Page 8A OFF PAGE ONE 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 really addicted to Christmas since she was a baby. She attended grade school, middle school high school and college there. After she finished school 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. Brought to you by: