Editor’s Note: Herald and News reporters are wrapping up weekly reporting on this year’s water shortage over the coming month. We asked them to supplement their last Tuesday reports with personal columns  

 

   A confession: I came to this job more or less ignorant of the agricultural industry. I grew up just 70 miles away, in Ashland, but I never thought much about farmers and ranchers — despite the fact that the Rogue Valley has an abundance of orchards and its share of farmers.

 

   I was 14 the day in 2001 when thousands of farmers took to the streets, for what became   known as the Bucket Brigade. I remember it only in passing, something that caught my attention for several moments on the 6 o’clock TV news.

 

   The nine months I’ve lived in the Klamath Basin have exposed me to agriculture in a way I’ve never experienced.

 

   Back in May, I rode on an ATV with Jason Chapman, a cattle rancher in the Poe Valley. As he pointed out pastureland that would likely go dry, the impact of drought hit home.

 

   My education continued. I spoke with countless ranchers, visited farms, and saw firsthand how a community like the Klamath Basin makes its livelihood off the land.

 

   From what I’ve learned, 2010 was not 2001. But it was still far from an ideal situation for most farmers. All too often I heard words like “uncertainty,” “fear” and “desperation” from men who looked tough as nails. I heard of crop losses, and saw them, too.  

 

   But I also heard stories of perseverance, of people who took an inch worth of resources and stretched them a mile.

 

   The Basin-wide water shortage altered the livelihoods of too many to count this year.

 

   But if there were complaints, I didn’t hear them. I saw people rolling up their sleeves and getting to work, drought or not. I saw people holding on to their livelihoods. And I saw an agricultural community rally to salvage what could easily have been one of the worst growing seasons in Klamath Basin history.

 

   I’m thankful for the education.