|
Become a friend of the Klamath Bucket Brigade All donations are tax deductible |
|
This Website is Dedicated to Alvin Alexander Cheyne January 10, 1921 - June 17, 2005 |
GovTrack.us is an independent tool to help the public research and track the activities in the U.S. Congress, promoting government transparency and civic education through novel uses of technology.
So many decades on the land
H&N photos by Andrew Mariman
- John Bowen, 81, is
planning to farm at least
one more year on the land
his father homesteaded near
Tulelake.
Bowen, 81, has been
farming his father’s homestead for the
last 58 years, and he thinks this year
may be the last.
“It gets harder
to take care of the equipment,” he says,
sitting on the couch in his living room
with his wife, Doris, by his side. “I’m
getting to the point where it takes too
long to do anything. I’m like the
housewife whose work is never done; I
never get caught up.”
Still-youthful
face
Bowen’s
youthful face and steady eyes don’t
reveal his years, but his workingman’s
hands are clues to the decades, which he
began
by watching his father, a World War I
veteran, build the home where he grew
up. Bowen’s father obtained the 75 acres
in 1938, Bowen says.
“There wasn’t anything there,”
he recalls. “My dad had qualifications
as a carpenter. He built our house that
year and a small barn. He built two
other houses for
two other homesteaders.”
Bowen purchased the homestead
after returning from the Navy at the end
of World War II. He tore down the old
house, vowing it would never
become dilapidated like
so many others in this farming territory
outside Tulelake.
Doris and John Bowen enjoy
some time together at home,
on the couch below their
favorite picture.
Farming fewer acres
John and Doris live down the road
from the two plots of land he owns and
works. As the years pass, Bowen finds
himself farming fewer acres, having rented
73 acres out for alfalfa cultivation the
last six years. At one time, Bowen was
farming 680 acres, the rest of the land
leased, often from widows, Doris says.
“A lot of people, as they get
older, they hang on to their land and rent
or lease it,” Doris says. That is Bowen’s
plan. He already works closely with a
younger farmer, Jim Lyman, and shares some
equipment with him.
“He does a lot of things for me,”
Bowen says. “He lets me use his hired men.”
“It’s a pretty cooperative culture
around here,” Doris adds. “People do help
each other.”
Big list of chores
Doris says she’s got a list that’s
20 miles long of work that needs to be done
at the couple’s home, so there’s no worry
that Bowen won’t know what to do with
himself when he finishes harvesting this
year’s crop.
“It was hard for him to start
cutting back,” she says. “It’s just a fact
of life, when you reach your late 70s, you
get tired. And his equipment is tired too.”
As he considers the future of his
profession, Bowen says the nation’s food
supply is the most critical element to the
future of continued U.S. independence, and
he worries
that water struggles could compromise that
future.
“We need to be
growing our own crops here, not importing
them all the time,” he says. “You cut the
farmers off and this nation isn’t going to
last. The farmers are the heart of the
nation.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
section 107, any copyrighted
material herein is distributed without
profit or payment to those who have
expressed a prior interest in
receiving this information for
non-profit
research and educational purposes only.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml