ROCK ISLAND, Wash. — One night in June of 1981, Victor Hugo Vega approached two men in Tijuana, Mexico, and asked them if they’d ever been to the United States.

They said they hadn’t.

“Vamonos (Let’s go),” he said to them and a short while later they crossed into San Ysidro, Calif., at a spot where the border fence was down.

To their knowledge, no one saw them. They felt no danger.

“We started walking along the railroad tracks toward San Clemente,” says Hugo, who was then 23. “We were not afraid. We were young.”

Hugo and his two companions walked more than 60 miles to San Clemente during the next few days, sleeping in the hills.

In San Clemente, a friend a gave them a ride to Los Angeles. There they went their separate ways. Hugo found a cousin who pointed him to her brother-in-law’s place in Orosi, Calif., between Visalia and Fresno.

“There’s work there,” Hugo recalls her saying.

Soon he was picking nectarines and oranges, earning $350 a week. It was a lot of money compared with 3,000 pesos ($250) a week he’d made at a gasoline refinery in Vera Cruz.

He planned to stay just a short while. But the pay was good and so was the life, so he decided to stay five years.

Five years became a lifetime.

Hugo is one of millions of people who have illegally entered the United States from Mexico over the past several decades. Most say they did it for better-paying jobs.

Government and private sources say there are now 1 million to 3 million migrant farmworkers in the U.S. planting, cultivating, harvesting and packing fruits, vegetables and nuts. Besides California, Texas, Washington, Florida, Oregon and North Carolina have the highest populations of farmworkers, according to Student Action with Farmworkers.

Hugo was born in Apatzingan, near Zamora, in the state of Michoacan to Purepecha Indian parents in 1957. They didn’t speak Spanish but he learned it as a boy.

When he was 18 he became a featherweight boxing champion in Morelia, having trained in Mexico City.

After his trek across the border, he spent several years working the fruit crops in the San Joaquin Valley and began migrating seasonally to pick fruit in Orondo, Wash.

In 1987, he decided to move permanently to Orondo.

About that same time, he took advantage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, often called the Reagan amnesty, and got his green card. In 1997 he became a U.S. citizen.

On a trip home to see family in 1991, he met Guadalupe Campos. They married two years later in Mexico. She came to Orondo with him illegally but was able to become legal through their marriage and became a citizen in 2002.

They’ve spent their lives picking and packing fruit in the greater Wenatchee, Wash., area, eventually settling in Rock Island, where they’ve raised three daughters. The oldest is now 21 and studying political science at Washington State University. Her goal is to become a lawyer.

Hugo enjoyed picking apples more than any other orchard job. His best money on piece rate was $1,000 a week back in 1996.

He was a “fast picker and very good worker,” says Campos, 47, but he fell from a fruit tree while thinning branches in an Orondo orchard in 1996 and suffered a stroke the next year. They think the fall and stroke are related. The stroke left him without full use of his left hand and with an impediment to his speech.

Since then he’s done janitorial work at local packing sheds and, for a while, at the Wenatchee Post Office.

On May 2, 2016, at 58, Hugo turned in an application for cherry season janitorial work at Stemilt Growers’ 12th annual job fair in Wenatchee. He says he needs to keep working as long as he can.

For the first time in 86 years, Eastern Oregon farmers won’t have Pendleton Grain Growers to market their wheat from this summer’s harvest.

Members of PGG voted to dissolve the co-op May 2, which means they’ll turn to other outlets for bids — which could include neighboring cooperatives.

Umatilla County leads the state in winter wheat production, with more than 11 million bushels harvested in 2015. PGG served 1,850 farmers in northeast Oregon and southeast Washington, operating 19 upcountry elevators and barge terminal along the Columbia River at McNary.

Those facilities appear likely to sell to United Grain Corporation, one of the Northwest’s top grain exporters with an operations base in Vancouver, Washington. Tony Flagg, the company’s vice president of business development, said he expects a deal with PGG by June. Harvest for dryland winter wheat typically begins in early July.

United Grain was formed in 1969 and is owned by the Mitsui Group of Japan. Flagg said the company has traditionally focused on exports, but has started shifting philosophies to work more directly with growers. That has included building shuttle train stations in Montana and North Dakota to haul larger amounts of grain from those fields to a Vancouver terminal that can store more than 7 million bushels.

John W. Adams, a former PGG member who farms roughly 3,500 acres north of Pendleton, said he will listen to offers from United Grain while continuing to do business with Northwest Grain Growers, based in Walla Walla, and Pendleton Flour Mills.

“We’re going to be just fine,” Adams said.

Northwest Grain Growers serves 1,600 members in the region and General Manager Chris Peha said they are growing. The co-op added two grain piles in Athena in 2014, which Adams said have become an attractive option. Peha did not say whether the co-op intends to invest more heavily in Oregon following the dissolution of PGG.

“We focus on our own business, not what other people are doing,” he said.

Adams said it’s always good for farmers to have more than one place to market their grain, though where they go depends heavily on their location. Gavilon Grain, another Japanese-owned firm, has also added piles in Athena in recent years, providing another choice on the north end of the county. Gavilon distributes more than 45 million tons of grain every year, making it the second-largest merchandiser in the country.

Elsewhere, Pendleton Flour Mills has also purchased wheat directly from farmers since the early 1900s. Its main flour mill is located in town, with a satellite elevator in nearby Mission. Then there’s Morrow County Grain Growers, headquartered in Lexington, which operates eight grain elevators with a licensed capacity for more than 3.9 million bushels.

Like PGG, Morrow County Grain Growers was established in 1930 and has grown to incorporate multiple divisions including energy, agronomy and its own farm equipment dealership. Grain comes to MCGG from as far away as Idaho, stored at the Hogue-Warner Elevator on Paterson Ferry Road.

More than 65,000 acres have been designated “critical habitat” for the Oregon spotted frog, a threatened species at the center of a lawsuit over irrigation.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the critical habitat designation in Oregon and Washington, which includes 20 miles of river, provides a “road map” to guide conservation efforts for the frog.

While the federal government claims the designation won’t have regulatory impacts on private property, attorneys for natural resource industries say critical habitat does pose a concern for landowners.

Actions that adversely affect or slow the recovery of critical habitat are considered unlawful “take” that’s prohibited by the Endangered Species Act, said Karen Budd-Falen, a natural resource attorney in Wyoming.

“If I’m a private landowner, I’m going to be a little nervous,” she said.

Several environmental groups are already suing the federal government over the impact that irrigation reservoirs in Oregon’s Deschutes Basin allegedly have on the frog.

A federal judge recently rejected the plaintiffs’ request for an injunction that would greatly impact how the reservoirs are managed and reduce water availability for irrigators.

The three reservoirs — Wickiup, Crane Prairie and Crescent Lake — are included in the critical habitat designation, as is much of the Deschutes River between the dams and Bend, Ore., said Bridget Moran, field supervisor of the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Bend.

Portions of the river directly below the reservoirs were excluded from the critical habitat because large volumes of flowing water have degraded wetlands where the frogs live, she said.

“We have certainly identified water management as one of the threats” to the frog, but irrigators are cooperating with the agency to mitigate those effects, Moran said.

Nearly 3,500 acres originally proposed for the frog’s critical habitat were excluded from the final designation because landowners agreed to voluntary conservation measures, such as holding water in ditches for longer periods of time, she said.

“It needs water for all stages of its life,” Moran said.

Budd-Falen, the natural resource attorney, said the government’s assurances that critical habitat doesn’t affect landowners are “completely hollow.”

“Take applies across the board, whether you’re talking about federal lands or private lands,” she said.

If a private property is included in “critical habitat,” that makes it easier for environmental groups to argue that actions by a landowner are unlawfully harming the protected species, said Scott Horngren, an attorney with the Western Resources Legal Center, which represents natural resource industries.

Critical habitat creates a “bull’s-eye” for reintroduction efforts, so if private property is eventually occupied by the species, that raises the possibility of the landowner facing “take” accusations, Horngren said.

“If I’m a private landowner, I don’t want to get swept up in these efforts to reintroduce the species on my land,” he said.

The presence of critical habitat also creates new obligations for landowners involved with the federal government, such as those receiving a conservation grant from the USDA, Budd-Falen said.

In such instances, activities on private property would require a time-consuming “consultation” to determine the effect a project has on the habitat, she said.

For example, one landowner had to undergo a consultation to haul logs across property owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Horngren said.

YAKIMA, Wash. — A 20.7 million, 20-pound-box Pacific Northwest cherry crop is forecast to start harvest the last full week of May while California’s harvest has been devastated by rain.

The California crop has probably been cut in half by rain damage, said Roger Pepperl, marketing director of Wenatchee, Wash.-based Stemilt Growers, which is affiliated with Chinchiolo Stemilt California in Stockton.

A normal 8 million, 15-pound-box crop was forecast in California, but rains in April and heavy rain May 6 and 7 will leave a 4 million- to 5-million-box harvest, said Chris Zanobini, executive director of the California Cherry Advisory Board in Sacramento.

“We just can’t seem to get a good one,” he said referencing damage the last two years.

About 50 percent of the Bing crop was wiped out by the May 6 and 7 rain, Zanobini said. There was a lot of poor quality accompanied by spurs and doubles before the rain, he said.

Growers are assessing what they can salvage, and the bulk of harvest will be done by May 20, he said.

Lack of labor is a bigger story, Zanobini said. Packers have wanted to run 12 hours but workers won’t go more than 10, he said.

“There just is not enough to do the work that needs to be done. It’s very, very concerning. I don’t know had we had an 8 million-box crop if we could have gotten them all picked and packed,” Zanobini said.

“We were running 45 percent packout and quit picking Wednesday because it was costing more to pick than we could get at the warehouse,” said Kyle Mathison of his 500-acre cherry orchard at Arvin near Bakersfield. He’s turning his focus to the upcoming harvest of his 1,000 acres on Wenatchee’s Stemilt Hill.

In Arvin, Mathison said he had 15 to 20 percent cherry split from 3 inches of rain April 8-10 and an additional 15 to 20 percent damage from an April 24 rain. He gave up May 4 right before two more days of rain.

“We had over 4 inches of rain in less than a month, so we had to give it up. We harvested 400 tons and left 2,100 tons in the field,” Mathison said.

He said he was two days behind on picking because he only had 500 pickers and needed 700. “It’s a blessing I didn’t get more because I would have lost more money,” he said.

Harvest compression from Bakersfield to Stockton contributed to the labor shortage, he said. He’s optimistic the Washington harvest will be better.

The PNW estimate is likely to change, but right now it’s 7 percent greater than the 2015 final of 19.3 million boxes and would place third behind the record 2014 crop of 23.2 million boxes and the 2012 crop of 22.9 million.

Northwest Cherry Growers, the industry promotional organization in Yakima, is predicting another early start, tying last year’s record of May 24. The historic norm is about June 1. Orchards near Pasco and Mattawa are always the first to start harvest that finishes in August with high-elevation cherries in Stemilt Basin south of Wenatchee and on the lower slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon.

It looks like the crop will be very similar to last year in size and timing but hopefully without the June heat waves that pushed the crop last year, said James Michael, vice president of marketing at Northwest Cherry Growers.

A record 12.6 million boxes of cherries harvested last June and a record 14 million shipped before the Fourth of July enjoyed strong demand and prices, B.J. Thurlby, the Northwest Cherry Growers president, has said.

But a second heat wave in late June caused a market glut after the Fourth that lasted 10 days and depressed prices.

This year’s first forecast calls for shipments of 200,000 boxes by June 1 compared to 500,000 last year, 11 million-plus boxes this June, and a strong and early Rainier crop similar to last year’s 1.7 million 15-pound boxes.

Mid-June through mid-July appears to be the key window for promotions and programs to maintain sales momentum, Michael said.

In Manson on the north shore of Lake Chelan, Dan Baker hopes to get a crop this year. Last year, his five acres, mostly Bing cherries, were wiped out by hail. His Bing set light every year but this year lighter than normal despite good bloom and good pollination weather.

Skeena and Sweetheart typically yield 10 to 12 tons per acre in the region, but 5 tons is good for Bing, he said.

“When the trumpet lilies bloom, it’s time to pick,” Baker said. “This year it will be about one week early if I can get pickers. It’s getting harder and harder to find them.”

He needs 12 to 15 pickers. His harvest usually takes 10 days and usually starts the fourth week of June.

NYSSA, Ore. — Farmers in the nation’s largest onion-growing region will have a normal water supply for the first time in three years, and acres are expected to increase as a result.

Farmers in Southwestern Idaho and Malheur County, Ore., plant more than 20,000 acres of Spanish bulb onions in a typical year.

According to USDA statistics, total onion acres in this region decreased significantly in 2014 and 2015, when many farmers had their annual irrigation allotment slashed to one-third of normal due to a drought.

Growers and shippers agree that onion acres in this region will increase in 2016 but they differ on how much.

“There is a fairly significant increase in onion acres this year,” said Oregon farmer Bruce Corn. “I think (that) is a direct result of having adequate water this year.”

“It sounds like onion acres are going to be up a little,” said Stuart Reitz, an Oregon State University cropping systems extension agent in Malheur County. “Water doesn’t seem to be an issue this year and I think we’ll get some more acres because of that.”

Malheur County Onion Growers Association President Paul Skeen said everyone assume acres will increase but nobody knows for sure how much at this point.

“Are they up? We think so but nobody knows how much,” he said. “I have two seed salesmen. One says they will be up a tiny bit. The other says they could be up 5 to 8 percent.”

John Wong, president of Champion Produce in Parma, Idaho, agrees.

There is a lot of speculation about how much onion acres will increase this year but no one knows for sure right now, he said.

“I just don’t think anyone knows whether they will be up 1 or 2 percent or 10 percent,” he said.

Onions are the backbone of the economy in this region. There are more than 30 packing sheds in the valley and farmers here produce about 25 percent of the nation’s total storage onion supply.

According to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, onion acres in this region totaled 20,100 in 2013. That number dropped to 16,400 in 2014 as the area’s water supply was greatly reduced by the drought. They totaled 17,400 in 2015.

Whether production increases this year depends on more than just acres, Wong said. Yield is also a big factor.

Though onion acres increased by 1,000 in 2015 compared with 2014, total production actually dipped slightly because average yields were down considerably.

“If acres are up 5 percent and yields are down 5 percent, then production would be the same,” Wong said.

Irrigators who rely on the Columbia and Snake rivers claim there’s a serious error in a recent court ruling that rebukes Northwest hydropower operations.

U.S. District Judge Michael Simon recently held the federal government’s plan for operating 14 Northwest hydroelectric dams unlawfully jeopardizes threatened and endangered fish.

The ruling criticized several federal agencies for disobeying earlier orders to make “more aggressive changes” to the hydropower system and for spending billions of dollars on habitat restoration with little effect on imperiled species.

Federal agencies have repeatedly been urged to consider breaching or removing four hydropower dams along the Snake River to ease fish passage, but they have “ignored these admonishments” and “done their utmost to avoid considering” this action “for decades,” the judge said.

These findings were key in Simon’s conclusion that federal plans to mitigate negative fish impacts were “arbitrary and capricious” in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

However, the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association argues the judge is wrong because the government has studied in detail the possibility of breaching the dams.

“It’s a major procedural error. Frankly, it shows the level of bias in the decision,” said Darryll Olsen, board representative of the CSRIA.

The group has filed a motion asking Simon to correct his opinion because multiple studies have examined breaching the dams, including a seven-year analysis that rejected dam removal because it would increase water temperatures to the detriment of fish.

The CSRIA hopes the motion will persuade Simon to reconsider his ruling or convince federal agencies to challenge the decision before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Olsen said.

“To suggest it has not been reviewed is dead wrong,” he said. “I don’t think he can just blow it off.”

Removing the dams wouldn’t improve the survival of protected fish or end litigation, so that option wouldn’t help irrigators affected by the lawsuit, Olsen said.

Irrigators are concerned about the hydropower litigation — which has lasted for 15 years — for multiple reasons, he said. “It makes anything we do in water management more difficult.”

Requiring more water to be left in-stream for fish would reduce supplies for irrigators if state regulators refuse to issue new water rights or require irrigators to give up water when transferring or changing water rights, he said.

Environmentalists want to reduce the amount of water stored in reservoirs, claiming this would improve flow rates, which would further reduce availability.

The enormous cost of changing the hydropower system to aid fish recovery also drives up the cost of electricity, on which irrigators spend a lot of money for pumping water.

“We are definitely worried because you never know how state and federal agencies will react,” Olsen said.

The CSRIA hopes that judge’s most recent rejection of federal plans for the hydropower system — the fourth such ruling — may spur the formation of a special “Endangered Species Act Committee,” also known as a “God Squad,” which could exempt the dams from ESA requirements as long as mitigation measures are implemented.

Otherwise, it’s unlikely the litigation by environmental groups will cease, Olsen said. “They can simply challenge this thing ad nauseum.”

Once again, a federal district court judge is telling government agencies to reconsider how they operate hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin to better protect endangered salmon runs.

The ruling last week drew cheers from conservation, sport fishing and tribal representatives, who pushed for new solutions to buck the status quo — up to and including removing all four dams on the Lower Snake River.

Todd True, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, spoke during a teleconference Thursday and said the system needs to operate more like a natural flowing river, and less like slack-water pools.

“Those dams bubble to the top of things that need to be addressed,” True said.

On Wednesday, Judge Michael Simon rejected the feds’ 2014 biological opinion for salmon in the Columbia Basin, saying it violates both the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. It’s the fifth time a judge has ruled against the biological opinion, or BiOp, since the lawsuit was initially filed in 2001.

True said the judge’s ruling represents a real turning point in the issue, and the clearest indication yet that what the agencies have done to date isn’t working.

“I think the time for government stonewalling is over,” True said. “I think starting over is exactly what the judge is asking us to do.”

Conservationists, along with the state of Oregon and Nez Perce Tribe, sued over the 2014 BiOp, which is prepared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The nuts and bolts of the plan are handled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dams, and Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the electricity to utilities such as the Umatilla Electric Cooperative.

A spokesman for BPA said the agencies are disappointed and will take some time to fully digest the ruling.

Terry Flores, with Northwest RiverPartners, said the ruling discounts billions of dollars worth of work on fish passage and habitat improvements that have helped some salmon runs eclipse records in recent years.

Northwest RiverPartners represents the interests of utilities, farmers, ports and businesses on the Columbia and Snake rivers. Flores, the coalition’s director, said continued litigation will only lead to more process, which does nothing positive for fish. She also said dam removal on the Lower Snake is a frustrating proposition that would eliminate up to 3,000 megawatts of clean, renewable power.

“Obviously, fish would probably be better off without any dams,” Flores said. “But you have to look at the whole picture.”

True said those options — including increased spill over dams and potentially drawing down water behind the John Day Dam — are all part of the equation. He was joined at Thursday’s conference by Glen Spain, with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association; Liz Hamilton with the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association; Anthony Johnson, chairman of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee; Marc Krasnowsky, spokesman for the Northwest Energy Coalition; and Dustin Aherin, owner of Idaho River Adventures in Lewiston.

Spain, whose organization represents commercial fishing families along the West Coast, said the 2014 BiOp represented “institutional insanity,” and the judge’s ruling gives them an opportunity to really think about a new way forward. He also said the Lower Snake River dams are, in many ways, no longer necessary.

“It has cost us an enormous amount of money in the region to do the same failed things over and over,” Spain said.

BPA and the Army Corps of Engineers argue they have made improvements at Columbia and Snake river dams to support fish passage. At McNary Dam, the Corps said it installed two weirs at spillway gates and re-routed its juvenile fish passage channel to boost survival rates. About 40 percent of the river is also spilled over the dam to ensure juveniles can pass, without over-saturating the water with gas bubbles that can actually harm fish.

Salmon advocates say it hasn’t been enough. Warm water in the basin was especially devastating to endangered sockeye last year, when 96 percent of the run died before ever making it to Lower Granite Dam in southeast Washington.

The Nez Perce Tribe has stood alone among those challenging the BiOp. Johnson said the ruling was a powerful statement supporting their effort.

“We know there is a long road ahead,” he said. “We’ll do everything necessary to ensure there are salmon for our children and grandchildren to come.”

BEND, Ore. (AP) — A Canadian energy developer is closer to putting a solar farm in central Oregon.

The Bulletin reports Saturn Power Corp. is planning a 10-megawatt facility that could power 1,500 homes each year.

Deschutes County’s permit and plan approval for the project was finalized last week after the appeal period ended without opposition.

A company consultant said last year that the electricity will be sold to Pacific Power.

Bend-based Sunlight Solar Energy operates 1,566 solar panels at the Central Electric Cooperative in Bend. Founder and president Paul Israel says there has been plenty of interest in putting commercial solar facilities in Oregon, but that the process is slow.

Developers behind a planned 20-megawatt facility have asked the county to approve revised construction plans.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Two Klamath Irrigation District board members have filed complaints against their colleagues, saying they broke public meeting laws.

The complaint filed with the state ethics commission says Board Chairman Brent Cheyne, Board Vice President Grant Knoll and board member Ken Smith decided prior to public discussion to fire district manager Mark Stuntebeck. He later agreed to resign.

The complaint filed by board members Dave Cacka and Greg Carleton also says the board also tackled subjects not allowed in executive session on Feb. 29 and March 15.

A separate complaint sent to the Oregon State Bar alleges legal counsel Nathan Rietmann “aided and coached” a majority of the board to violate the public meeting law.

Rietmann declined comment when reached by the Herald and News of Klamath Falls.

Oregon grass seed acreage is down slightly this year, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service office in Portland.

Growers will have 118,000 acres of annual ryegrass available for harvest this summer, down about 4 percent from 2015, NASS reported.

Acreage of perennial ryegrass is at 97,000 this year, the same as last, and turf type tall fescue and forage type tall fescue also are unchanged at 115,000 acres and 15,000 acres, respectively. Acreage of K-31 type tall fescue is at 9,000 this year, down from 10,000 in 2015.

Roger Beyer, executive director of the Oregon Seed Council, said the acreage numbers reported by NASS are “right in the ballpark.”

“There’s nothing alarming in the report that I could point to,” he said.

Beyer said grass seed acreage often fluctuates, especially in the Willamette Valley, where farmers switch back and forth between wheat and grass seed.

He said the domestic market for grass seed has largely recovered from the recession, when demand plummeted as homebuilding and other development stalled. The export market, however, has slowed in response to the strong U.S. dollar, which makes Oregon seed more expensive, Beyer said.

The NASS report said 2015 yields were down due to drought. Damage from lack of water was “very apparent in the fall and some fields were slow to recover,” the agency said.

A recent report from Oregon State University Extension bears that out. In 2014, Oregon farmers harvested 269 million pounds of annual ryegrass on 120,830 acres. In 2015, acreage increased slightly to 121,290 acres, but produced only 220 million pounds of seed.

This spring brought adequate moisture and growers are hoping for a break from the dry weather of last year, NASS reported. Growers reported damage this past winter from cut worms, mice and slugs, NASS said.

Sundays

LANGLOIS — The Langlois Lions Club hosts the Mary Hildebrand Memorial Plant Sale 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, May 21, at the Lions' Clubhouse, 48136 Floras Lake Loop Road.

Thirty-six years ago, Oregon State University Extension educator Lyle Spiesschaert was looking for a way to improve the 4-H programs in Washington County.

What struck him was the lack of club-based activities geared toward interacting with the outdoors and being around horses.

That wasn’t all.

“We kept talking about how important the family was,” Spiesschaert said. “Parents are usually on the sidelines and the groups are geared toward competing.”

Spiesschaert set out to create an outdoor, family-oriented, non-competitive 4-H group with horses. Those interests, combined with his family’s interest in collecting authentic covered wagons, gave birth to the Washington County 4-H Wagon Train.

The first trip was in 1981 when Spesscheart and his father rolled out in the same covered wagon his great-great grandfather used.

Traveling the same fading ruts as their forebears, the modern-day pioneers make a 60-mile, 8-day journey each July. It often includes areas around Santiam, the Barlow Trail, Mount Hood National Forest — even over the top of the Cascades.

This year the 4-H Wagon Train is headed to the Sisters area near a section of the Old Santiam Wagon Road in Central Oregon.

“We have about half a dozen real covered wagons that go every year,” said Executive Wagon Master Leslie Mcleod, who makes her seventh journey this year. Alongside are walkers, riders and a support crew that leap-frogs ahead to the next stopping point with food and other niceties.

“We eat like kings,” Mcleod said. “Our cook is from Shari’s and we’ll have prime rib, huge meals. We burn so many calories we can eat whatever we want.”

But the food is not the best thing about the trip.

“I see kids and adults have a transformation that’s hard to explain,” she said. “They grow by leaps and bounds and mature in different ways. We all cry at the end because we’ve become one big family.”

Facing and surmounting unexpected challenges bonds the travelers together.

“Every year something unexpected happens,” Spiesschaert said. “They get together and make a decision and feel the success of doing it.”

Muleskinner Wayne Beckwith’s team of four pulls his 1883 wagon, which has surmounted many a snag in its day.

“We don’t purposely plan on challenges but we get them every year,” Beckwith said.

Member Lee Wiren is a professional photographer, who has documented the trip for the past several years.

“It’s a time to really bond with your own family and meet some good people,” Wiren said. “Even more than that, you can become a piece of history, walk in the moccasins of someone who went before.

“Taking a week out of everyday life is huge for people but I guarantee once they get on the trail they forget about all that stuff,” he added.

Wiren’s daughter Sezanna, 15, has been part of the wagon train since she was 9; her grandparents, brother, dad and cousin have all taken part over the years.

“I walked and sometimes I rode in the wagon,” she said. “It’s pretty eye-opening to imagine what it would be like if you had to live it all the time.”

Washington County 4-H Wagon Train

Orientation: 5 p.m., May 7

Place: Washington Street Conference Center, 222 S First Ave., Hillsboro, Ore.; park in lower level of parking structure.

Trial run: June 25-26

Trip: July 9-16

Cost: $225, includes all meals.

Need not be Washington County resident; open to families and singles ages 9 and up

Contact: 503-821-1119; www.4hwagontrain.org; 4hwagontrain@gmail.com; Facebook

PORTLAND — Where did Oregon’s snow go? April’s heatwave was so intense that nine automated snow monitoring sites recorded the most dramatic April snowmelt on record.

Among monitoring sites that typically have snow on May 1, 75 percent lost between 3 and 4 feet of snow in the month, according to the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The early runoff helped fill reservoirs around the state, but means streamflows will be below normal this spring and summer, especially in Southern and southeastern Oregon, the NRCS reported in its May water supply bulletin.

“Once the snow is gone, streams will be at the whim of temperatures and spring rainfall,” the NRCS’s Portland snow survey team reported. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center said the state can expect above normal temperatures for the next three months, although with above normal rain in Southern Oregon.

The rapid melt adds to a wacky water year. Much of the Pacific Northwest received normal to above average rain or snow last fall and winter, and by the end of March the snowpack was above average in many areas. April changed that.

“This year highlights not only the importance of peak snowpack quantity, but also the importance of the rate, timing and amount of snowmelt,” the NRCS said in its Oregon report. “These snowmelt characteristics are arguably as important as peak snowpack amount in shaping how streamflow is distributed throughout the spring and summer.”

Normally, melting snow feeds streams at a slower pace that sustains the water supply later into summer, the NRCS said.

Spring rains will be come more important factors than usual, the agency said.

“If plentiful, it could help delay irrigation demand and increase reservoir storage, potentially offsetting or buffering the impacts of early snowmelt,” the agency’s snow survey team concluded.

Oregon has adopted temporary rules for people who want to grow or handle industrial hemp this summer. Revisions in the rules reflect changes made by the Oregon Legislature, state Department of Agriculture spokesman Bruce Pokarney said.

The rules are good for 180 days, after which the ag department will adopt permanent rules. Rules for private testing labs accredited for hemp and hemp products will be covered during the permanent rule process.

The major changes for growing and handling include:

• The minimum acreage requirement for growers is eliminated.

• Growing in greenhouses or other indoor areas is permitted, and growers now can plant in pots or containers.

• All propagation methods are now allowed, including seeds, starts or clones or cuttings.

• A single registration can cover multiple growing areas. While non-contiguous growing areas must be declared, there are no additional fees.

• Growing and handling operations require separate registrations and fees.

• Registration now is good for only one year and costs $500 annually. Growers and handlers licensed under the old three-year permit system get a complimentary registration for the remainder of their term. Growing or handling hemp seed requires registration and payment of a $25 fee.

More information about industrial hemp, a link to the temporary rules and a registration form are at http://go.usa.gov/hbfF.

SALEM — A conflict over a straw-compressing facility has raised legal questions over what type of crop “processing” or “preparation” is allowed outright on Oregon farmland.

The Oregon Court of Appeals must now decide whether a farmer near Albany, Ore., may run the facility without a county permit restricting its operation.

The dispute centers on whether straw-compressing qualifies as the “preparation” of a crop, which is allowed outright in farm zones, or if it’s a form of “processing,” which requires a conditional use permit.

Jim Johnson, land use specialist for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said the ruling would be significant if it affects which activities are considered “farm uses” under the state’s land use law.

Farmers depend on seed-cleaning and straw-compressing services to get crops ready for market, he said. “They also need infrastructure to support their operations.”

In the case, John Gilmour had obtained a conditional use permit from Linn County for the facility but then found that the operational time limits were hurting his reliability as a straw supplier.

In some circumstances, the facility must run around the clock to meet the demands of straw buyers in Asia, Gilmour said. “Without that ability, I’m not very competitive.”

Earlier this year, the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals, or LUBA, held that Gilmour doesn’t need a conditional use permit because straw-compressing is “essentially an extension of the initial baling of the straw, which occurs in the field, that is simply further preparation in the facility, and therefore accurately characterized as a farm use.”

Neighbors who are concerned about traffic and noise from the facility have challenged that finding before the Oregon Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments in the case on May 5.

Suzi Maresh, a neighbor, said the facility is a “huge safety issue” because large trucks turning onto a narrow roadway are an “accident waiting to happen.”

Neighbors and the facility would be better off if it were located near a major freeway because the nearby roads are inadequate, she said.

Maresh said she doesn’t believe the straw-compressing facility is covered as a “farm use” under Oregon law because it brings most of its straw from other farmers and operates year-round.

“I don’t think this is farming,” she said.

Alan Sorem, attorney for Gilmour, said the facility can accept other people’s straw because it’s also grown on land that’s zoned exclusively for farming.

The fact that trucks are frequently needed to bring the compressed straw to market is expected and doesn’t preclude straw-compressing as a “farm use,” he said. “The commercial nature is not relevant here.”

Straw-compressing is clearly a type of crop “preparation,” unlike the “processing” of berries into jam, which cannot be reversed, Sorem said during oral arguments.

“Whether it’s been compressed or not, once you cut open the bale, it’s just straw,” he said.

Sean Malone, an attorney for the Friends of Linn County conservation group and concerned neighbors, said LUBA committed an error by declaring that straw-compressing is crop “preparation” without sufficiently examining whether it’s also “processing.”

“We’ve been given half a look. We haven’t been given the whole analysis by LUBA,” Malone said.

The agency acknowledged that the two terms were “potentially overlapping,” so the county’s interpretation that straw-compressing is “processing” should stand under Oregon’s land use law, he said.

“Given the ambiguity of the term, that provides the county with a certain latitude,” he said.

MONITOR, ORE. — It may come as no surprise that Ross Nels Iverson’s family is asking friends to bring their favorite tractors to the celebration of his life that will be held Saturday, May 7.

Iverson, patriarch of the family’s famed Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm and other agricultural enterprises, loved family, friends and farming. A line of tractors in his honor seemed a fitting — and funny — way to acknowledge the connection.

“I think it would make him smile,” said Paul Iverson, the youngest of his six children.

Ross Iverson died at sunset on April 26, with his family by his side. He was 90. The celebration of life will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at Wooden Shoe Gardens, 33814 S. Meridian Road, Woodburn.

He was born Sept. 14, 1925, on the family farm in Bear River City, Utah, and moved with his family to Portland when he was 17. He graduated from Grant High School and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II.

He married Dorothy Van Veen in 1950 and they were married 63 years before her death in 2014. They bought a farm in Monitor and there raised six children: Steve, Karen, Nels, Ken, Barb and Paul. The couple also traveled extensively, visiting six continents.

Ross Iverson was active in the community, serving 60 years with the Monitor Fire Department as volunteer, chief and on the board of directors, and 25 years with the Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District. He also was involved with the Monitor Telephone Co-operative, served on the Ninety-One School and Canby High School boards, and was a director with the Federal Land Bank. He also enjoyed classical music and opera.

But it was farming, his family said in a published obituary, that was his “life, vocation and hobby. He loved nothing more than overseeing and directing everything happening on the farm.”

During tulip season, Iverson enjoyed chatting with visitors who flocked to the farm. He was known to raid tulips from the farm’s coolers and delighted in delivering them about the community.

Paul Iverson said his father was a quiet man who endured accidents and illness and “never cheated anything but death. He took it in stride.”

He said his father would be humbled by the outpouring of cards and calls the family has received.

“He was a great man, he taught us a lot of good things,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Anna Brown is preparing for the trial of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupiers to last a long time, possibly months.

Speaking during a pre-trial status hearing Wednesday in Portland, Brown said she still wanted the trial of Ammon Bundy and the other occupiers to begin Sept. 7. But she also discussed how the court would manage breaks for holidays, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, if necessary.

“Heaven forbid we’re still doing this then,” Brown said.

Wednesday’s hearing covered a range of topics, including jury selection and where the trial would be held.

Brown said jury selection would likely draw on a pool of 1,500 people, although where those people would come from hasn’t yet been decided.

The selection could be limited to the Northwest section of the state, which includes both Portland and rural areas. But defense attorneys argued they’d like to see jury members drawn from more rural parts of the state, such as the Pendleton court district. Brown said she was open to the idea of a proportionally drawn pool.

Summons for jurors could go out as early as next month.

Defense attorneys also said they’d like to commission studies to look at how media coverage throughout the occupation may have affected the viewpoints of possible jurors. Lawyers said they’d use the nearly $130,000 studies to determine if they’d get a fair trial in Oregon.

If commissioned, the polls could take up to 150 days, which means they’d finish at or near the scheduled September trial date.

Attorneys also discussed the idea of allowing a half-dozen defendants who have already been released from custody to sever their cases from those of Bundy and other leaders of the occupation. That would allow those defendants to have a different trial date.

For occupiers Ryan Bundy and Kenneth Medenbach, who are representing themselves in the case, the hearing was another chance to raise their concerns about their ability to prepare an adequate defense while they are incarcerated.

The men complained they can only access the jail’s law library for six hours a day, and said they don’t have adequate writing materials to work on their cases.

“I’m not able to change all of the jail’s rules, nor am I trying to do so,” said Brown. But she indicated she’d try to create a dialogue with the jail that could improve case work conditions for Bundy and Medenbach.

Despite those complaints, occupiers Jason Patrick and Duane Ehmer expressed interest in representing themselves in the case, too.

Wednesday’s hearing also had its share of unusual moments.

Before the hearing began, some of the defendants gathered in the court room, bowed their heads and recited the Lord’s Prayer.

Ammon Bundy’s lead attorney, Mike Arnold, also complained that his client and Ryan Bundy appeared “thin and emaciated” after a recent trip to the Nevada district court, where they face charges for a 2014 standoff. Arnold said the men should get more “rations” in jail.

“I don’t know what you mean by rations,” said Brown, before stating she’d ask the jail to look into the issue.

Later in the hearing, defendant Jason Patrick complained to Brown that a U.S. marshal threatened him and his mother while he was in custody.

“I’ve never had a complaint like that before,” Brown said, before saying she’d pass Patrick’s complaint on to the head of the U.S. Marshal Service for review.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A plan to exclude mineral development on about 100,000 acres of federal land, to thwart a proposed nickel mine near the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, is nearing fruition.

The U.S. Forest Service released its environmental assessment last week, and written comments will be accepted through May 27.

The proposed mineral withdrawal would add five more years to the existing two-year moratorium on exploration already in place, on upper sections of Baldface Creek, Rough and Ready Creek, the Pistol River and Hunter Creek.

The withdrawal falls in line with congressional legislation proposed last year by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio and U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley to protect the area’s pristine nature.

The legislation targets the Red Flat Nickel Corp.’s proposal to strip-mine more than 3,000 acres, primarily for nickel, in the Baldface Creek drainage about 12 miles west of O’Brien just outside the Kalmiopsis Wilderness.

The company also has claims in other drainages.

The Daily Courier was unable to reach representatives for Red Flat’s operation. Based in the United Kingdom, the company has an office in Portland.

Roy Bergstrom of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest said Red Flat hasn’t proved mineral wealth in any of its claims, although it has done test drilling on some of them in the Hunter Creek-Pistol River drainage.

“Valid existing rights are not established on any of these,” Bergstrom said.

Any existing mining claims with valid mineral rights would not be subject to the withdrawal, but claims would have to go through mineral exams to test their validity.

“We would have to do a mineral evaluation to determine if claims are valid or not,” said Kevin Johnson, geologist for the BLM based in Grants Pass. “We have not made any determination yet.”

Virtually no hard rock mining operations have been permitted by the Forest Service in that area for many years.

The proposed mine location is near Baldface Creek, and claims fall on both sides of the creek.

Baldface drains into the North Fork Smith River, prized by rafters and an important spawning tributary for salmon and steelhead.

At public meetings in Grants Pass and Cave Junction last year, sentiment was heavier toward protecting the watersheds, but others from the mining community were dismayed over shutting down land to extraction of natural resources.

Nickel is an important alloy metal and is especially useful in the production of stainless steel.

BANDON -- Tom Collins, music director and organist, will present a free recital at 4 p.m. Sunday, May 22, at Bandon First Presbyterian Church, 592 Edison Ave. SW.