B
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
The Observer & Baker City Herald
Small-business & Ag
HAPPENINGS
ARTISTRY IN LEATHER
Nature’s Pantry sets
winter hours
LA GRANDE — Nature’s Pantry, 1907
Fourth St., La Grande, began its winter
hours Nov. 8. The store’s hours now in effect
are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thurs-
day, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, and 10 a.m.
to 5 p.m. on Sunday.
Potter’s House hosts early
Christmas party
LA GRANDE — The Potter’s House Gal-
lery, 1601 Sixth St., La Grande, is having a
two-day early Christmas open house this
weekend. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 15
and Nov. 16, the public is invited to stop by
for homemade goodies and to see the Pot-
ter’s House holiday decor and gifts.
Market Place hosts Holiday
open house and birthday party
LA GRANDE — Lucy’s Market Under-
ground Boutiques are having a holiday
open house from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 15
and Nov. 16 at 1101 Washington Ave., La
Grande. The Underground features 19
fashion and home decor boutiques. The
open house will include refreshments and
door prizes and open house specials at Thai
Fresh Gardens.
Upstairs on Nov. 16, Le Bebe Cakes Bak-
ery Cafe will be celebrating its third birth-
day. The fi rst 50 customers on Saturday will
get a free birthday confetti cupcake, and the
cafe will have an all-day birthday special:
buy any two drinks or pastries and get the
third free.
Pulp, paper industry safety
conference coming to Portland
SALEM — Workers, contractors and
employers in Oregon’s pulp, paper and
forest products industries are invited to
attend a Dec. 3-6 conference in Portland
that will highlight best safety and health
practices in their respective fi elds. The
29th annual Western Pulp, Paper & Forest
Products Safety & Health Conference will
offer sessions including an examination of
emergency preparedness issues, such as
earthquakes and subduction zones, and
personal and job site disaster preparedness.
The Occupational Safety and Health
Division is one of several partners present-
ing the four-day conference at the Red
Lion Hotel on the River in Portland. Todd
Conklin, a human- and organization-perfor-
mance consultant, will deliver the keynote
presentation Dec. 3. Conklin will discuss
how rapidly changing technology has cre-
ated new dimensions in how people react to
their surroundings. Additionally, the confer-
ence will feature exhibits, company safety
meetings, roundtable discussions and more
than 35 workshops.
The registration fee is $300 to attend the
full conference or $100 per day. To register,
go to https://safetyseries.cvent.com/wp-
pfp19. If you have questions or need help
registering, call the Oregon OSHA Confer-
ence Section at 503-947-7411.
Farmers encouraged to ‘Keep
the Stubble’ during No-Till
November — put away the plow
to minimize disturbance and
maximize healthy soil
PORTLAND — This month the USDA
Natural Resources Conservation Service is
encouraging farmers to “keep the stubble”
on their harvested crop fi elds and improve
soil health during No-Till November. First
launched in 2017 by NRCS Iowa, the No-Till
November campaign is mirrored after the
national cancer awareness No Shave Novem-
ber movement that encourages people not to
shave during the entire month. The NRCS
campaign encourages farmers to leave their
tillage equipment in their machine sheds this
fall and keep the crop stubble on their fi elds.
In the past two years, the campaign has
reached more than 1 million people. Improv-
ing soil health increases soil biological activity,
which provides erosion control, nutrient
benefi ts, and can simulate tillage.
“No-till farming is a cornerstone soil
health conservation practice, which also
promotes water quality while saving farm-
ers time and money,” said Cory Owens,
state soil scientist for NRCS Oregon. “One
of the fi rst soil health principles is ‘do not
disturb.’ This campaign is a fun way to re-
mind farmers about the important relation-
ship between tillage and soil health.”
For more information about soil health in
Oregon, including success stories from Or-
egon farmers who are keeping the stubble,
visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/
main/or/soils/health.
Kathy Hunter/For EO Media Group
Pulling strings and working leather is hard on hands. Wilson has had his right hand surgically renovated. Here he is working on a saddle
for a rancher in Wyoming. “A girl there had one, he rode it, and he liked it,” Wilson said. Many of his saddles are sold by word of mouth.
By Kathy Hunter
For EO Media Group
In Joseph, Ray Wilson works
steadily, building beautiful
tooled saddles. His craft recalls
an era when pride of workman-
ship could be seen in serviceable
items, and when no two were
alike. Wilson has produced more
than 300 saddles in his lifetime,
and his saddles can be found in
any states where roping and cut-
ting are prevalent. Most of them
are sold by word of mouth and
from his website. When trainer
Barry Cox took one to a clinic
he gave in Alaska, he came back
with 12 new orders.
“I started later in life,” Wilson
said of his total of 300. “Some
have made 1,000.”
The fi rst half of Wilson’s life
was spent in a tent in Snake
River country, with a family
that managed sheep camps.
In an area along the Snake so
remote it can only be traveled
on horseback, they raised wool
for the Pendleton Woolen Mill.
Wilson grew up delivering goods
to camps with pack trains, boat-
ing the Snake River, attending
school in Grangeville, Idaho, and
killing rattlesnakes and cougars.
“In the early history (of the
canyon), predators killed every-
thing. You had to declare war on
predators before you could run
any stock,” Wilson recalled.
Bears would chase sheep until
they piled up on logs, and eagles
preyed on lambs. In a blood
frenzy, cougars ran through
a fl ock “batting them left and
right and leaving a trail of dead
sheep. They hardly ever ate one
of them.”
The only effective way to hunt
cougars in that country was to
tree them with dogs. The fi rst
cougar Wilson shot weighed
more than 120 pounds. Over
the years he killed 25, usually
1- to 2-year-olds weighing 70-80
pounds. As was usual, Wilson
would skin the cougar and bring
out the hide to sell.
In his younger years, Wilson
collected rattlesnake tails, a
whole drawer full. No one in his
family was ever bitten, he said,
but snakes were a special haz-
ard when moving a pack string
on the steep side hills in the can-
yon. A spooked animal might go
off the trail and be lost, pack and
all. But generally, “I clobbered
them with rocks,” he said. “They
can’t strike very far.”
If a dog was bitten it would
swell, but “it wouldn’t kill them.
We had a pool of water outside the
house where there was a faucet
from a spring. The dog would lie
in that water and mud to heal.”
The Snake River life ended in
1973, when Wilson was 30. After
a bitter fi ght, the Forest Service
acquired the Wilson land for
a National Recreation Area. A
price for the Wilsons’ 4,400 acres
was agreed on, and “it cost 1/3 of
what we got, for the lawyer.”
After that, Wilson lived in
Halfway awhile, then in Baker,
and eventually he wound up in
Joseph with a saddle shop. The
fi rst saddle he made, in 1996,
was crafted out of a book and his
curiosity. He rode in it for a year
and then sold it to earn enough
money to make another. People
asked for more, and in Joseph he
averaged 20 saddles a year. Re-
cently, that fi rst saddle he made
came back for a minor repair. It
was still being ridden.
When crafted to fi t both horse
and rider, a saddle requires
much planning before execution.
Measurements of width and
height are important, and he
must know all about the horse:
“what kind — narrow withers
or round back — and what they
had trouble with in the past.” It
will matter whether the horse is
to be ridden in the hills or in an
arena. “If a horse is working, his
back is shaped different.” He can
be one shape in the spring and
after being ridden awhile his
back will change, and a horse’s
back will also change as he ages,
Wilson said.
The seat size of the saddle
depends on the rider’s thigh
measurement, “not their rear
end,” he said. The saddles are
crafted on a traditional wooden
tree covered with rawhide. The
starting cost for a new saddle
Kathy Hunter/For EO Media Group
Every year Ray Wilson creates chaps to auction off at the Chief
Joseph Rodeo Days to benefi t cancer research.
Kathy Hunter/For EO Media Group
Wilson’s Saddlery, in Joseph, also crafts album covers, breast
collars, chaps, cowboy cuffs, headstalls, bridles, and gun and
knife scabbards (shown here). All are evidence of Wilson’s
patience and artistry, and each is one of a kind.
is $2,800, with a price increase
for tooling and the addition of
silver decoration. Wilson likes
to keep a few saddles on hand
for customers. He also sells used
saddles for friends because “rid-
ers get old.”
Wilson’s Saddlery also crafts
album covers, breast collars,
chaps, cowboy cuffs, headstalls,
bridles, and gun and knife
scabbards. All are evidence of
Wilson’s patience and artistry,
and each is one of a kind.