| Surprisingly, the
neighbors like it , from the
Medform Tribune, August, 15, 2000 
Mail Tribune / Jim Craven
Kathy
Mason holds a 10-day-old piglet on her
farm, which runs in the middle of Shady
Cove much as it has for a century, with
no conflicts with neighbors or the
city’s tourist-driven economy.
Shady Cove pigs make for
a model farm
By Melissa Martin
SHADY COVE — For more
than 40 years, Kathleen Mason has been
raising pigs on a three-acre farm two
blocks from city hall and just down the
road from the steady stream of tourists
who now fuel this city’s economy.
The land has been in
agricultural use since Shady Cove’s
first settlers built a home here in 1888.
"This is the original
part of town," says Mason, who
purchased the farm in 1959 from a
descendent of Shady Cove pioneers.
"This land has always been in
agriculture."
A Highway 62 traveler
heading to Crater Lake probably
wouldn’t notice Mason’s pig
farm. There’s a small farm house, a
few pig barns built by Mason’s late
husband, Fendon Mason, and an exercise
corral to yield the lean pork that modern
consumers demand.
But the small farm inside
the city limits is home for 15 sows and
one boar. And this summer, the barns are
filled with about 50 piglets that will
soon be weaned and sold to 4-H students
or farmers wanting to raise pork for show
and consumption.
Mason says she doesn’t
hear too many complaints from neighbors
about her farm in the city limits. A new
Canadian product that’s similar to
cat litter called Stall Dry helps keep
barnyard smells to a minimum.
"She’s a good
neighbor and the animals are good
neighbors," says Les Weaver, a
retired engineer who moved to Shady Cove
three months ago knowing he would be
living next door to a pig farm.
"There’s no
garbage in the yard, no odors, no noise.
We actually enjoy seeing the 4-H kids
walking their hogs with a little switch
around the corral," he says.
"My wife likes to go over and cuddle
the piglets. They are cute as they can
be."
"We hope Kathy Mason
stays here as long as we’re living
here." goto Mr. Les Weaver
Addresses the Shady Cove City Council,
Sept. 21, 2000, at: http://www.rogueforum.com/LesWeaver
Mason spends her days taking
care of the piglets, notching their ears
to keep them with the right mother and
letting them play together in the
afternoons.
"When they are playing
and squealing, it gets to sounding like a
herd of elephants," Mason says.
For the sows, Mason takes
ice to the barn to cool them off on hot,
summer afternoons, runs fans to blow
flies away and plays country music so the
pigs can get used to the human voice.
Twice a day she gives them a break from
the piglets, who, when they are not
gulping milk every half hour, badger
their mother until she relinquishes a
fresh supply.
"Sometimes, when we
bring her back to the stall after an
exercise time, she looks in the door like
she’s thinking, ‘They’re
doing all right on their own; I
don’t know if I want to go back in
there,’ " Mason says, grinning
at Bell, a Japanese Duroc Berkshire whose
job is to nurse 12 piglets for the next
eight weeks.
Mason feeds the sows grain,
not table scraps. She keeps the pens
clean, carefully records illnesses and
medications and requires guests to wear
shoe covers to protect her herd from
bacteria. Her farm practices have earned
her the highest rating given by the Des
Moines-based National Pork Producers
Council.
"We have people call
and ask if I want the leftovers from
their garden and we won’t accept
them," Mason says. "Our pigs
eat grain, alfalfa and hay, and sometimes
we give them an apple for a treat. But
what you put in an animal, that’s
what you get out. If you feed a pig
garbage, that’s what you’ll
eat."
Mason plans to keep her pigs
in the city as long as she has help from
her daughter, Iva Mason, who supplements
the farm income by working for the U.S.
Forest Service. Before that, her
husband’s job at a mill kept food on
the table.
"You can’t just be
a farmer nowadays," Mason says.
"You need a second income."
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