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Saturday, June 15, 2013 – Daily News 5A Agriculture farm & ranch Livestock tour of Washington Our adventures of the (a reddish-brown coat with previous day caused an oil black mane and tail), have pan leak, so bus # 1 had a four white stocking feet, Church of Nazarene bus for and a blaze of white on the the balance of the Western face. Two other stallions were Livestock Journal tour of WA, with the sign "drinking in individual pastures, and we noticed they intoxicants on used three strands coach prohibitof smooth wire ed" over the with an electric door. top wire. We were As Lon said " headed east on ILike the cattle 90 to Coeur d'Abusiness, it is not lene, and north to a cheap hobby." Sandpoint, Idaho We had to visit Jack Parnoticed tall green nell's Clydesdale grass on the road Horse Farm. easements, and Jack and wife learned it was a Michelle were Jean wetland native, gone on a tour, Canary grass, that but son Lon had to be eaten greeted us. down. "The taller For ten years Lon was the man with the it gets, the skinnier your Budweiser Clydesdales on cows." Our next visit was Rockthe west coast. In the early 90's there were six teams on ing R Cattle Co; Hayden the West Coast, and they Lake, ID , and it was built toured the 13 western states. on 160 acres purchased in Mr Busch believed in "Tra- 2003, plus leasing 600 dition and Quality." Now acres. The ranch was built there are three teams, and from ground up with fencthe West Coast team is ing, power, corrals, barn, located at the Ft. Collins, etc; since then. Ron Rosenberger is a custom home CO. Brewery. The Parnells have 8 to 10 builder, and the barn was mares, and 3 stallions. Ram- beautiful. It offers indoor hay storsey was imported from Scotland, and one of his age , plus horse stalls, covsons was purchased by ered feed alley, a working Budweiser. Ramsey was in Powder River squeeze chute his stall in the barn, and and alley, plus a calving large indoor arena. We took area to not be dependent on pictures of him eating the weather. Not sure how high the ceiling of the main hay carrots we fed him. In the barn was a wagon barn, but it was high. The Rendezvous Female filled with Maxwell Coffee cans that was used for the Sale the end of September is CA State Fair Calvacade of held in the hay barn, and the Horses about 15 years ago buyers sit on tiered hay when Parnells showed an bales, we were told. They eight horse hitch before sell bulls in the Rancher's Choice Bull Sale the end of moving to Idaho. The Clydesdale foals February. The barn will hold 700 weigh between 60 and 125 lbs at birth, and they are not ton of 75 lb grass hay bales. vigorous at birth. "If they This is a suburban area for live four days, they might Coeur d'Alene and they like the light weight bales for make it." I was surprised to learn their horses. People here they could be black, brown telecommute for their jobs. Ron and Shelley told us or bay with splotches of white. I always thought a they calve in January and Clydesdale was bay in color February when it is wet and Barton Courtesy photo Ramsey, the Clydesdale stallion at Parnell Clydesdale Farm enjoyed his carrots from Michelle Morgan and WLJ tour leader Jerry York. cold, so the maternity pens are used for the 80 cows. A delicious, elegant luncheon was enjoyed in the hay barn, with grilled tri tip, baked beans, pasta salad, buttered French bread, apple cobbler and Washington wines. We saw the reception area with leather couches, chess set on the coffee table, bar and "Limestone Larry", the mounted head and shoulders of a herd sire. There was a framed picture of the family, and printed above was "A Family Affair," meet the hired hands…Bre, Pheiffer, Blake, Shelley, Chelsea, and Ron. Before returning to Spokane we were able to get off the busses and walk among the gentle cows and calves in a lush green pasture. The next morning our luggage was to be ready before breakfast at 6:30 a.m; since we were traveling to Sprague for a visit to Harder Ranches enroute to Moses Lake. Several people on the tour commented about the lovely old buildings with no graffiti marring them in Spokane. This is where we learned more about the glacial warming period associated with the "Missoula Floods." The floods swept periodically across eastern WA and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. After each ice dam rupture, the ice would reform, creating glacial Lake Missoula again. Geologist estimate that the cycle of flooding and reformation of the lake lasted an average of 55 years. They have found evidence of at least 25 massive floods, with maximum flow speed approaching 80 mph. Box Canyon Ranch is owned and managed by Jake and Joan Harder and their two sons, J C and Cameron. Cow Creek runs through the ranch and the natural meadows were irrigated by check dams. The elevation was 1,450foot, with the first homestead in 1870s. It was on the trail from Fort Walla Walla to the Columbia River and preferred route for the trappers and prospectors because of no mountains. In 1909 a trestle was built across the meadow and creek in 23 days for the railroad. When the line was abandoned a calving barn was built with the lumber during the depression. The grandfather came in 1904 or 05. We all admired the interior of the barn, the chute for calving difficulties, the horse stalls and tack room. With the corral setup Harder and his sons can sort three to four hundred pairs in one and a half hours. They separate the steer pairs from the heifer pairs in the fall before shipping to NE feedlots. They wean in Oct. and the steers average 600 lbs. They are not milk fat calves, so do well in the feedlot and the calves are preconditioned with shots three weeks before shipping. The heifer calving lot had a long lane to water trough and salt. "Easy to get heifers to barn at 1 a.m. (if having trouble calving) when snowing." Jake told about his horse that brought the heifer to the calving pen without him aboard, when he got off to close a gate. They calve 125 replacement heifers a year. The ranchers agreed with Jake when he said if he built the corrals again, they would be all metal instead of wood. Their calf table was a Teco # 521, and we saw the shin guards the crew uses to get the calves up the chute to the table at branding time. They brand 150 head at a time at 3 months of age. The 650 mother cows are Hereford or black baldy, and the calving starts Feb. 1 for 68 days. Temperament is important, and if the cow or her calf has an attitude, they go to feedlot and gone. The ranch is 25 sections, and figure 1 cow per 30 acres. No farming on this ranch. They buy hay locally and feed two and half to three months, chopping ice on the water troughs for the cattle. Joan Harder had prepared delicious smoked tri tip, beans, potato and toss green salad, buttered French bread, with Hagen Daze ice cream bars for desert. Her rock garden was beautiful with white dogwood, burgundy peonies, pansies and petunias in bloom; a swimming pool and cabana above. The lava rocks were on both sides of the valley. Ranchers seek court order to stop water shutoffs GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Some of the ranchers facing irrigation shutoffs in the upper Klamath Basin are asking a judge to stop state officials from enforcing newly recognized water rights held by the Klamath Tribes. Klamath County Circuit Judge Cameron Wogan has scheduled hearings Friday in Klamath Falls. State watermasters started telling ranchers Wednesday that they had to stop irrigating in order to be sure enough water remains in the Sprague, Williamson and Wood rivers to meet senior water rights held by the tribes, which are using them to protect endangered fish. The Klamath Basin has been the site of some of the most bitter water battles in the nation as scarce water is shared between protected fish and farms. In 2001, angry farmers confronted federal marshals called in to guard headgates shutting off water to the Klamath Reclamation Project, a federal irrigation project straddling the Oregon-California border, to protect fish. The next year, water was restored to farms, but tens of thousands of adult salmon died downstream in the Klamath River. The current shutoffs are the first for the upper Klamath Basin, where 38 years of litigation ended in March with recognition by the state Water Resources Department that the tribes have the oldest water rights on rivers flowing through lands that were once their reservation, dating to time immemorial. The group of ranchers has been appealing the legal process that recognized the tribes' water rights. The state is opposing the motions to stop the shutoffs, said Jeff Manning, spokesman for the state attorney general. During past droughts, ranchers in the upper Klamath Basin could keep irrigating until the rivers ran dry. This year, the rules have changed. River levels are so low from drought, and the instream water rights of the tribes so large, that watermasters are having to shut off a lot of other water rights to meet them, said Douglas Woodcock, field services administrator for the Oregon Water Resources Department. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has also exercised 1905 water rights to supply its irrigation project downstream. Despite making a call on water rights dating to 1905 and 1925, national wildlife refuges downstream of the irrigation project were far short of water to fill marshes for migrating waterfowl. On the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1908 as the nation's first refuge for waterfowl, only 1,000 acres of marsh had water in an area with a potential for 31,000 acres, manager Ron Cole said. The entire refuge would be dry by the end of the month, the earliest it has gone dry in 70 years, forcing tens of thousands of waterfowl to find someplace else to live. Outbreaks of avian botulism were expected as birds crowd together in smaller areas. Taylor and Becky Hyde have water rights dating to 1864, but that didn't save them from having to shut down irrigation to meet the demands of senior rights being exercised by the Klamath Tribes to protect fish. ''I think we're going to get through it, but we sure didn't sleep last night,'' Becky Hyde said Thursday. RUNNINGS ROOFING Sheet Metal Roofing Residential Commercial • Composition • Shingle • Single Ply Membrane "No Job Too Steep" " No Job Too Flat" Serving Tehama County No Money 530-527-5789 530-209-5367 CA. LIC#829089 Down! FREE ESTIMATES Owner is on site on every job ''If you were to come out here today, you are not going to see the drying out for a few weeks. It looks green and nice right now. We are surrounded by neighbors who have wells who are all going to still be irrigating.'' They have shipped some cattle off to ranches of family members, and the remaining cattle will have about six weeks of grass before it dries up. There will still be water to drink. Don Gentry, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, acknowledged that the shutoffs were painful for irrigators, which include some tribal members. But said the tribes have to protect their resources and make sure their water rights are enforced. Mrs. Hyde, other ranchers, state, federal and local officials, and representatives of conservation groups will appear before a hearing next week in Washington, D.C., called by Sen. Ron Wyden, DOre., chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. 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