June 22, 2018
CapitalPress.com
Reclamation chief
revitalizes agency’s
infrastructure mission
Sheep shearing is for women, too
By CRAIG REED
For the Capital Press
ROSEBURG, Ore. —
Katherine Ritchie was up to
the challenge when it was im-
plied that shearing sheep was
a man’s job.
Several months later, the
young woman from the Rose-
burg area attended a shearing
school at Washington State
University in Pullman. She
has now been shearing for six
years.
“It is very physically de-
manding work, very mentally
demanding,” she said during
a break at a four-day shearing
school on the Dawson Ranch.
She was an instructor at the
school that attracted four
teenagers, one being a female,
and one adult.
“You have to convince
yourself to grab another
sheep,” said the 25-year-old
Ritchie. “When you are stand-
ing around feeling tired, no
sheep are getting shorn.”
Because of the physical-
ity of holding a 150-pound
ewe or a slightly lighter lamb
between your knees and feet
while working electric blades
over the animal’s skin to re-
move the wool fleece, shearing
is not a job that attracts many
women.
Ritchie was inspired to
learn how to handle sheep and
the clippers back when she
was helping push her family’s
sheep through a chute and into
a shearing trailer. She said it
was a 100-degree day so she
had stepped inside the trailer
for some shade when a mem-
ber of the shearing crew made
a sexist comment, insinuating
that since she was a girl, she
couldn’t handle shearing.
Ritchie has since advanced
to where she is not only a full-
time shearer, but also an in-
structor. She has also earned
the respect of that person who
inspired her and they are now
friends. In addition to instruct-
ing five students at the recent
Dawson Ranch school, she was
an instructor at a week-long
school at Washington State
University in April.
“You really have to want to
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
and a similar
bill is await-
ing a full Sen-
ate vote, she
said.
Both bills
represent an
Brenda
increase of
Burman
more
than
$400 million
over the agen-
cy’s current budget.
“It’s our job with you to
take advantage of this. We
need to make sure we’re
thinking big,” she said.
Going forward, infrastruc-
ture is the absolute key to a
reliable water supply, and
there is a need for more proj-
ects in Idaho, she said.
“My goal in the next
couple of years is to have
Idaho projects on the map.
We want to have your back
and be a partner with you in
bringing projects forward,”
she said.
She encouraged water
users to get the backing for
projects they’d like see, work
with regional leadership and
bring the details to Reclama-
tion.
Reclamation recommends
projects to Congress for au-
thorization, and Idaho needs
to be ready to compete, she
said, adding that California is
already primed with projects
for consideration.
The agency is currently
conducting a feasibility study
on increasing water storage
in the Boise River system by
potentially raising the Arrow-
rock Dam about 10 feet and
the Anderson Ranch Dam
about 6 feet, she said.
At the national level, wa-
ter infrastructure sometimes
gets lost in water quality and
flooding issues — such as
the Flint, Mich., lead issue
and flooding from Hurri-
canes Harvey, Irma and Ma-
ria, she said.
“We need to keep west-
ern water infrastructure at
the top of the conversation,”
she said.
Capital Press
Craig Reed/For the Capital Press
Katherine Ritchie, left, instructs student Chloe Fink on the proper techniques of using shears and
holding a sheep while removing the fleece from the animal. Women sheep shearers are rare and there
is a need for more shearers so Ritchie was happy to be instructing at a school where the five students
included one female, Fink.
do this,” she said of shearing.
“You have to want to learn. You
have to learn how to hold them
(sheep) and to have the proper
footwork.”
Wendy Wyatt Valentine of
Langlois, Ore., and Diane Isen-
hart of Coquille, Ore., are both
long-time shearers. They both
got into it because shearing is
in their family’s history, dating
back several generations. Their
fathers, Fred Wyatt and Hank
Isenhart, were on some shear-
ing crews together.
Wendy Valentine, who is 53,
and Diane Isenhart, 42, agree
that there aren’t many women
in the profession. They admit it
is hard work, but add that wom-
en can do it and that there is a
need for more shearers.
“It’s a tough world, it’s a
man’s world, it really is,” Is-
enhart said of shearing. “But
I’m not saying a woman can’t
do it. You just need to learn the
physics of it, how to do it the
easiest way because we’re not
built like men and we’re not
as strong as men. If you learn
to do it right, if you learn how
to control the animal, then
you can still get that big sheep
sheared.”
Valentine said she is hap-
py to see anybody get into
the shearing business because
many older shearers, like her-
self, are easing up on the num-
ber of sheep they are shearing
and there is a need for younger
people in the profession.
“It’s a male-dominated pro-
fession, but even though we’re
built different, we can still shear
sheep,” she said of women.
When she was 20, Isenhart
traveled to New Zealand and
sheared 250 lambs in a nine-
hour day. On that same trip, she
did 204 ewes in an eight-hour
day.
Valentine, when she was
in her early 20s, sheared 208
sheep in just under eight hours.
She stopped because there were
no more sheep.
Isenhart said that now she
just does small flocks of sheep,
but she still loves working with
the animals.
“You don’t do something
for 28 years and not like it,”
she said. “Anybody can shear
sheep, it is just a matter of
whether you’re going to shear
the second one and then the
10th one when your body be-
gins to hurt.”
Valentine said the only
women she knows in western
Oregon who have been shear-
ing full-time are Isenhart and
Ritchie.
While Valentine and Isen-
hart are shearing less, Ritchie
has been working on some
bigger jobs that have ranged
up to a few thousand animals.
7
In addition to Oregon, she has
sheared in Washington, Mon-
tana, California and North
Dakota. She was planning to
attend an advanced shearing
school in South Dakota this
month.
“There’s always more to be
learned,” she said of shearing.
“There’s always little things
you can learn to be better.”
Ritchie doesn’t mind shar-
ing those details with stu-
dents at shearing schools be-
cause she has seen first-hand
that there is a need for more
shearers. She explained that
if a veteran shearer is injured
and can’t continue, that’s up
to 200 animals a day that ar-
en’t being sheared, putting
a shearing crew behind and
there’s only a few spring
months to get the job done.
At the Dawson Ranch
school, 19-year-old Chloe
Fink was learning how to
shear under the guidance of
Ritchie. Fink had learned
how to clip lambs for show
during her 4-H years, but
now she was learning shear-
ing techniques.
“I think we’re just as ca-
pable,” Fink said. “Men are
stronger, they have natu-
ral-born strength, so some-
times we (women) just
have to work smarter than
harder.”
SUN VALLEY, Idaho
— The Trump administra-
tion is ringing in a new era
at the Bureau of Reclama-
tion, one that harkens back
to earlier days of ambitious
water-storage projects.
The administration and
Interior Secretary Ryan Zin-
ke are “very focused” on in-
frastructure, and Reclamation
wants to partner with water
users to bring new projects
forward, Brenda Burman,
Bureau of Reclamation com-
missioner, said during the
Idaho Water Users Associ-
ation water law conference
last week.
“We are here and ready to
work on projects, infrastruc-
ture in the West. Take advan-
tage of that. It’s not that big
a window. It’s going to go by
incredibly fast,” she said.
From her perspective,
Reclamation has the most
impressive and important
mission in the country: find-
ing ways to provide a reliable
water supply in wet years
and dry years — whether it’s
flooding or drought, she said.
“Reclamation helped set-
tle the West. In a lot of ways,
I feel like we lost our path in
doing those big projects,” she
said.
The pioneers in western
water storage wanted to en-
sure a reliable water supply
20, 40, 50 years down the
road and built big infrastruc-
ture, she said.
“In some ways, that’s
skipped a generation. It’s not
building storage in the last
generation that has us behind
today,” she said.
But the agency is now fo-
cusing on infrastructure and
how to make it reliable for the
next 40 years, and Congress
is providing opportunity.
The House just passed the
Fiscal Year 2019 appropria-
tions bill providing more than
$1.5 billion for Reclamation,
Integrated Biological Systems buys Texas supplier
we have had tremendous
breakthroughs and improve-
ments in the products,” he
said.
Revenues have grown
recently at IBS and in agri-
culture’s biological enhance-
ment segment in general,
Miller said. Major agricul-
tural chemical companies
also are buying bio enter-
prises.
“Input costs are one thing
driving an increase in sales
in the industry in general,”
he said. “The other thing is
that farmers are beginning
to understand that soil im-
provement is very import-
ant.”
Biological
companies
such as IBS and the newly
acquired BioPlus essentially
deal with enzymes that work
as probiotics in soil.
Miller said fertilizers can
improve mineral content
in soil but often cannot im-
prove soil’s ability to take
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
signed to increase sugars in
plants such as sugar beets.
The company continues to
test products for release next
year, one formulated to help
preserve silage — which can
mold on top — and another
using enzymes to suppress
harmful insects.
“They have been on the
docket for a while, but what
we can do now is — know-
ing how it’s manufactured
— go about a new process of
developing these products,”
Miller said.
The IBS office and dis-
tribution center has a staff
of four including the own-
ers. IBS has an indepen-
dent distributor, Red Nova
Nutritionals, in Filer, Ida-
ho. The acquired BioPlus
has two employees and a
consultant.
Miller said no staff chang-
es are planned now, though
headcount could increase as
demand warrants.
Integrated Biological Systems
Marvin Miller of Integrated Biological Systems checks field peas
near Nyssa, Ore.
nies to bring in some of their
technologies, he said.
“We are going to be a
lot more capable of im-
proving the products even
though in the last three years
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Integrated
Biological
Systems Inc. of Nampa, Ida-
ho, has purchased BioPlus
Manufacturing of Hawkins,
Texas, adding capability
and reach in the market of
farming products designed
to replace or complement
fertilizer and enhance soil
efficiency.
Angela and Marvin Mill-
er, and their son, Aaron,
own Integrated Biological
Systems, founded in Nam-
pa in 1986. BioPlus Manu-
facturing, founded 42 years
ago, is a longtime supplier
of IBS’ bio-enhancement
products. Financial details
of the transaction were not
released.
Acquiring BioPlus gives
IBS its own manufacturing
operation, an opportunity
to accelerate research and
development, and more av-
enues for marketing, Marvin
Miller said in an interview.
The acquisition also boosts
IBS’ capabilities to improve
existing products, develop
new products and work with
other biological ag compa-
up water, get rid of sodium
and herbicide carryover, and
the like. Enzymes can make
fertilizers work more effi-
ciently.
“Usually we find ways to
save money on other inputs
to offset the cost of our pro-
grams,” he said.
The basic idea of using
amendments is to improve
soil’s structure and help
create a better environment
for soil microbes to work,
said Stuart Reitz, an Ore-
gon State University Ex-
tension agent in Ontario. If
used, amendments should
be put in well before plant-
ing so any biological pro-
cesses they trigger have
sufficient time to play out,
he said.
IBS works with farms
of all sizes and a variety of
crops. One of its products,
available on a limited basis
now and slated for wider
rollout later this year, is de-