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July 7. 2006
By LEE BEACH
H&N Staff Writer
The Kliewer family Christmas card in 2001 was a picture of the striking contrast
between their land the previous year and the aborted growing season which had
just ended.
“It was brown. It looked quite
deceased,” said Larry Kliewer, husband of Debbie and father of Ry and Ty. Both
sons were still at home, and the family was trying to make sense of the water
cutoff to farmers and ranchers on the Klamath Project.
This summer is the five-year anniversary of that year. It was a
summer of struggle for farmers and ranchers in the Klamath and Tulelake basins.
“Wherever there was clover, that was dead,” Larry Kliewer said. “It took
two years for it to come back. When the water started back up (near the end of
the growing season), that little shot really helped. The alfalfa recovered
really good.”
“That first winter,” Debbie Kliewer said, “we still had no doubts about
farming. We don't go back to the articles or look at the pictures (of the water
crisis.) It's a chapter I prefer to leave closed.”
That determination, married to a deep-seated faith in God, themselves and
family, has helped the Kliewers cope and begin to prosper again. And many
changes have taken place in five years.
The family now
The family gathered around Larry and Debbie's table for dinner and to talk about those years.
Ty and Ry came in from working on their own farms. Ry and his
wife Laurinda bought a home at Falcon Heights. Ty and his wife Brooke now live
in the house in which Ty grew up.
Larry and Debbie moved into a nearby home on acreage they bought in 2003, after
leasing the land to farm in 2002. Her father, Marvin Newell had joined them for
dinner. He lives about two miles away, and Debbie says it is a blessing to have
them all close.
The newest member of the family is a smiling, fair-haired 2-year old, Grace, Ry
and Laurinda's girl, the first grandchild in the family. Grace will be joined
later this year by a baby expected by Ty and Brooke.
The land on one side of the home grows
alfalfa which has already had its first cutting. On the other side barley is
thriving.
Ty Kliewer
Ty started to build a herd of cattle at
the time of the water cutoff. Today, Ty and Brooke have about 50 head. They
raise Gelbvieh and Angus, and some cross between the two. Their choice of breed
is based on marketability and ease of calving with a moderate-framed cow.
“As for bulls, we had a really good year,” he said. “We sold a lot more a
lot quicker than we expected. In February I was laying in bed thinking, ‘How
am I going to get rid of them?' A week later, they were gone, and I was very,
very thankful.”
He has been asked to judge a number of
cattle shows, including a jackpot show in Corvallis in the spring. He hopes
someday to have an opportunity to judge at a show like the Western National
Futurity in Reno, which he says is the third largest in the nation.
“Me and my wife bought a bull whose mother sold for $40,000 last year,” he
said as he singled the bull, Fred, from a group of cows in the corral outside
his parents' home later that evening. Fred is on loan there to breed with his
parents' herd.
“I share Fred and I mooch off their
equipment resources,” he joked, but it is indicative of what the family does -
they help each other.
Ty taught agriculture at Henley High School for 2 1/2 years beginning in 2003,
and was still farming as well. Now he devotes all his time to his farm, and
Brooke works at the experimental station in Tulelake, where she was busy
planting potatoes, strawberries and mint and cutting seed in the spring.
Ry Kliewer
Ry thought back to the end of that difficult season in 2001 and said, “I
didn't even have a clue what was going to happen in 2002. We couldn't foresee
what would happen. Things began to look better when George Bush got re-elected.
He knows this nation relies on its resources.”
His wife, Laurinda, teaches English as a second language at Lost River
Junior-Senior High School. She grew up in Etna, familiar with farm life. Their
daughter, Grace, is still something of a miracle to them, and Ry said, “I
still have a time fathoming that I'm a father now.”
Part of that miracle is that Grace is a healthy, happy 2-year-old. She became
ill with e-coli a year ago and was rushed to Doernbecher Hospital in Portland
for treatment. Laurinda said Grace's blood was attacking itself and she required
dialysis several times. But she recovered.
“God was with you again,” Debbie said to Ry, “He reveals himself
regularly.”
Ry and Laurinda are farming about 240 acres of organic alfalfa and grain,
because it fits well with their operation. They are expanding an experiment in
growing sweet corn from four to eight acres this year. Last year's corn was sold
locally to Sherm's Thunderbird Market.
Thoughts about the future
“It's always still in the back of my mind (the possibility of water being cut
off again,)” Larry Kliewer said. “I wish we had more resolved about this
issue. When the judge in the Ninth Circuit Court said a few months ago, ‘Fish
come first,' it still gives me a knot in my stomach.”
His greatest hope is both the water and the power rate increase problem will be
resolved, and “that the farm economy stays as strong as it's been.”
“It'll be interesting to see what PPL does,” son Ry Kliewer added. “It
depends on what Oregon Public Utilities Commission does. We'll find out next
year. We might have to convert to diesel.”
With that in mind, he has been carefully following the Oregon Tilth
Publication's reports on Oregon State University's experiments with soybeans,
flax and canola, which are all high in oil content, as possible biodiesel
sources.
“Here's how I see it,” he said. “In rural areas in political races, we're
outnumbered. People in cities have a different idea about the environment. Every
business has its woes and setbacks, but the fact is that ours were man-made by
people with different views.”
Debbie echoed Larry's comments about resolving the water issues, and then asked,
“How long is it before something is our culture?”
The question was spurred by recent comments by people about removing the bucket,
the symbol of the 2001 Bucket Brigade. “How about farmers in the Basin -
aren't they disrupting our culture?”
The family shares common hopes for the future - health and happiness, family
staying close together, healthy babies, good friends like Gerrie Wells, who
follows the family and calls often - and work to do.
“In 2001,” Debbie said, “it seemed like all I did was write letters and go
to meetings. It's better to have a job than be a protestor.”
“Before 2001,” Larry continued, “I'd say, ‘I don't like sprinklers and I
don't like moving sprinklers.' Now I hardly ever say that. Green is prettier
than green ever was and sprinklers don't bother me.”
Debbie added, “I have a new sense of gratitude. 2001 is what really made me
look at what is important.”
