Harvest Festival Saturday at Geiser-Pollman Park

Autumn is here, but Baker County gardens and farms are still bursting with vegetables and fruit.

“It was such an incredible bumper crop season,” said May Heriza, who has been busy preserving food and has sold produce all season at the Baker City Farmers Market.

This Saturday celebrates the season at the market’s Harvest Festival, with live music by Johnny Starr and a gourmet meal featuring local produce.

The market will be extended by one hour, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The location, as always, is in the northeast corner of Geiser-Pollman Park.

The menu will include roasted squash soup with garlic baguette and apple cider for $4; a side of Sexton Ranches lamb sausage for $1; caramel apples made with certified organic apples from Eagle Creek Orchards for $2.50; and pumpkin bread for $1.50.

Deli manager Oma Jane Davidson prepares a box of fried chicken.(Baker City Herald/Kathy Orr)

Little Susie refers to Susie Stout, whose family, including husband Doug Stout, and his parents Del and Ann Stout, recently purchased Reynolds Custom Meat Cutting in Baker City from Tim Reynolds.

“We purchased the meat business in May and have been doing a lot of cleaning up, fixing up and repairing equipment,” said Susie Stout.

The business is at 2970 H St.

While the core business remains focused on custom cutting and wrapping of USDA-inspected beef, pork and lamb, as well as custom processing of local ranch animals and wild game, Susie said hiring Oma Jane Davidson to manage the new deli proved to be a good move.

Davidson previously worked for the Stout family as deli manager at Wilson’s Market in the 1990s, and as manager of the bowling alley.

Farel Baxter of Baker City unloads firewood from his truck.(Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

With the arrival of colder weather, homeowners who heat with wood or those who enjoy a crackling fireplace are in the market for firewood, but the Oregon Department of Agriculture is urging consumers to avoid purchasing firewood cut in other regions of the state or from out-of-state.

“We’d like for everyone to become aware that firewood is a pathway for moving invasive species, and it’s easy to fix that pathway. Just buy local,” said Dan Hilburn, administrator of the ODA’s Plant Division and a member of the Oregon Invasive Species Council. “There is plenty of it around. Buy firewood that is produced locally and burn it locally.”

While the spread of invasive species to Oregon from imported firewood is a major concern, Oregonians should also be aware that pests like ticks that pose human health threats can also be transported on firewood transported from one side of the state to the other.

SALEM — Legislative leaders announced Friday that they will propose emergency funding to help cope with the worst grasshopper infestation in Eastern Oregon since 1978.

If approved by the Legislative Emergency Board, which meets Thursday and Friday in Salem, the $132,000 will hire a state entomologist dedicated to Eastern Oregon and help offset money already spent by farmers on pesticides.

House Speaker Jeff Merkley, D-Portland, said the state can help prevent a more serious outbreak in 2009 by spending the funds now.

“While we know these are difficult economic times, and we must be cautious in our spending, this $132,000 could very well save farmers, ranchers and the state of Oregon millions of dollars,” he said in a release. “It’s a wise and targeted investment we need to make.”

Merkley is the co-chairman of the E-Board, which controls the state’s finances between sessions, along with Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem.

Historically, Baker County has been on the low end of the totem pole when it comes to receipt of guaranteed loans and other business assistance programs available through the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department.

But change is in the wind.

OECDD records show that during the 1970s through the 1990s, Baker County and Malheur counties were dead last in business development guaranteed loans, gap financing and other types of loans lavished on businesses along the I-5 corridor, the Oregon Coast and other areas of the state.

Belgian draft horses are used to cultivate and harvest crops on the Mader farm north of Halfway. David Mader guides a 3-year-old Belgian, Red, while an apprentice on the farm handles the single-horse cultivator. (Baker City Herald/S. John Collins)

Deborah Mader hollers a hearty “hello” from the strawberry patch, then directs her visitors to the garden gate back down the lane.

“Garden gate,” in this instance, is a bit misleading.

When it comes to borrowing money for a business venture, don’t give up just because the first banker you talked to said no.

Speakers delivered that message to entrepreneurs and others attending a Thursday evening PubTalk economic development gathering at Mad Matilda’s coffee shop and restaurant in downtown Baker City.

When an entrepreneur is short of cash or other capital to qualify for a conventional business loan to launch a new business venture, help might be available to turn the initial no to a yes, by tapping into a variety of government loan guarantees, direct loans and grants targeting rural areas, said LaDonn McElligott of the USDA Rural

Gelato is served in two sizes — small at 120 grams and large at 190 grams — with a small, flat plastic spoon that encourages you totake small bites. (Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald)

“It’s more flavor, less fat, less air,” Caisse said.

Ann and Andrew Bryan, owners of Mad Matilda’s, first tasted gelato on their honeymoon in Italy.

As the nation celebrates Labor Day this weekend, Sen. Hilary Clinton, Robert Kennedy Jr., and other speakers at the United Farm Workers national convention in California are supporting passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers in Baker County and across the nation to unionize.

Baker County ranchers who raise cattle for Country Natural Beef wound up in the middle of the political battle over a key provision of the Employee Free Choice Act when Sen. Barack Obama weighed in on a labor dispute between the UFW and the Beef Northwest feedlot in Boardman that finishes cattle for Country Natural Beef.

In an Aug. 4 letter to John Wilson, an owner of Beef Northwest, Obama wrote of his “concerns about the breakdown in communication between Beef Northwest Feeders and the United Farm Workers.”

The UFW has demanded that Beef Northwest recognize card checks circulated among feedlot employees by union organizers. UFW officials claim they have collected signed cards from a majority of Beef Northwest workers who want to join the union.