East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, November 21, 2020, Page 3, Image 3

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REGION
Saturday, November 21, 2020

East Oregonian

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WESTON — If you want
to cook a churkey for your
Thanksgiving meal, you have
to act fast.
But ﬁ rst — “churkey?”
Exactly, Cheryl Cosner
said with a laugh on Thurs-
day, Nov. 19.
She and her husband Rob-
ert Cosner are the founders
and owners of Upper Dry
Creek Ranch, about 5 miles
south of Milton-Freewater,
and 3 miles uphill from State
Route 11.
The ranch is in the busi-
ness of selling animals, on
the hoof or frozen in pack-
ages. The Cosners have built
a robust clientele that appreci-
ates their sustainability prac-
tices and certiﬁ ed standards,
Cheryl Cosner said.
About 90% of their meat
sales have traditionally been
to institutional cafeterias,
such as those at Whitman
College and Hewlett Pack-
ard, along with grocers and
restaurants around the Paciﬁ c
Northwest.
The pandemic changed
that this year. With college
campuses closed and compa-
nies sending employees home
to work, a hard pivot was
made to sell directly to people

For more information
about Upper Dry Creek
Ranch, go to upperdry-
creekranch.com.
Upper Dry Creek Ranch/Contributed Photo
Upper Dry Creek Ranch chickens had more time to grow big
this summer with processing delays. Now some of them are
as big as a small Thanksgiving turkey.
doing their own cooking.
By beeﬁ ng up Upper Dry
Creek’s online store and mar-
keting to the home consum-
ers, plus continuing some
livestock sales, the Cosners’
business is still upright, she
said.
A delivery routine brought
the processed product right to
customers in Walla Walla and
Tri-Cities, Washington, and
Pendleton.
Now, then, the chickens —
or churkeys, if you will.
Along with their trade-
mark lamb and beef, the Cos-
ners have long sold roasting
chickens they raise, in frozen
form for meals.
The taste is “amazing,”
and there’s a fan following
among chefs for the poultry,
which have typically weighed
just over 4 pounds apiece in
their packages, Cosner said.
This year, the plan was
to order chicks as usual. Lit-
tle did she know demand for
them would intensify, partic-
ularly with a new market of
housebound folks intent on
raising their own food.
Chick orders were back-
logged six to eight weeks,
Cosner recalled. When they
ﬁ nally got some — later
and fewer than expected —
the arrival was followed by
a chicken food shortage in
July when feed manufactur-
ers were caught short by the
demand.
A bag of chicken food was
as scarce as hen’s teeth, Cos-
ner wrote in her newsletter
to customers, conceding the
pun.
Then the next egg got laid.
In August, when Upper Dry
Creek’s chickens were ready
to be made into entrees, the
chicken processing business
was full up with other orders.

ONLINE
By SHEILA HAGAR
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

¡≤
A ‘churkey’ by any other name
How the pandemic
supply chain made a
Thanksgiving meal
out of chickens
A3
So the chickens stayed
around, eating and growing.
And more eating and more
growing.
Soon, the “nice little
6-pound chickens” weighed
more than 10 pounds, Cosner
said.
“By mid-August, we were
ﬁ nally able to get our birds
processed but not before they
were big,” she wrote. “I mean,
really big.”
Now? Those are the chur-
keys, weighing in at about
7 pounds per package — a
size many cooks seek out in
a Thanksgiving turkey, Cos-
ner said.
Upper Dry Creek Ranch
is taking online orders for
the birds until 7 p.m. Sun-
day, Nov. 22, but there’s only
about 30 to be had. Drop-off
day will be Tuesday, Nov. 24,
and if a customer asks, the
Cosners will jump-start the
thawing process.
Cheryl Cosner is thankful
her business could ﬂ ex around
the challenges presented by
COVID-19, she said.
“We’re going to make it,”
she said.

LOCAL BRIEFING
Pilot Rock passes
$8M school bond
PILOT ROCK — Even
as most students learn
from home during the
pandemic, the Pilot Rock
School District was able to
convince residents to make
a long-term investment in
school facilities.
The district announced
Thursday, Nov. 19, that the
Pilot Rock School Board
had formally accepted
the results of the elec-
tion, afﬁ rming the 59-41
vote. Pilot Rock is the lat-
est Eastern Oregon school
district to take advantage
of Oregon School Capital
Improvement
Matching
Program, meaning the $8
million raised from Pilot
Rock property taxes will
be matched by $4 million
from the state.
“Thank you to our vot-
ers,” Pilot Rock Superin-
tendent Troy Jerome said.
“Passing a bond is difﬁ -
cult, but with the challenge
of the pandemic added in,
we knew we had to work
even harder, and that paid
off.”
The $12 million in pro-
ceeds from the bond and
grant will go toward cap-
ital improvements at the
district’s schools, includ-
ing security upgrades,
improved disability access,
new rooﬁ ng and an updated
heating, ventilation and air
conditioning system.
Hermiston City
Council to meet
Monday, Nov. 23
HERMISTON — The
Hermiston City Council
will meet Monday, Nov.
23, at 7 p.m. at the Hermis-
ton Conference Center, 415
S. Highway 395.
On the agenda is an
update of the city’s sewer
ordinance, as part of an
ongoing effort to review
and update all city ordi-
nances. According to the
agenda packet, the updates
to the sewer ordinance will
bring the language into
compliance with changes
to state and federal law that
the city has already been
following.
The council will con-
sider a motion to create the
debt service payment fund
needed to use payments in
lieu of taxes from enter-
prise zone projects to pay
down debt service the city
has on bonds.
The council will also
hear presentation of the
city’s ﬁ nancial audit for
the 2019-20 ﬁ scal year, the
October ﬁ nancial report,
committee reports and
staff reports.
The meeting will be
livestreamed on the city
of Hermiston YouTube
channel.
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