2A — BAKER CITY HERALD
MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2019
O BITUARIES
Carl Rosato
Richland, 1957-2019
B AKER C OUNTY C ALENDAR
MONDAY, DEC. 2
■ Haines Fire Protection District Board: 7 p.m. at the
Haines Library.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 4
■ Baker County Board of Commissioners: 9 a.m.,
Courthouse, 1995 Third St.
THURSDAY, DEC. 5
■ National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center Free-Fee
Days: Free admission; the center is 5 miles east of Baker
City just off Highway 86; information about winter hours is
available by calling 541-523-1843.
■ Saint Alphonsus Foundation Festival of Trees: Preview
Among the Trees, 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at the Community
Event Center, 2600 East St.; tickets are $20 each; tickets are
sold out for Friday’s Gala.
FRIDAY, DEC. 6
■ 4-H Christmas Bazaar: Noon to 5:30 p.m., at the
Extension Offi ce, 2600 East St.; to reserve a table, call 541-
523-6418.
■ Live Music by Keith Taylor: Ragtime piano, 4:30 p.m. to
5:30 p.m., Crossroads Carnegie Art Center, 2020 Auburn
Ave.; no charge.
T URNING B ACK THE P AGES
50 YEARS AGO
from the Democrat-Herald
December 2, 1969
An athletics and activities coordinating committee was
created by the Baker County Chamber of Commerce’s
Board of Directors at its meeting Tuesday evening.
25 YEARS AGO
from the Baker City Herald
December 2, 1994
The Anne Frank Community Exhibit opened Thursday
night at the Oregon National Guard Armory with featured
speaker Alice Kern, who presented her story of survival at
Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
10 YEARS AGO
from the Baker City Herald
December 2, 2009
Grant Johnson is 55 hours from playing in his fi rst Civil
War, which is to say he’s preparing to etch his name into a
legend.
They’ve already battled on the football fi eld 112 times,
the Oregon State Beavers and the University of Oregon
Ducks.
ONE YEAR AGO
from the Baker City Herald
December 3, 2018
About 100 people attended a Forest Service meeting
Friday at Baker High School, and the possibility that the
agency will close roads to motor vehicles was a major
topic of concern.
Friday’s meeting was one of several “objection resolu-
tion” meetings Forest Service offi cials scheduled after
they received more than 350 objections to the revised
management plans for the three Blue Mountains national
forests, released in late June.
Those plans are intended to replace the 1990 manage-
ment guidelines for the Wallowa-Whitman, Umatilla and
Malheur national forests.
The day-long meeting included nine separate sessions,
each covering different topics including access, timber
and vegetation management, fi re and fuels management
and livestock grazing.
The sessions were overseen by one of three Forest
Service offi cials: Reviewing Offi cer Chris French and two
associate deputy chiefs, Allen Rowley and Jenn Eberling.
Carl Rosato, 62, of Rich-
land, died Nov. 24, 2019, at his
home with his wife at his side.
Carl grew up in Phoenix,
Arizona, with 11 other sib-
lings. At 15, he
took a road trip
with his mom
and younger
brother to the
Northwest and
Carl
visited Tolstoy,
Rosato
an intentional
community near
Spokane, Washington, focused
on farming and simple living.
Carl left high school and
joined Tolstoy later in his 15th
year. To support himself, Carl
picked apples, peaches, and
other tree fruit in Washington
state orchards every season
for fi ve years.
He worked hard and was
known as the fastest and best
fruit picker. Carl moved to an-
other back-to-the-land farm-
ing intentional community
at Wolfe Creek, Oregon, and
then onto a start-up farm in
Washington where he hoped
to work his way into coopera-
tive ownership.
When that did not work
out, he began to save money
for his own farm, picking
fruit, planting trees for the
Hoedads in Washington, and
grafting.
Carl met his fi rst wife, Rael
Reif, in 1979. They bought 10
acres in the Sierra foothills
near Oroville, California, in
1980. Carl began building the
poor soil on their hilly land
with compost and cover crops
and planted 1,000 peach trees
and 40 mandarin orange
trees.
Carl chose many of the
peach and nectarine varieties
that had been his favorites
while picking fruit in Wash-
ington. Carl built a small
greenhouse and a one-room
home, complete with out-
house, outdoor shower, and
solar hot water.
Carl worked for four years
at a local lumber mill. While
the fruit trees matured, he
grew fl owers and sold them
on street corners for the
fi ve major “fl ower holidays.”
Woodleaf Farm was certifi ed
organic in 1982 and was the
ninth farm in California to be
certifi ed by California Certi-
fi ed Organic Farmers (CCOF).
Carl became very involved
with CCOF, as a certifi er for
other organic farms. He at-
tended the very fi rst EcoFarm
conference in 1981. He read
everything he could get his
hands on about organic soil
management and farming
and started his enormous
book collection.
Carl and Rael divorced in
1991.
Carl focused on his farm,
diversifi ed, and expanded
while purchasing another 16
acres and planting another
2,000 fruit trees, adding to
the peaches, nectarines, and
mandarins with apples, pears,
plums, pluots, Asian pears,
persimmons and baby kiwi.
He also raised vegetables,
including his well-known trel-
lis cucumbers, and shiitake
mushrooms.
Carl developed an ecologi-
cal approach to soil and pest
management with reduced
tillage and living mulches
to help cycle nutrients and
provide habitat for benefi cial
insects. He also devolved a
gravity fl ow irrigation system,
100% solar power for the
farm, low energy use build-
ings, and had cats for gopher
control
He developed a strong
farmer’s market clientele
selling at six farmer’s markets
per week in the Bay area and
one weekly market in Chico,
California. Carl’s peaches
were renowned for fl avor
and beauty all over northern
California.
Carl was always trying
to improve organic farming
techniques and understand
biological systems with on-
farm experiments. In 1992,
Carl received the fi rst Organic
Farming Research Founda-
tion farmer research grant
to study organic methods for
peach brown rot manage-
ment.
Carl’s three years of
experiments helped him to
develop his famous “mineral-
mix bloom spray” to manage
brown rot. Carl used the
bloom spray successfully for
more than 20 years.
Carl focused on organic soil
management and studied
with several leaders in soil
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A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN
THE NEIGHBORHOOD
S ENIOR M ENUS
C ONTACT THE H ERALD
1668 Resort St.
Open Monday through Friday
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Telephone: 541-523-3673
Copyright © 2019
Fax: 541-833-6414
Regional publisher
Christopher Rush
crush@eomediagroup.com
Publisher
Karrine Brogoitti
kbrogoitti@lagrandeobserver.
com
Jayson Jacoby, editor
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Advertising email
ads@bakercityherald.com
Classifi ed email
classified@bakercityherald.com
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ISSN-8756-6419
Serving Baker County since 1870
Published Mondays, Wednesdays and
Fridays except Christmas Day by the
Baker Publishing Co., a part of EO Media
Group, at 1668 Resort St. (P.O. Box 807),
Baker City, OR 97814.
Subscription rates per month are:
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Postmaster: Send address changes to
the Baker City Herald, P.O. Box 807, Baker
City, OR 97814.
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age and living mulches.
In February 2012, Carl was
recognized with a Steward
of Sustainable Agriculture
Award, at the 32nd Ecofarm
Conference. Later that year
Helen sold her Montana farm
and moved to California and
began to farm with Carl.
Carl and Helen also contin-
ued to do on-farm research,
including a Western Sustain-
able Agriculture Research &
Education grant (2013-2015)
to study Woodleaf Farm’s
disease and insect suppres-
sion and soil management
system, and a 2013 grant
from The Fruit Guys to study
Woodleaf’s insect suppression
strategies.
Carl and Helen did presen-
tations and workshops togeth-
er and published the results
of their research at https://
eorganic.org/node/14129.
Carl and Helen also created
educational videos presented
at https://www.youtube.com/
user/AgrarianDreams/vid-
eos. In the winter they hiked
and camped in the desert
and backpacked in warmer
climates.
After four bountiful and
lucrative years farming in
California, Carl and Helen
had enough saved to “semi-re-
tire.” In December 2015, they
bought 211 acres in North-
eastern Oregon at the base
of the Wallowa Mountains
with 64 irrigated acres along
nearly a mile of Eagle Creek.
They built deer fence,
planted a 400-acre orchard
with 85 varieties of fruit,
including crosses they had
made from their favorite
Woodleaf Farm peaches. They
built a greenhouse and a high
tunnel for vegetable produc-
tion and experimented with
further reducing tillage and
growing their own fertilizer in
their vegetable fi elds.
Carl built sheds and the
shop he had always dreamed
of. Helen and Carl continued
to travel for presentations and
workshops and for camping,
backpacking, and snorkeling
adventures.
They especially enjoyed
exploring the Eagle Cap
Wilderness just up the road
from their farm. Carl redid
his Woodleaf Farm website
to include all the new ideas
and farming methods he
and Helen were experiment-
ing with at Woodleaf Farm,
Oregon.
Carl never stopped learn-
ing, changing his ideas, being
curious, and seeing with the
eyes of wonder and awe. He
had a life of passion and pur-
pose and service and has been
well-loved by family, friends,
students, and all the people he
touched with his work.
Donations in Carl’s name
can be sent to CCOF Founda-
tion, the Wild Farm Alliance,
or Organic Farming Research
Foundation through Tami’s
Pine Valley Funeral Home
& Cremation Services, P.O.
Box 543, Halfway, OR 97834.
Online condolences may be
made at www.tamispineval-
leyfuneralhome.com
PG
FRI & SAT: (1:00) 4:00, 7:00, 9:35
SUN: (1:00) (4:00) 7:00
MON-THURS: 7:00
( )Bargain Matinee
■ TUESDAY: Swedish meatballs over fettuccine, mixed
vegetables, bread, coleslaw, ice cream
■ WEDNESDAY: Beef pot roast, potatoes and gravy, green
beans, roll, carrot-raisin salad, apple crisp
Public luncheon at the Senior Center, 2810 Cedar St., 11:30
a.m. to 12:30 p.m.; $4.50 donation (60 and older), $6.75 for
those under 60.
mineral balancing. He became
an organic soil manage-
ment consultant, working
with farmers to balance soil
minerals and design/maintain
organic orchards.
Carl was devoted to educa-
tion and service. From 2004
to 2010, Carl helped to direct,
design and run the CCOF
Foundation grant-funded
Going Organic Project. From
1994 to 2011, Carl taught
four organic farming courses
at Butte Community College
in California.
Carl was also the presi-
dent of the North Valley
California chapter of CCOF
and served as a CCOF state
board member (2005-2012)
and a Community Alliance
with Family Farmers board
member (2000-2005). Carl
was a volunteer every year
at Full Belly Farm’s Hoes
Down Festival where he also
presented workshops.
During the winters, Carl
traveled extensively in
Central and South America
and eventually bought land in
Ecuador to save endangered
primary native tropical forest.
On the unforested part of his
land in Ecuador, Carl planted
cacao trees and learned to
make chocolate, that friends
and family say was very
bitter.
He sold the land in Ecuador
when he found that spending
winters away from his Wood-
leaf Farm in California got in
the way of managing his farm
and maintaining the kind of
quality Carl insisted upon.
Carl met his second wife,
Gina Colombatto, at his
Marin farmer’s market in
2002 and helped to raise his
stepdaughter, Lena DGiulia,
who was 12 and loved coming
to the farm and helping at
Carl’s farmer’s markets. Carl
and Gina traveled in Europe
and explored the East Coast
of the U.S. But Carl’s farm
always came fi rst and he
and Gina divorced in 2008
when Carl lost his entire fruit
crop to a spring frost and put
all his energy into growing
vegetables for the valuable
farmers markets he had spent
so many years building. Carl
turned out to be as good a
vegetable grower as he was a
fruit grower.
Carl met his last wife,
Helen Atthowe, at the 2011
EcoFarm conference where
they were both presenting
about ecological soil and pest
strategies using reduced till-
Show Times: 541-523-2522
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