A8
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Rock Garden goes up for sale
By JOE SIESS
The Bulletin
REDMOND — Susan
Caward spent most of her life
living on her family’s prop-
erty near Redmond where her
grandfather, a Danish immi-
grant named Rasmus Petersen,
turned a love of rocks and his
own labor into a roadside attrac-
tion known around the world.
The Petersen Rock Garden,
a 12-acre property on South-
west 77th Street, is known for
the numerous rock structures
Petersen built with his own two
hands in the 1930s and ‘40s.
They have a weathered look to
them and the landscaping today
is rough around the edges, but
the displays still inspire visitors.
There are small rock structures,
stone paths, a bridge decorated
with rocks, a grotto, ponds and
a small replica of the Statue of
Liberty.
And peacocks that roam the
property unrestricted.
But time has caught up with
the 57-year-old Caward, who
suff ered a serious back injury
in her 20s and now struggles
to care for her grandfather’s
creations. Caward gets around
with a walking stick and has
trouble walking or standing for
long periods of time. Some-
times, her legs go numb. It’s all
a sign, she said, that it is time for
her to retire.
So Caward is working with
her real estate agent to sell the
property, which is listed for
$825,000. In addition to all the
art and rocks, the price also
includes the peacocks.
She doesn’t want to sell the
property to just anybody. Her
hope is to fi nd a suitable buyer
who will maintain her grandfa-
ther’s creations.
“I just want to kind of retire,
come here every once in a while
and see what the new people are
doing with it,” Caward said.
Caward said she wants to
be clear that she is not retiring
because she is no longer inter-
ested in the rock garden. The
rock garden and the surround-
ing property is her home and
very important to her, she said,
but because of her declining
health, she simply is unable to
continue doing what it takes to
maintain the rock garden.
“It’s not that I don’t want
to do it. It’s just that my body
can’t do it,” Caward said. “My
doctor has been cautioning me,
‘You’ve got to retire’.”
Caward sat at a picnic table
amid enchanting stone struc-
tures, as peacocks shrieked,
cats pranced and her dog Hell-
boy sniff ed around, and told
the story of how she broke her
James Thomas/Contributed Photo
The Port of Morrow has been fi ned by the state for spreading
nitrogen-laden wastewater from food processors housed in an
industrial park managed by the port.
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
The Petersen Rock Garden, a quirky tourist attraction near Redmond, is up for sale.
Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin
A rock sculpture at the Pe-
tersen Rock Garden south of
Redmond.
back. Caward broke her back in
three places after a ram living
on the family farm attacked her.
If it were not for her dog Sheba
— an English herder and Blue
Heeler mix — Caward is con-
vinced she would be dead.
It all started when she was
feeding the animals on the farm
and turned her back on one of
the rams.
“Next thing I know, I went
fl ying through the air, landed
on the rock wall, rolled down
off the rock wall, and started
crawling away and had a feel-
ing I should look behind me,”
Caward recalled. “And I look
around behind me and the
sheep is on top of the wall com-
ing down on top of me head
fi rst, and I just thought, ‘I am
dead, dead, dead, dead.”
At this point, Caward curled
up in a ball on the ground with
the expectation that she would
be killed by the animal, but then
Sheba vaulted off her back and
took the ram down and hung
onto its nose until Caward could
escape. As a young woman
working on a farm every day,
she quickly forgot the back
injury and went on with her life.
It wasn’t until a decade later
that her doctor discovered she
had actually broken her back,
and gave her a choice between
back surgery and eventually
winding up in a wheelchair,
she said. Caward chose surgery,
which kept her back injury at
bay for a good 19 years, she
said.
She said she loves the peo-
ple who come to visit the rock
garden. She loves talking to
people, but she envisions living
on a piece of land with some
friends where she could per-
haps raise animals, sleep in, and
enjoy her later years.
“Enjoy yourself, it’s later
than you think,” Caward said,
invoking the inscription on the
Statue of Liberty rock structure
her grandfather made.
Kaisha Brannon, the real
estate agent helping Caward
sell the property, has a personal
connection with the rock gar-
den and wants to see it go to the
right buyers.
Brannon said her grandpar-
ents and parents visited the rock
garden, and growing up, it was
a special place she would go see
as a kid. Now, her own children
are exploring the garden while
she shows the place to prospec-
tive buyers.
“I was super excited when I
got the phone call, because I do
know the Petersen Rock Gar-
den really well, and I do know
how important it is to the com-
munity and to Central Oregon,
so ultimately this is very dear
to my heart,” she said. “It’s not
necessarily about the real estate
transaction for me. It’s very
much about helping Susan and
fi nding the right person that is
going to be the new person that
takes care of the property.”
While there is no way to
know what the future owners
will do with the property once
they buy it, Brannon said she is
doing her best to vet buyers to
ensure the rock garden winds
up in the right hands.
Brannon added that the rock
garden is open to the public
during the selling process, and
Caward hopes people will still
come visit at this time.
Kelly
Cannon-Miller,
the executive director of the
Deschutes County Histori-
cal Society, said the histori-
cal society stands ready to pro-
vide research and background
to whoever ends up buying the
beloved rock garden.
“I hope the person who buys
it is ready to take it on and loves
it the way people have loved it
over the years,” Cannon-Miller
said. “It defi nitely has a com-
munity memory attached to it.
Folks who grew up going there
want to go back and see it and
remember family visits.”
Cannon-Miller explained
that back in its heyday, the
Petersen Rock Garden accom-
modated thousands of tourists
in a given year driving up and
down U.S. Highway 97, which
back then was mainly referred
to as The Dalles-California
Highway.
At the time, during the
1940s and ‘50s, visitors could
visit the rock garden’s museum,
which still stands today, and
could take a swan boat ride on
the pond or grab a bite in the
diner in addition to exploring
the rock garden. Having lunch
and contemplating life outside
on the lawn surrounded by pea-
cocks and Petersen’s art was a
popular pastime for visitors,
Cannon-Miller said.
“Between 1935 and 1952,
Rasmus (Petersen) was always
still building and changing it,
so it had that changing attrac-
tion element to it as well,” Can-
non-Miller said of the rock
garden.
Petersen’s art was infl u-
enced by both his childhood
growing up in Denmark, com-
bined with his experience
homesteading and farming in
Oregon, a combination compli-
mented by his irreverent sense
of humor and his contempla-
tion of nature, Cannon-Miller
added. Petersen died of a heart
attack inside the museum on
the property in 1952 at the age
of 69 and is buried in Redmond
Memorial Cemetery.
In April of 1966 Don & Blanche Lundbom opened John Day
Auto Parts, Inc. With the continued support of our community
the small business has done very well. In the early 2000’s
Don & Blanche retired and Ron & Sherri Lundbom began to
manage the store. Now in 2022 it’s our time to retire. John
Day Auto Parts will continue to stay open with many of the
Businesses help
test for nitrates
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
BOARDMAN — A coali-
tion of businesses in northeast
Oregon — including several
food processors and the state’s
largest dairy — is working
with Morrow County offi cials
to test drinking water for res-
idents whose wells may be
contaminated with high levels
of toxic nitrates.
The aff ected wells lie
within what is known as the
Lower Umatilla Basin Ground-
water Management Area, or
LUBGWMA, which was des-
ignated in 1990 to address
groundwater nitrates from agri-
cultural lands and other non-
point sources.
Morrow County commis-
sioners declared a state of emer-
gency on June 13 after private
well tests showed nitrate levels
above the federal safe drinking
water limit.
Debbie Radie, vice president
of operations for Boardman
Foods, a local onion processor,
was at that meeting where she
said the county health depart-
ment indicated it did not have
emergency funding to pay for
additional well testing.
The Oregon Health Author-
ity estimates there are 4,500
domestic wells in the LUB-
GWMA, between Umatilla
and Morrow counties. About
1,300 of those are in Morrow
County. With tests costing $35
each, that adds up to $45,500.
Radie said she began “fund-
raising” among businesses to
assist the health department.
The coalition off ered to foot
the bill in a press release issued
June 17 by the Boardman
Chamber of Commerce, ensur-
ing residents can get their wells
tested for free.
“I have a well. All my
friends have a well,” Radie told
the Capital Press. “This is truly
an emergency. We can’t wait.”
While the coalition off ered
to pay for well tests, Morrow
County commissioners also
approved a $100,000 budget to
address the groundwater nitrate
situation on June 22.
Coalition members include
Amazon Web
Services,
Boardman Foods, Calbee
North America, Lamb Weston,
Threemile Canyon Farms and
the Tillamook County Cream-
ery Association. They are
working in close coordina-
tion and under the guidance
of Morrow County Public
Health.
In addition to well test-
ing, the coalition is helping to
distribute safe drinking water
to residents whose wells are
showing elevated nitrate lev-
els. Consuming nitrates can
be harmful, increasing the risk
of certain cancers, respiratory
infections, thyroid dysfunc-
tion and miscarriages.
Radie said the coalition
may also consider helping to
pay for water fi lters in homes
that need them. Reverse osmo-
sis fi lters can cost several hun-
dred dollars a piece.
“These are our friends,
neighbors, employees and
people we care about in the
community,” Radie said.
“There is a need, and as Mor-
row County we should come
together and try to help people
who need education, informa-
tion and support to have safe
drinking water.”
Boardman Foods, Lamb
Weston, Calbee North Amer-
ica and Tillamook all run food
processing plants at an indus-
trial park along the Columbia
River near Boardman, man-
aged by the Port of Morrow.
Amazon also operates several
data centers inside the port
complex.
Threemile Canyon Farms
encompasses 93,000 acres
west of Boardman, growing
both conventional and organic
crops and milking 33,000
dairy cows.
Earlier this year, the port
was fi ned $1.3 million by Ore-
gon environmental regulators
for spreading excess wastewa-
ter collected from food proces-
sors onto neighboring farms,
where it is used as a source of
nitrogen-rich fertilizer.
The original fi ne was
increased to $2.1 million on
June 17 after additional vio-
lations were discovered. The
port is contesting the penalty.
According to the commit-
tee responsible for overseeing
the LUBGWMA, nearly 70%
of groundwater nitrates in
the area comes from irrigated
agriculture. Roughly 12% is
from applying wastewater
produced at dairies and cattle
ranches; 5% from food pro-
cessors; and another 5% from
residential septic systems.
Gary and Gayln Snair of Redmond, Oregon will be the new
owners of John Day NAPA as of July 1, 2022. Gary has been
a co-owner of the Bend, Redmond and Madras NAPAs. He
We will still be around helping Gary with the transition of
the business and hope you all show him a Grant County
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