December 2003

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WA Worker's Comp Hikes From Far West This Week, 12/6 The department of labor and industries said Monday (Dec. 1) that it would raise worker's compensation premiums for 2004 by an average of 9.8 percent.  Rates for agriculture would increase an average of 12 percent, including 16 percent for Fertilizer and Agrichemical Dealers, 18 percent for livestock farms, and 15 percent for machine-harvested vegetable farms. The increase was about half what L&I originally proposed, but still comes on the heels of a 29 percent increase this year. Fertilizer Industry Takes Action On Natural Gas Crisis From Far West This Week, 12/6 The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) has been actively lobbying the United States Government on the current situation regarding the escalating price of natural gas, an essential feedstock to manufacture nitrogen fertilizer.  The crisis is exacting a heavy toll on America's nitrogen fertilizer producers and the farmer customers they supply. This impact on the North American fertilizer industry is unprecedented and threatens to irreversibly cripple the U.S. nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing industry, which supplies roughly three-fourths of U.S. farmers' nitrogen fertilizer needs. OSU Guide Helps Keep Horses Healthy In Mud Season By Carol Savonen, Oregon State University Autumn brings rain. And rain brings mud, especially if you have horses on small acreage. With horses on one to 10 acres, rain and mud can mean an unhealthy mess for your horses and your pasture. And muddy pastures pollute streams, groundwater and household wells. "Living in mud and manure is unhealthy for a horse," explained Garry Stephenson, small farms faculty member with the Oregon State University Extension Service. "Mud harbors bacteria and fungal organisms that cause health problems." Wet, muddy conditions can foster organisms that cause mud fever (scratches), cracking of the hoof and sole and related lameness. Insects breed in mud and manure. With careful management, it is possible to keep a good grass cover through the winter, keep your weeds down and keep water clean and your horses healthy, said Stephenson. "Managing Small-acreage Horse Farms," a new publication from the OSU Extension Service, spells out how to keep your small acreage horse pastures healthy, and at the same time protect horse health and water quality. Stephenson, lead author of the publication, gives the following tips for getting through the rainy season with horses on small acreage. Keep animals off wet pastures. Animals on wet pastures create mud and compact the soil. They overgraze and trample grass. The result is less vegetation to filter sediments and use up nutrients from manure. Create a "sacrifice area," a separate paddock to keep animals off wet pastures. This restricts impacts to one area and saves pastures during wet months. Paddocks can be prepared with "hog fuel" wood shavings or chips or gravel. Utilize grass or vegetation "buffer strips" around your sacrifice area. Install rain gutters and downspouts on farm buildings to direct water away from paddocks. Don't overgraze or overstock your area. Rotate grazing to prevent overgrazing and allow pastures to rest. In western Oregon or Washington, a mare and a foal require about two acres for grazing use. A minimum of one acre per hose is required to cycle nutrients from manure and urine and to provide adequate space for exercise. The amount varies based on the amount and frequency of rain and how much the horse gets supplemental fed and exercised elsewhere. Cover your manure piles with a tarp or roof to prevent rain from leaching away nutrients and microorganisms into water. Or better yet, compost your manure. For more information on "Managing Small-acreage Horse Farms," EC 1558, visit our on-line catalog. Our publications and video catalog at: http://eesc.oregonstate.edu/agcomwebfile/edmat shows which publications are available on the Web and which can be ordered as printed publications. Be Safe! Editor's Note: A good friend of ours emailed us the following article. We thought it was especially pertinent right now when so many of us are out shopping and get distracted by all the things we need to do and remember during this busy holiday season. Please take the time to read this. We are all smart enough to know these pointers but we tend to think our world is a safe place, unfortunately that is not always the case. Some of these tips may save your life or the life of a loved one...read and remember, and BE SAFE. After reading this, forward it to someone you care about. It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in. 1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your body.  If you are close enough to use it, do! 2. Learned this from a tourist guide to New Orleans.  If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you.... chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION! 3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car: Kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won't see you but everybody else will. This has saved lives. 4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON'T DO THIS! The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE. 5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage: A) Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat. B) If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door! Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars. C) Look at the car parked on the driver's side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.) 6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs.(Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot). 7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN! 8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP IT! It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked "for help" into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim. 9. Another Safety Point Forward: Crying Baby Someone just told me that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her "Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, "We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door." He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby's cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby's cries outside their doors when they're home alone at night. Please pass this on! and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby. This story should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America's Most Wanted this past Saturday when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana. I'd like you to forward this to all the women you know. It may save a life. A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. This is not for the ladies only&emdash; guys, if you love your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc., you may want to pass it on to them, as well. Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it and it's "better to be safe than sorry."

Christmas Trees For The Fashion-Conscious By Marlene Fritz, University of Idaho HomeWise Want a 1950s Christmas? Buy yourself a Scots pine or true fir that's been sheared into a tight, gumdrop shape. Or how about a 1970s Christmas? That'll be a Douglas fir, also neatly sheared. In the 21st century, a fistful of Christmas tree varieties are jostling for public favor, and consumers' shearing preferences are spanning from gumdrop-tight to natural-looking and hand-pruned. With 11 million Christmas trees produced on Pacific Northwest plantations alone, there's plenty of room for variety in this greenest of green marketplaces-although you're more likely to find a hand-pruned tree on a U-cut lot or a small lot selling locally grown trees. "Everyone agrees that the perfect Christmas tree should be fragrant, with attractive color and good needle retention," says Yvonne C. Barkley, University of Idaho associate Extension forester in Moscow. "It should also be easy to grow and be able to withstand pests and adverse environmental conditions." "Alas, the perfect tree has not yet been found," she says, "but we do have a good selection of species to pick from." Among these upstanding trees: • Concolor fir: blue-green, fragrant, with good needle retention • Fraser fir: hard to find but increasingly popular because of its appealing color, fragrance and keeping qualities • Grand fir: deep green, highly fragrant, "but not a particularly good keeper" • Subalpine fir: "a splendid tree" with deep green color, elegant conical form and intense fragrance that's unfortunately uncommon on tree lots • Douglas-fir: an old standby with green to yellow-green foliage, good form but virtually no scent • Scots pine: good color and needle retention but little, if any, fragrance Barkley says spruces, by comparison, don't keep well at all; between that and their sharp needles, few consumers choose to spruce up their holiday homes with them. And guess what else is new under the winter sun? The National Christmas Tree Association now advises against adding anything to the tree's water. Plain tap water is by far the best, says the NCTA: "Some commercial additives and home concoctions can actually be detrimental to a tree's moisture retention and increase needle loss." Oregonians Have Many Options For Christmas Trees By Carol Savonen, Oregon State University Choices abound these days for getting a Christmas tree, especially in Oregon, which produces more holiday trees for the world than any other state. There are cut trees at retail lots, U-cut farms, artificial trees from warehouse stores, or the experience of cutting your own tree on public land (with a permit in hand, of course). Many Oregonians seem to prefer a more open tree than the typical sheared Douglas fir produced en masse for shipment out of state, according to Rick Fletcher, forester with the Oregon State University Extension Service. The noble fir has been the most popular, and most expensive, Christmas tree in our region through time, said Fletcher. Native to the higher elevations in the Cascades and Coast Range, this blue-green tree, with distinctly layered branches is a pleasure to decorate, and least likely to shed needles on your living room carpet. "If you go up to the mountains to look for a noble, you might easily mistake a sub-alpine or Pacific silver fir for the noble," said Fletcher. "If so it is fine, although these other firs will not perform as well after cutting as the nobles." Next in popularity is the fluffy and full Douglas fir. These trees have long been the standard of the industry, but many locals feel that these sheared trees look more like a bush than a tree. "You will find Douglas firs considerably cheaper to buy and if you keep them in water, the needles should stay on the tree for the month of December," he said. Another local favorite is the wonderfully fragrant grand fir. "This tree just smells like Christmas," Fletcher said. Grand fir has dark green needles and a full shape. "The only drawback with the grand fir appears to be occasional needle retention problems," Fletcher said. "If you wait until mid-December to cut it and keep it in water, it should hold its needles quite well. I have personally had this tree in our house for up to five weeks with minimal needle loss, but just do not let it dry out." Fletcher mentioned several other species of trees that might work for the winter holidays, just for a change of pace. Scotch pines are the classic tree of the Midwest, and are also grown locally in Oregon. They hold needles well, and have sharp enough needles to keep cats and kids at bay. Blue spruce, a Rocky Mountain native grown here as well, has similar characteristics and offers a nice, blue-green color. New species now grown in Oregon to consider include Nordmann and Turkish firs. "These species are very popular in Europe, but local growers are discovering their merits and beginning to grow them here also," said Fletcher. "Both these have stiff, dark green to silvery green foliage and a very nice shape. Their needle retention is good if kept in water." The past few years, many of the U-cut farms are offering more of an experience than just cutting your own tree. For example, they may also offer holiday decorations, horse-drawn sleigh rides, a Christmas tree maze, or light display and caroling. To find U-cut farms in your area, consult the advertising section of your local paper or your local county office of the OSU Extension Service. Adventuresome folks may want to take a trip up to the high elevation forests on public land to cut their own holiday tree in the wild. Before embarking on a tree cutting expedition up in the mountains or Coast Range, you'll need a well-equipped vehicle, a tree-cutting permit, appropriate clothing, emergency equipment and your own saw, said Fletcher. Finding the perfect Christmas tree is much more difficult in a natural forest than it is on a Christmas tree farm, where trees are pruned or sheared into a perfect shape. But naturally grown trees do have their charms. Permits are available from most national forests in Oregon. For example, in the mid-Willamette Valley, the Siuslaw National Forest in Corvallis and the Willamette National Forest Ranger Stations in Sweet Home and Detroit issue permits. The Bureau of Land Management offices are also possible sources for Christmas tree permits. Pure Water Makes Your Cut Christmas Tree Last Longer By Carol Savonen, Oregon State University There are lots of confusing myths about how to care for a cut Christmas tree once you get it home. In spite of the claims of many advertisements for tree preservatives, good old water seems to be the best recipe for making sure your tree remains fire resistant and that it does not drop its needles, according to Rick Fletcher, area forester for the Oregon State University Extension Service. To keep a tree fresh, Fletcher recommends waiting as late as possible before the holidays before you cut your tree. "Trees cut in early December perform better than trees cut in mid-November," he said. Once you bring the tree home, store it in a cool, moist place until you bring it in the house. When you do bring it in, cut about two inches off the bottom of the stem to reopen the water conducting tissues. Place the tree in a water stand that holds at least one gallon of water. Drilling holes in the base of the tree will not improve water uptake, he said. Forget putting additives in the tree stand water. "Some people advocate putting everything from honey to aspirin in the water to help preserve the tree, but tests have shown that plain water does just fine," said Fletcher. Place the tree away from heat sources such as fireplaces, wood stoves and heater vents. Check the tree at least once a day to ensure that it does not run out of water. And, if it runs dry of water, Fletcher recommends removing it from the tree stand and re-cutting its base to get it to continue taking up water.

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