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Roads Less Traveled
�
"We may now be expected to go to war for America, little knowing if we will even have farms to come back to, because of the undue influence and pressure that is destroying our American custom and culture as resource providers due to the Endangered Species Act and the uninhibited lust that the non-governmental agencies (notably the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club among others) have for our lands. Almost one hundred years of 'sweat equity' are valued at as little as $28 per acre, and our wildlife refuge inhabitants are suffering, too, at the hands of those who profess to love wildlife, the 'environmentalists'" - Oregon farmer, commenting after the horrors of 9-11 that prompted those at the Klamath Falls, OR "A" Canal Headgates to break up camp and allow the federal agency employees to be better utilized elsewhere for national security. � (Note from Barb Hall in the Klamath Basin: I'm so glad Julie resent this to me.� It means more to me today then it did when she first wrote it and sent it out, back in 2002.� With the House Resource Committee Field Hearing on the ESA coming up on July 17th (2004)�here in Klamath, this article brings back all the feelings I had for our basin, its people --�and even though the government was responsible for the water shut-off in 2001 --�how patriotic I felt every time I went to the headgates or a rally that fateful summer.� I wasn't alone with my feelings; you could�see the�others' patriotism and the disbelief in their tears and faces while patriotic music played or we sang the national anthem.� I hope re-reading this stirs the same feelings in you.) � June 12, 2002 �
By Julie Kay Smithson � London, Ohio � � http://www.PropertyRightsResearch.org �
4,800 words (Permission to post only if in entirety, with no changes.) �
In
the great space that is infinity, one century is a mere eye-blink.�
�
In
the great vastness of the high desert that surrounds the Klamath Basin
that straddles the California-Oregon border in the Pacific Northwest,
that tiny fraction of time has made a world of difference to the many
species that call it their home.
�
There
have been many stories written about the Klamath Basin Crisis; they
deal with the Endangered Species Act, the suckerfish, its habitat, the
beleaguered farmers and homeowners, etc.�
These stories are �roads less traveled.�
�
�I
believe we must stand with these folks in these situations. If most of
America would stand, Congress would straighten up and fly right, and
make the �alphabet agencies' toe the line.� - Katherine Van Tuyl,
Medford, Oregon.
�
Her
abundant auburn hair streaked with silver and plumply braided,
Katherine Van Tuyl�s tall and striking countenance belies the lady
warrior that she is.� Kathy
has been in attendance at more than one event such as Klamath,
although this one is nearest her home, only two hours away.�
�
Kathy,
47, works for a Medford travel agency, and her life has become not
unlike a busy air traffic controllers, juggling her time and
resources, attempting to be present at as many such events as
possible.� She was an
active participant in the �Shovels of Solidarity for Stewards of the
Darby� convoy, helping shepherd thousands of the famed Jarbidge
Shovels cross-country to Ohio on Labor Day weekend of 2000.�
The Darby Farmland Rally was made all the better in its
effective fight for property rights by Kathy�s presence.
�
�My
life has been changed forever.� - Chuck Goslin, Idaho native.
�
Chuck
Goslin is a soft-spoken, caring man in his forties, an American
citizen with no axe to grind and no vengeance to seek.�
He came to the Klamath Headgates, like many others, simply to
offer his help and moral support.�
The experience was one he will never forget.�
He gleaned a priceless gift from the fields of disaster and the
siege of a rural culture.� He
learned that he had a chance to help, not with money, but with his
ability to write and communicate.�
His direction in life was radically altered, as he explained.
�
�As
I drove into Klamath Falls on the afternoon of August 17th I was
struck with the beauty of the area. I was yet unaware of how my life
was about to change. Looking back and reading the notes that I kept
while I was there I don't believe I've ever met a town as friendly!
Starting with Hazel Toney, a retired bank teller who drove across town
as soon as I phoned her so I wouldn't get lost trying to find her
home. She wanted to be able to do something to help the farmers so she
offered her camper to anyone from out of town who came to help. I will
always remember her kindness and the trust she so freely gave to a
stranger. Hazel was only the first of a long list of people that I
will never forget.�� After
arriving at the Headgates it didn't take long to get a sense of the
underlying sadness and disbelief that OUR OWN GOVERNMENT could destroy
so many lives. I was born and raised in a rural community in southeast
Idaho, so it was easy for me to feel the pain.�
As for the disbelief, all you had to do was look over the chain
link fence with barbed wire running along the top. Federal officers
with firearms and wearing bulletproof vests have a way of getting your
attention.�I've never met a more caring and compassionate group
of people than the farmers of the Klamath Basin. It can't be expressed
in words the tremendous restraint that these hard working people have
shown as their lives are being destroyed.�
�
�We
are not farmers.� - Barb Hall, Klamath Falls native.
�
Red
and Barb Hall are quick to explain that they are NOT farmers in the
Klamath Basin.� �We only
have a few acres 4.39, to be exact --�and some horses,� Barb
states.� However, in
visiting the Hall�s place, just a short distance west of the
Department of Interior�s �Ecosystem Restoration Project� office
on the south side of Klamath Falls, Oregon, I was touched by the true
spirit of the American rancher and resource provider.
�
While
their acreage may not constitute a �farm� in the strictest sense
of the word, Red, 73, and Barb, 49, are devoted stewards of their
land.� They have
maintained a diary of photos for over 160 days, showing the changes in
their �piece of Heaven�s� appearance, both with and without
irrigation water.� Their
spacious Dutch-style barn was built in 1905, and still graces the
Klamath Basin.
�
Barb
has spent countless hours at her computer, charting the levels at each
of the seven dams that span the Klamath River on its march to the
Pacific Ocean on a several-times-daily basis.�
She has learned much that troubles her.�
For example, one of the dams in the middle of the seven has
levels lower than those immediately above and below it, and its
high-water level ALWAYS occurs at MIDNIGHT!�
Barb questions the legitimacy of the statistics that are being
compiled.
�
�It
sickened me to pass fields this year where nothing was growing.�
Whole farms were without water; alfalfa fields dried up.�
We went over 100 days without a drop of rain.� - Dan Wetzel,
Klamath Irrigation District ditch rider.
�
Dan
Wetzel, 58, of Merrill, Oregon, has been a Klamath Irrigation District
relief �ditch rider� for the past sixteen years.�
He delivers to farmers, filling orders for water, in the
Merrill and Malin, Oregon, rides, either by turning pumps on or by
delivering from the lake - it�s called water manipulation.�
�
The
irrigation season is supposed to run from April 1 through October 15
each year.� Dan�s job
covers two rides out of the eight that comprise the Klamath Irrigation
District, or KID, and the Tulelake Irrigation District or TID, which
are called the main project.� Most
of the rides are in Oregon, although the Malin ride does go into
extreme northern California.� The
water is used in flood-head or sprinkler-head irrigation systems, for
high protein count alfalfa hay fields and livestock pastures, as well
as potato crops and some grains like feed barley.
�
A
former logger for Weyerhaeuser until the spotted owl, sacrificial lamb
for the Endangered Species Act, (original habitat: Arizona) virtually
shut down the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest, Dan was
permanently laid off in 1981.� He
worked as a seasonal part-time employee for the Forest Service and the
Oregon Dept. of Forestry for the next three years. In 1984, Dan was
hired by the KID; he expected to finish his working career there.
�
For
the past four years, the weather cycle has not been kind to the
Klamath Basin and its inhabitants.�
With the failure to open the Headgates in April 2001, and the
time lag before the farmers� pleas were heard by Gale Norton, new
Secretary of the Department of Interior, much damage was done to the
area that was secondary to the water�s belated arrival.�
Some of canals in the Malin Irrigation District were so
�weeded up� that they never got water.
�
KID
is intricate maze of canals and smaller ditches that supply water to
various farming operations. The Lost River diversion canal, which is
perfectly flat, can pump water either way, from Lost River to Klamath
River or vice-versa.� During
normal water years, these canals deliver water that has transformed
approximately 200,000 acres of high desert into fertile green that
feeds the world.� The land
is called the Klamath Basin Project.�
Since 1918, with the inception of the District, farmers have
invested sweat equity and generations of their families into this
agricultural miracle.
�
The
functions of the KBP and its system of irrigation is that water is
used 5-7 times, by KID and TID, then goes to the lower (Tulelake)
wildlife refuge, for the bald eagles and ducks.�
It is being recycled, not simply used.�
In irrigation districts, water is measured and spoken of in CFS
-- Cubic Feet per Second -- and a general rule of thumb is 450 gallons
per minute.� When a farmer
orders 2 cubic feet, he or she may receive 900 gallons a minute for a
period of from 12-24 hours, though the minimum charge is for 24 hours.�
In 2001, water ordered and PAID FOR, by farmers in the
District, was delivered �too little, too late� and the farmers
have not been reimbursed either their money or the loss to their farms
of income.� In some cases,
the loss has been permanent, with the farmer selling in order to get
�something� out of his investment, at a terrible loss.
�
Dan
and his wife Kathy have 30 acres (a �gentleman�s farm�) with an
irrigation well that keeps eight acres of alfalfa emerald-green, and
maintains some hilly pasture to the south of and outside the KID, just
a mile from the California border.
�
The
loggers first said, �They'll never kick us out of the woods.��
The farmers were complacent: �They'll never take my water.�
I've got a contract.� The
only priority over my use is domestic use.��
The Endangered Species Act, or ESA, with the change from area
to �site-specific� habitat has multiplied the numbers of species,
both actually endangered and those who have been made endangered by
reengineering and junk science.� The
Biological Opinion, served on the residents by U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, is what will ultimately decide the fate of
everything that lives within the Basin, human, flora and fauna,
endangered or not.� The BO
has the power to return the entire Klamath Basin to �pre-settlement
or pre-European settlement�condition,� and that will not
benefit the American Bald Eagle or the American Farmer.�
To �re-wild� the vast reaches of the Basin would mean that
the effect of crops lost would be felt in the American consumer�s
pocketbook, as the buying power of the food dollar shrinks.�
Granted, this would not be a big effect, but the ripples of the
collective pebbles that are American farms, ranches, mines, timber
sales, etc. would mean that the American Dream as we know it would
cease to exist, and with it would go the American quality of life.
�
"We
in the Klamath Basin feel that we are at Ground Zero in the battle for
the West...� Like most of
my neighbors, I feel our livelihoods have changed forever." -
Doug Mouch, Merrill, Oregon, farmer and rancher in the Klamath Basin.
�
To
those who pass by the farm of Doug and Kim Mouch, and see their three
children growing up "in the country," the roots of their
commitment may not appear to go all the way back to World War I, to a
crippled young veteran named Barney Mouch.�
�
Barney
ingested mustard gas during the Ardennes-Muese battle in the European
Theater (of war) on the Western Front.�
The Ardennes Cemetery, ninety acres in extent, mutely
illustrates the dangers of war that young Mouch faced: it contains 462
American Missing who gave their lives in the service of their country,
but whose remains were never recovered or identified. The cemetery,
ninety acres in extent, contains the graves of 5,328 American military
Dead.
�
Upon
his return home after the war, Barney�s neighbors tried to get him
to stop farming and simply draw a pension.�
The Mouch ties to the land and to his family were too strong,
though, and Barney trusted the government promise of water for his
land.� He persevered,
wresting from the high and arid desert a beautiful gem of productivity
and diversity, a farm with the richest alfalfa fields and Guernsey
dairy cattle, a home and a career to be proud to hand down to his
heirs.� When the eldest
Mouch died in 1976, his grandson Doug vowed to keep the place his
grandpa had invested his life in.
�
Fast-forward
to the twenty-first century, and Doug, who with his wife Kim and their
three children, is raising not only one hundred and thirty pairs of
Guernsey cattle (cow-calf operation), but also has supplied not just
his own cattle, but those of another dairy 250 miles to the north in
Jefferson, Oregon.
�
Doug,
35, a college graduate with a degree in engineering and a short time
with Boeing in tool design, soon became convinced that the farm was
the place to be.� In 1992,
he and Kim brought their young family home to stay in the Klamath
Basin.� He has cultivated
a healthy business in marketing top-grade alfalfa hay to the good
customer at the dairy and worries that that dairy will now be forced
to look for another source of hay, that he may lose a customer that he
invested much time and material to develop and maintain a relationship
with.� The ripple effect
will be that the dairy will have to compete for hay on the open
market, a market whose prices are rocketing skyward.
�
Kim's
family, too, has its heritage well established in "the
Basin."� Her father,
Don Dean, also farms in the Klamath Irrigation District.
�
"We
were blessed by having 1,000 acres of pasture for the cattle on the
Williamson River north of the upper Klamath Reservoir," Doug
admitted.� "Had it
not been for that, we'd have been in trouble sooner."
�
My
interview with Doug was delayed by his frenetic pace during haying
season, getting the single cutting of hay put up in the barns.�
He should have had three cuttings, so the two thousand tons of
hay will only be approaching seven hundred tons, forcing him to sell
the calves early (at 500 rather than 600 pounds per head).�
In Doug's words, "After that (the sale), I'm looking at a
head-on collision with winter.� It
might sound easy to sell the cows to get out of the feed crunch, but
this herd has taken years to build.�
I have little confidence that I will be able to generate the
revenue needed to return to the cattle business."
�
Doug
summed up the seriousness of the situation with these words: "We
must get the truth out and educate the public about just what it takes
to put food on their plates."
�
�I
just try to bring together other people who are "balls of
fire", and then stand by and watch things happen. I was just a
mouse that roared ... or squeaked!� - Betty Anne Wynne, California
Farmer.
�
Betty
Anne Wynne celebrates every day of life, and is boldly marching
through her eighth decade of life, an incurable optimist and avowed
activist.� Betty is quick
to take up the torch for property rights and rural custom and culture.�
In the process, many have benefited from her abundant energy,
infectious good humor and perpetual eye-twinkle!
�
The
California contingent of the Klamath Relief Fund Convoy that began at
Malibu mentioned that it would pass through Modesto, California, on
its way to Klamath Falls.� Betty
was busy from the moment she heard about the convoy, preparing to
�roll out the red carpet� for those traveling through, including
planning for shaded -- read: COOL! --�parking for the semi trucks
and other vehicles on a side street near Modesto's Graceada Pioneer
Park. Modesto Junior College, another cool shady spot for parking in a
"Tree City" whose campus trees were selected by beloved
college professor Frederick ("Pop") Knorr in 1924, was also
nearby. Betty reserved a motel room for a sympathetic member of the
media, although the �best laid plans...� were not to be.�
On the scheduled day, Betty and her longtime friend, and fellow
member of California Women for Agriculture (CWA) Marlene Sanders, and
Marlene's daughter Cathy waited at the Arch in Modesto, in the
102-degree heat.� They
waited patiently for almost four hours, and finally had to say
�Uncle� and go home, but the effort was made!�
As they discovered later, the caravan of five vehicles was
tardy in its estimated time of arrival, and passed through Modesto
without stopping on its way to Klamath Falls.
�
Although
Betty was not able to accompany the Convoy from California to Oregon,
she was there in spirit; her indomitable presence was felt by
everyone, including one of her old junior college girlfriends,
Lucille, who she hadn't seen in sixty-one years but always kept in
fond memory after Lucille and Woody Chambers married and moved to
Tulelake. Lucille and Betty Anne had been close friends and fellow
students in the farm community college Modesto Junior College. They
were not activists in those days when life was simple, just sweet
country girls, their country on the brink of entering World War II.
�
Happily,
Betty and Lucille are again in contact, by photographs and
correspondence arranged by Betty's e-mail friend and the author of
this article.
�
�I've
been getting water from these Headgates for 52 years, but never saw
them until today.� - Woody Chambers, Tulelake, California, farmer.�
�
Lucille
Chambers, a beautiful and fragile lady of 80 years, was steadied by
her devoted husband, Woody.� Standing
in the hot August sun beside the high chain link fence separating them
from the now-closed Headgates, they looked puzzled by the change in
fortune of their beloved Klamath Basin.�
They had driven over forty miles from their farm home in
Tulelake, California, to the Klamath Headgates to meet someone who'd
traveled with donations all the way from Ohio.�
�
�We're
P.O.W.s (Prisoners Of War) of the eco-war. The Federal Government
should not own land.� It
has created a Federal drought here.� - Bill Oetting, the Klamath
Basin, Oregon/California.
�
Bill
and Pat Oetting (he from Tucson, Arizona, she from Chicago, Illinois)
did not inherit their stake in the Klamath Basin, they chose it, over
farmland in Missouri and residences in Chicago and Tucson.�
They are first-generation Klamath farmers and ranchers with 31
years of marriage to reference their commitment to time and honor.�
Their 29-year-old son hopes to continue working with his dad
until the farms can be passed on to the upcoming third generation, two
young grandchildren.� A
daughter works with computers in Portland. Sixty pairs of Polled
Herefords are raised in a cow-calf operation; all but eleven pairs are
now sold due to the federally imposed lack of irrigation water.�
In fields where sugar beets and potatoes once thrived, alfalfa
hay and hard (red) wheat now grow.
�
All
three sugar beet processing plants in Klamath Falls pulled out, and
Bill wonders if they saw the �handwriting on the wall?� Top
quality russet potato production has been decimated.�
2001 is the first year in 94 years that the Klamath Basin has
had to import potatoes.
�
Bill�s
family still has rural roots in central Missouri, near the tiny hamlet
of Gore, 2,000 acres in five different farms near the Boone and
Crockett Trail and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Rail Line, now a
rail-to-trail.� Two of his
uncles and one aunt never married and continued farming in Missouri --
Bill and Pat farmed in Missouri for only a year before going west.
�
Bill
recalls something from his childhood: There was a big billboard on the
highway --�in the 1960s --�between Tucson and Nogales, on
the old Nogales Highway, that said �Get us out of the United
Nations.�� He wonders at
the apparent foresight in the sign�s message, still there today to
greet passersby.
�
Recounting
his feelings, Bills explains that rural terrorism began with mining in
about 1964, with three main problems: viewscape, leachate and water
use for extraction.
�
Next
on the agenda came timber, then ranching and now farming.�
�
Klamath
Falls and its crisis in 2001 were progression in this tumbling of
dominoes.
�
Marshy,
swampy land, together with alkali flats, formed a mosaic with farm
fields and small canals, guarded by Mt. Shasta, two hundred miles to
the south, that�characterized the Klamath Basin in the early
years of the twentieth century. From 1903-1905, the American
government shouldered its way in and increased the irrigation systems,
to enlarge the area�s agricultural base.
�
�I
was drawn to the Headgates by a force not of myself.�
The Good Lord drew me there.�
I was the main organizer --�Joe Bair and I went to Elko,
Nevada, and talked to Grant Gerber of Jarbidge Shovel Brigade fame.�
In two weeks, we put convoys and thousands of people together
to come to Klamath Falls from seven states,� he says quietly.�
I have the feeling that this man truly feels his settling here
was more than chance.
�
Bill
and Pat purchased one hundred and twenty acres in the Klamath
Irrigation District about three years ago because it was irrigated,
and because of the A water rights that ran with the land and deed.�
A government contract signed by Herbert Hoover stated that the
water rights were �in perpetuity.�
�
In
94 years there had been no curtailment.
�
They
also own three hundred and twenty patented acres in California, just
west of Tulelake and outside of the Tulelake Irrigation District, in
the Klamath National Forest. On that land, an aquifer that is 500 feet
below ground, near Crater Lake and Mt. Shasta, supplies their water
needs.�
�
Their
neighbors are International Paper to the south, and the Bureau of Land
Management and the U.S. Forest Service on the other three sides.�
�
Bill
states that the two government agencies �are NOT good neighbors.��
�
He
is nervous about the future of that landholding.
�
After
the horrors of September 11th, those maintaining their vigil at the A
Canal Headgates in Klamath Falls considered going to the Farmer�s
Market in New York City to help the small businessmen rebuild, taking
the collections of non-perishable food and supplies, stored in
semi-trailers at the Headgates, to their New York neighbors.�
However, the flood of help that inundated New York stalled the
plans, and fall haying and gathering of cattle and the advent of
winter shelved plans for the time being.
�
Bill
and Grant Gerber made a �whistle-stop tour of the Midwest� in
mid-September, talking to interested folks in Chicago on WGN with host
Max Armstrong on the Ag Report; Lowell, Indiana, at the First Baptist
Church; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with Constitutional attorney Gene
Zimmerman; and in York, Nebraska, where they met with the grassroots
property rights group Nebraskans First! and networked with Jim Beers
who had come from Virginia.
�
�The
feeling of taking care of things, when seagulls fly alongside the
combine waiting for the wheat to be opened, is incomparable,� Bill
remarks with great feeling. �We lost 3,000 people last year from
illness due to consuming food [that was]�imported from Korea.�
We've got to make a real decision --�our nation is going
�down the tubes� at an accelerated pace.�
We may just have to stop and regroup. I'm really in a time of
transition, having a real desire to get into the Constitution and the
Federalist Papers; and a real desire to get more unregistered churches
going, the non-501c3 kind."
�
�It
was worth coming here, to be a part of this.��
Ryan Palmerton, Grants Pass, OR, truck farmer.
�
Ryan
Palmerton, Grants Pass, OR, a 43-year-old truck farmer and gardener,
and recent heart bypass patient, journeyed to the Headgates on his
first outing in five months.� He
has a two-acre truck farm on land that he reclaimed from worn-out and
nutrient-depleted sugar beet land, by the use of intensive composting
techniques.� This
nutrient-renewed acreage yielded many thousands of pounds of potatoes,
tomatoes and onions last year.� This
spring, heart surgery stopped all activity, as Ryan healed from his
surgery.� While in Klamath
Falls, he quietly observed the activities, and was visibly effected.�
A peacemaker by nature, Ryan helped to keep the calm at the
Headgates by his presence.
�
�The
most indelible memory of the Headgates was two slices of
still-warm-from-the-oven, homemade black raspberry pie,� Julie Kay
Smithson, rural Ohio resident.�
�
During
the evening of Saturday, August 25th, only two volunteers were keeping
an eye on the peace of the Headgates, Ryan Palmerton and I.�
�
In
the warm darkness of the large tent, the long streetlight at the
locked gates laid its indirect beams over the dusty driveway.�
An old, battered pick-up truck pulled in, its lights out, and
stopped just short of the gates.
�
Two
children carefully got out the passenger side, a girl of about eight
or nine, and her four-year-old brother.�
They each carried a fine bone china saucer and silver fork, the
saucer wrapped in plastic.� The
girl introduced herself as Cheyenne and her brother as Mark, named
after his father.� She
said, �Our mother baked this pie for us, and we live over there (and
she pointed across the irrigation canal to some nearby homes), and saw
that there were two nice people here who had come to help us and watch
over us.� She said to
bring you two pieces of our pie that she just baked.��
�
With
that simple statement, Ryan and I were presented with two warm and
generous slices of pie, served on the finest china and with the finest
silver.� Tears flowed as
Cheyenne hugged me affectionately.�
�
�Wiggles,
my Australian Blue Heeler dog, has a new name in Klamath Falls:�
Hero!��
�
He
is possessed of the most affable and loving disposition imaginable,
this dog-son of mine with the multicolored and coated appearance, eyes
bright and brown, up on his toes in anticipation of the throwing of
his �yellow ball!�� Three
years old in July, Wiggles Wombat Blue Heeler is forty pounds of
eagerness, full of the joy of life, and I am blessed to be his human.
�
Wiggles
is a staunch traveling companion, snoozing quietly while the miles
unroll behind our truck, waking only for Arby's �roast beefies� or
herds of cattle.� During
the evenings, after our 1 1/2-mile walk, I rest and he stands watch,
using his stored energy for guard duty.�
�
While
in Klamath Falls the second evening, he showed a new side of his
personality hitherto unknown.� We'd
been out for our evening stroll, and I was ready for some serious
rest.� Wiggles kept going
to the motel room door, scratching and whining, neither of which he'd
ever done before.� My
human roommate, Kathy Van Tuyl, reassured me that she'd �do the
honors,� and took him out.� A
few minutes later they were back, and the lights were shut out.�
Immediately, Wiggles was back at the door, whining softly and
scratching.� Grumbling to
myself, I took him out � again � and we walked around for ten
minutes.� Back in the
room, I'd just turned the covers back � again � and he was
scratching and whining.�
�
�Okay,
okay!� Show me what it
is!� and out we went, for the fourth time.�
This time, I unsnapped his leash, and off he went, purposefully
and like a homing pigeon, for the back fence of the Motel 6, six feet
tall with privacy slats.�
�
About
a dozen feet from the fence, I suddenly smelled --�SMOKE!�
Unable to see through or over the fence, my four-legged canine
smoke detector and I raced for the motel office.�
The night desk clerk and her teenage son flew to the door of
the home that was adjoining the motel property to awaken and alert the
owners.�
�
The
residents got their garden hose and put out the fire, started by a
cigarette, carelessly flipped over the fence, that had burned the
grass in their five-acre horse pasture to within a scant�three
feet of the barn in which their horses were dozing, along with a
quantity of hay and straw.�
�
Another
five minutes, and a garden hose would have been hopelessly inadequate
to squelch the blaze.
�
For the rest of our Oregon visit, Wiggles was greeted by his new name: Hero!� For all the above reasons, and many more, this writer shall always remember Klamath Falls, Oregon, and its goodwill and patriotism! � Additional recommended websites: � http://www.KlamathBasinCrisis.org � |