting
if either the medical or
recreational marijuana sales
measures passes.
The city’s current busi-
ness license bars any busi-
ness that violates federal law.
———
Contact Antonio Sierra at
asierra@eastoregonian.com
or 541-966-0836.
POLL: No Republican has been elected
governor in Oregon since Vic Atiyeh in 1982
Continued from 1A
to 9 percent. More than
40 percent of voters are
still undecided, however,
meaning the final vote could
go either way.
In a more predictable
result, the poll shows
Democrat Kate Brown
has a 9-point lead over
Republican Bud Pierce in
the governor’s race. No
Republican has been elected
governor in Oregon since
Vic Atiyeh in 1982.
The winner will serve
out the remaining two
years of former Gov. John
Kitzhaber’s
term.
He
resigned amid an ethics
scandal in February 2015,
and Brown, who was then
secretary of state, succeeded
him.
Likewise, the poll shows
Democrat Hillary Clinton
in a strong position to
defeat Republican Donald
Trump in Oregon. In the
presidential race, Clinton is
leading Trump by a margin
of 41 percent to 34 percent,
the poll found. Clinton’s
7-point lead is smaller than
President Barack Obama’s
12-point victory in 2012 and
16-point victory in 2008.
The poll found 72 percent
of Democrats plan to vote
for Clinton, compared with
65 percent of Republicans
who plan to vote for Trump.
Eleven percent of voters are
undecided and 3 percent
may skip the race.
The poll of 504 Oregon
voters was conducted from
Oct. 25 through 29. It has
a margin of error of plus or
minus 4.4 percent.
To see more detailed
findings, visit http://tinyurl.
com/hfc3kl3.
EAGLES: Two captive eagles almost ready for release
Continued from 1A
Reservation, doesn’t know
for sure what motivated the
two birds.
“They are pretty social
birds,” Scheeler said. “It
could have been a couple
of males trying to court the
female. It might have been a
response to hearing the calls
of the other eagles.”
The two captive eagles
are almost ready for
release, Tompkins said. An
immature female bird that
appeared to be starving
was rescued by campers at
Jubilee Campground last
summer. The eagle, which
weighed only 2.7 kilograms
when she arrived at the
facility, now weighs more
than five kilograms.
The other, an adult male,
was taken to a veterinarian,
where it was treated for low
levels of lead and general
malaise. It was failing when
it arrived at Blue Mountain
Wildlife. Slowly, the bird
improved.
Tomkins said both birds
will be released at the
McNary National Wildlife
Refuge near Burbank, Wash-
ington, in mid-November.
“That’s a time when there
are a lot of waterfowl at the
refuge,” Tomkins said.
The visiting eagles
reappeared at the rescue
facility on Tuesday morning
for another sweep around
the compound and returned
periodically throughout the
day.
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
Congratulations to
G R E G WA L D E N . CO M
Greg Walden:
DELIVERING FOR OREGON
C ORNERSTONE
1055 S. Hwy 395, Suite 313,
Hermiston, OR 97838
Phone: 541-289-5454
Fax: 541-289-5456
www.hermistoncornerstone.com
Ensuring our Veterans Get the Care
and Benefits They Have Earned
and Deserve
Growing Jobs and Solving Problems
in Our Rural Communities
Fighting for Better Management of
Our Forests and Access
to Our Public Lands
Reducing the Government’s
Spending and Debt
Vote Greg Walden for Congress
www.GregWalden.com
PAID FOR BY WALDEN FOR CONGRESS, INC.
Heidi was born in Spokane Washington on July 1, 1970. She has been
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she worked at UPS for 17 years. After she quit UPS to help take care of her
mother, she started a house cleaning business named Ms. Mops. It was at
this time that she decided to go online to find her true love. I met Heidi in
2008. When we met she had two boys Tanner and Casey. I had three boys
Kenny, Stanley, and Evan. When she decided to move down here she wanted
to try real estate as a hobby job and stay at home with the boys. That worked
for almost a month and she started doing real estate full-time. I donʼt think
sheʼs really cut out for stay-at-home mom duties. In the beginning it was pretty
slow for her. Well as we all know she turned out to be a pretty darn good
agent and I think she now knows more people in town than I do. Well to make
a long story short itʼs going on nine years now and she is almost the shortest
one in the family. So if you want to know why sheʼs always wearing those tall
heels is because she is trying to keep up with the boys. Heidiʼs hobbies
include: working in the yard and working at work.
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