2A — THE OBSERVER
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019
LOCAL
Hunting
buffer
removed
from lake
WALLOWA COUNTY
D AILY
P LANNER
TODAY
Today is Friday, Oct. 11,
the 284th day of 2019. There
are 81 days left in the year.
By Steve Tool and Ellen
Morris Bishop
EO Media Group
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On Oct. 11, 1986, Presi-
dent Ronald Reagan and
Soviet leader Mikhail S.
Gorbachev opened two
days of talks concerning
arms control and human
rights in Reykjavik, Iceland.
ON THIS DATE
In 1809, just over three
years after the famous
Lewis and Clark expedi-
tion ended, Meriwether
Lewis was found dead in a
Tennessee inn, an apparent
suicide; he was 35.
In 1906, the San Francisco
Board of Education ordered
the city’s Asian students
segregated in a purely
“Oriental” school. (The
order was later rescinded
at the behest of President
Theodore Roosevelt, who
promised to curb future
Japanese immigration to
the United States.)
In 1910, Theodore
Roosevelt became the fi rst
former U.S. president to fl y
in an airplane during a visit
to St. Louis.
In 1958, the lunar probe
Pioneer 1 was launched;
it failed to go as far out as
planned, fell back to Earth,
and burned up in the atmo-
sphere.
In 1983, the last full-
fl edged hand-cranked tele-
phone system in the United
States went out of service
as 440 telephone customers
in Bryant Pond, Maine, were
switched over to direct-dial
service.
In 2001, in his fi rst prime-
time news conference since
taking offi ce, President
George W. Bush said “it
may take a year or two”
to track down Osama bin
Laden and his terrorist net-
work in Afghanistan, but he
asserted that after a fi ve-day
aerial bombardment, “we’ve
got them on the run.”
In 2006, a single-engine
plane carrying New York Yan-
kees pitcher Cory Lidle and
fl ight instructor Tyler Stanger
crashed into a high-rise
apartment building in New
York City, killing both men.
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Win for Life: Oct. 9
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• 7 p.m.: 2-9-7-6
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NEWSPAPER LATE?
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liver your Observer in a timely
manner. Occasionally condi-
tions exist that make delivery
more diffi cult.
If you are not on a motor
route, delivery should be
before 5:30 p.m. If you do not
receive your paper by 5:30 p.m.
Monday through Friday, please
call 541-963-3161 by 6 p.m.
If your delivery is by
motor carrier, delivery
should be by 6 p.m. For calls
after 6, please call 541-975-
1690, leave your name,
address and phone number.
Your paper will be delivered
the next business day.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Modesty is the highest
form of arrogance.”
— German saying
Bill Bradshaw/EO Media Group
Patrick Thiel shows off the variety of colors he gets in his organic carrots and beets Oct. 2, at the land he leases
just west of Lostine. The plot is protected by a deer fence, without which he’d be unable to harvest a crop.
Organic farmer in Joseph
finds market in Portland
By Bill Bradshaw
EO Media Group
JOSEPH — The life of a
farmer isn’t easy and when
you add organics into the
mix, it becomes even more
diffi cult.
“Farming is tough,” said
Patrick Thiel, who oper-
ates Prairie Creek Farms
on about 25 acres of leased
land near Joseph and
another few acres outside
of Lostine. “There’s times
the weather will wipe you
out. There are times other
things will wipe you out.
There are times when it’ll
turn out OK, but those are
getting fewer and further in
between.”
Unlike many in the Wal-
lowa Valley, who rely chiefl y
on cattle, hay or small
grains, Thiel has a wide
variety of crops, including
several varieties of potatoes,
beets and carrots — all
grown to organic specifi ca-
tions.
Not all chemicals are
banned in organic farming,
he said. Often, common,
everyday, and non-toxic (to
humans) substances can be
used instead. For example,
ordinary vinegar that can
be used as an herbicide. For
fertilizer, he uses kelp and
molasses diluted in water.
“The overall goal is to
avoid sterilizing the soil or
introducing substances that
destroy the function of the
soil,” Thiel said.
It’s true that running an
organic operation allows
for more pests and weeds,
Thiel said. However, if a
weedkiller such as Roundup
is used, “It makes it more
profi table in the short term,”
he said. “But in 10 to 50
years, you’ll have more dif-
fi culty controlling pests and
Bill Bradshaw/EO Media Group
Organic farmer Patrick Thiel, center, discusses the ripe-
ness and quality of his potato crop with his employees
Jerry Sparks, left, and Jody Rowe after a freeze killed
the vine tops Oct. 2, at Thiel’s potato farm near Joseph.
weeds” because they become
resistant to the chemical.
Organic farming is “more
labor intensive, but it’s more
productive in the long run,”
he said.
“One thing that hap-
pens when you introduce
high levels of nitrogen is it
reduces lot of the green foli-
age, but the product is more
watery,” Thiel said. “Because
of the high nitrates, you
don’t get as good a fl avor.”
While organically grown
produce remains more
expensive than its commer-
cial counterparts, the gap is
narrowing.
“The organic industry has
been growing by an average
of 20% a year for many
years,” Thiel said. “The
fi rst farms were small – a
scale that can’t compare to
a 5,000-acre (commercial)
farm. In recent years, more
of the larger farms have
been converting to organic.”
While his cost for produc-
tion is higher, the market
value of his produce is
“roughly double,” he said,
but that “depends on the
market.” Thiel and his cus-
tomers, all consider that his
Prairie farms produce has
much better fl avor that even
many organic competitors.
Thiel’s market is primar-
ily high-end restaurants in
the Portland area. What he
doesn’t sell in Portland will
be available at local farmers
markets.
Johnson
Family Fruits
He said he’s heard stories
from his Portland customers
of occasions when he’d run
out of product and restau-
rants would have to look
elsewhere.
“Diners would come back
into the kitchen and say,
‘What happened to your
potatoes? What happened to
your carrots?’ ” Thiel said.
Potato harvest had just
gotten underway in a seri-
ous fashion Oct. 2, when the
weather dropped to 24 de-
grees Fahrenheit and got a
good start on killing the tops
of the plants. The tubers
still have to remain in the
ground a couple of weeks to
allow the skins to set, but
Thiel is fi nding some he can
harvest.
“I’ve got a dozen variet-
ies of potatoes and some
of them are good to go and
some need to mature up,”
he said.
“That’s all part of the
reason for having a variety.
It hedges your bets against
all your weather patterns,
your timing, your disease
and pest issues and your
climate getting too wet or
too dry.”
ENTERPRISE — A
change to the state’s hunt-
ing regulations has Wallowa
County residents asking
questions.
In the 2019 Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wildlife hunting regula-
tions, a quarter-mile-wide
no-hunting buffer around the
perimeter of Wallowa Lake
was removed. Residents
and business owners have
expressed concern that hunt-
ing in this area of private
residences would endanger
human safety, and given the
tame nature of the deer, was
unsportsmanlike.
Residents and business
owners in the Wallowa Lake
Village area expressed strong
concerns about ODFW’s omis-
sion of regulations that pro-
hibited deer hunting in their
residential neighborhoods.
“The deer here are a tour-
ist attraction, worth a lot
to Wallowa County,” Susan
Esvelt said. “They walk right
up to people. These aren’t
wild deer. This isn’t hunting.
It isn’t sportsmanlike.”
Beyond the deer, residents
also worried about hunting
in such a highly populated
area.
Jill Zundel, who worked
at Wallowa Lake Lodge as a
teenager, now spends sum-
mer and early fall in the fam-
ily’s longtime cabin along the
Wallowa River, and worries
about the safety of her and
her dog.
“I don’t think anyone
should hunt these deer.
They’re like pets,” she said.
At the Scenic Meadows RV
Park, where go-carts occupy
the track during the summer,
owner Greg Jarman said the
area should remain a no-
hunting zone.
“The whole idea of hunting
here is a little crazy,” he said.
“ODFW should have left it as
it was.”
Jarman said he had not
encountered any hunters, or
heard any shots.
“But there doesn’t seem
to be as many deer here as
there used to be,” he noted.
Wallowa County commis-
sioners can designate the
area a no-hunting zone.
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