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CapitalPress.com
December 1, 2017
Ranch owners start from scratch
By GAIL OBERST
For the Capital Press
AIRLIE, Ore. — Karin
Stutzman, in her second year
as a cattle ranch owner with
her husband, Terry, considers
herself lucky.
If the Stutzmans hadn’t
heard about the land the first
day it was listed, Karin said,
they might still be looking.
“It was prime property,”
she said, looking down the
Luckiamute River valley from
her hillside perch on the West-
ern Skies Cattle Ranch.
But, prime for what?
When they began looking
for land, the Stutzmans simply
wanted ground to farm. Both
are in their 40s with agricul-
tural connections: Karin is the
manager of the Polk Soil and
Water Conservation District;
Terry is farm manager for the
McKee River Ranch, a grass
seed and hay operation with
acreage in Polk and Yamhill
counties. They were anxious
to own a farm or ranch.
Once they had the land in
hand, Karin said she began re-
searching the best farming use
of this dry and hilly, oak-cov-
ered property. With SWCD
resources available to anyone,
she discovered the soil types,
slopes, rainfall and history of
her property. The hills were
too steep for cropping. The
soils, Jory and Bellpine in
places, had them considering
wine grapes.
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Gail Oberst/For the Capital Press
Karin Stutzman and her dog, Lucky, at Western Skies Cattle Ranch, check their Hereford and Angus
cross herd. Karin and her husband, Terry, are using cattle to help restore the native oak savannah.
native oak savannah, which
was for thousands of years
burned by Native Americans
who used fire as a tool for
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But most of the soil was
Dayton and Suver types,
poorly drained loam-silt soils
common to the valley hill-
sides.
Here, oak trees, with
fir, poison oak, blackber-
ries and hawthorn, mocked
cultivation. The couple re-
viewed the land’s histo-
ry — it had been a hillside
dairy farm in the 1940s, with
crops grown on the bottom
acreage.
But about 20 years ago, the
farm began to fall into ruin.
By 2015, When the Stutzmans
bought the land, its fences,
barn, and culverts needed se-
rious repairs.
Even so, the upland could
handle a small herd of beef
cattle, the Stutzmans decided,
naming their ranch Western
Skies, for the panoramic view.
They fenced off 73 acres of
range, and rented out the low-
er 40 acres to an annual crop
farmer.
Today 19 cattle range in
a portion of the 113 acres of
oak- and fir-covered hillside
above the Luckiamute Riv-
er in Polk County, Ore. They
rotate the Hereford and An-
gus cross cattle through four
sections of the range, moving
them to a new section every
six weeks, April through No-
vember.
The cattle’s rangeland
diet does more than produce
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hunting, plant cultivation and
gathering.
The couple is hoping to
restore some aspects of a sa-
vannah, with help from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Part-
ners Program and other con-
servation partnerships. They
worked out a plan for spray-
ing, clearing, planting, main-
taining and grazing that was
beneficial to cattle as well as
to Oregon’s native white oak
and the wildlife that thrive
in it.
“We thought the only way
to clean up the place is with
help, like these programs of-
fer,” Karin said. Some of the
help comes from her four-
legged foragers. “The cows
are good grazers. They keep
down the fuels, the grasses,
mainly.”
With little cattle expe-
rience, Karin said they’ve
learned a lot in the past two
years. Some things, the hard
way.
“Shots within three days
of birth, or you’re in a heap
of trouble,” she said, re-
calling the bruises from
kicks delivered by older and
healthy calves. “Get them
while they’re still wobbly and
weak!”
Are there other crops in
the future? Maybe, Karin
said. But for now, they will
continue building their herd
to sell five or six cows direct
to consumers while protecting
the land.