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SPRING RAIN | BAKER COUNTY
Grass:
Continued from Page 12
“Last year the snow was there but it just
didn’t come out,” he said. “Last year was a
disaster.”
Pickard said this spring has epitomized
something he learned more than 40 years
ago from a couple of his mentors in the cat-
tle business, the late Dan Warnock and Fred
Phillips.
They told Pickard that, in eff ect, “East-
ern Oregon will never let you down com-
pletely,” he said — meaning that when con-
ditions seem dire and hopeless, the formerly
stingy skies will turn generous.
Pickard said that rarely, if ever, in his
more than four decades ranching here has
that adage been proved more conclusively.
of 2022 on his family’s fi elds in Baker Val-
ley challenges his powers of description.
“It’s certainly a godsend,” said Ward,
whose family grows potatoes, wheat, pep-
permint and alfalfa. “I haven’t seen any-
thing as signifi cant as this in a long time. In
early April it looked worse than bleak. But
it did a 180. Those rains were wonderful.”
And they were wonderful even when
they were fouling up Ward’s schedule.
He likes to plant potatoes on May 1.
But this year the ground was much
too muddy on that day to put spuds in the
ground.
Ward said planting took place 10 days
later, a delay he doesn’t begrudge due to the
big jump in soil moisture the spring storms
caused.
“That didn’t bother me one bit,” he said.
“I’ll take the moisture over a calendar date
any time.”
Ward said that moisture has revived some
ailing mint fi elds — including one where
farming is something of a spectator sport.
That’s the fi eld just south of Hughes Lane
in north Baker City, between the Baker
Sports Complex to the west, and the Pow-
der River and Leo Adler Memorial Parkway
to the east.
The Parkway, in particular, makes this
mint crop conspicuous, since people fre-
quently walk beside the fi eld — what
Ward laughingly refers to as “500 sidewalk
farmers.”
Some of the pedestrians know him, and
he said he gets an occasional assessment
from a passer-by.
Ward’s educated eye tells him that the
mint, which the Wards distill into potent
peppermint oil each August as the fl avoring
for toothpaste, is thriving.
“I think it’s looking better than it has
in three years,” Ward said on June 28. “It
was stressed all last year” due to the lack
of moisture. “I’m very happy with how the
mint looks.”
Replenishing a reservoir
‘Saved our bacon’
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Mark Ward pauses for a few seconds as
he considers the question.
Putting into context just how dramati-
cally conditions changed during the spring
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Ward is also pleased — somewhat
pleased, anyway — when he checks on Phil-
lips Reservoir.
That reservoir along the Powder River in
Sumpter Valley, about 17 miles southwest
of Baker City, supplies irrigation water to
much of Baker Valley, including some of the
Ward family’s fi elds.
Although Phillips remains far below
average, holding about 26% of its capacity at
the end of June, Ward points out that the res-
ervoir was depleted even more a year ago, at
just 14% full.
There was enough this spring that every-
one with water rights was able to thoroughly
irrigate their ground, said Ward, who is
a member of the board of directors for the
Baker Valley Irrigation District, which reg-
ulates the reservoir.
He said he expects farmers and ranch-
ers will get about the same amount of water
from the reservoir as they did last year —
“and we survived last year.”
Ward concedes, though, that it likely will
take at least two years that combine boun-
tiful winter snow and damp spring weather
to even come close to refi lling the reservoir.
Phillips is much larger than other local res-
ervoirs, with a capacity of 73,500 acre-feet
compared with Thief Valley’s 13,500 and
Unity’s 24,500.
See Grass, Page 14
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