HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1981-10-28, Page 1rae
The heavy 10 cm (four inches) of snowfall last Friday night
lured out all the kids last Saturday morning for their first romp
in the white stuff. The kids in Clinton's Little England were no
exception, as here Marci Scboenhals, Cherlyn Bylsma and
Brandi Schoenhals (partially hidden) give Ryan Bylsma his
first sleigh ride of the year, while Kristopher Fitzgerald, follows
behind, waiting his turn. (James Fitzgerald photo)
•
Wettest fall this century
stalls area corn harvest
By Jim Fitzgerald
The wettest fall in more than a century
in Huron County has slowed to a crawl the
harvest of what could be a record corn
crop.
With four days yet to go m October, Clin-
ton has recorded 180 mm of rain (7.08 in-
ches) which includes 10 cm ( four inches)
late last week. That's on top of the 125 mm
(five inches), that fell m September, and
the 96 mm (four inches) that showered the
area in August;
The total of 401 mm (15.78 inches) in just
three months is a record that goes back to
1878, according to meterolorist Jay Camp-
bell of Exeter. Total precipitation for the
year in Huron County is 965 mm (38 in-
ches).
And it has made for some very trying
times out in the fields, says Huron
Agricultural representative Don Pullen, as
farmers struggle with mud and in broken
down corn stalks while attempting to get
the $50 million corn crop off.
"They may not have learned any new
words out in the fields," Mr. Pullen said in
trying to inject some humor into `a bleak
situation, "but the fields will be hearing
them in a different order."
He estimated that up 40 per cent of the
crop was harvested, with some of the
smaller operators with limited acreages
Burglars get some drugs
Clinton's Police Chief Lloyd Westlake
reported that a quantity of drugs were
stolen late Saturday night following a
break and enter at Dr. Harrett's office on
Shipley Street.
Chief Westlake explained that there
were no signs of forced entry into the of-
fice, located in the former health unit
quarters, but police investigation is
continuing into the theft.
In other police news, Chief Westlake
reported that The Douglas Tea Shoppe on
Princess Street was broken into on
October 19th Five game machines, were
damaged and an undetermined amount of
quarters were stolen from them.
first
column
Look out! The ghosts, goblins, wit-
ches and vandals will be out in all their
favorite haunts this Saturday night, and
with Hallowe'en falling on a Saturday
night, police are looting for more ac-
tivity than normal.
Of course the regular little trick -or -
treaters will be out as usual, and at our
house, the talk has been buzzing for a
couple of weeks now as little Andrea
and Kris prepare to embark on educa-
tional field trip to learn their first
lesson on how the welfare system
works. You know how it works: you
give, I take, you give, I take again, like
a one way street. Whoops, stop it Fitz,
you're beginning to sound like Scrooge.
The big tricksters will also be out, but
should be thwarted by the extra police
on duty, and the fire department, who
are patrolling the town most of the
night.
Here at the News -Record, The Great
Pumpkin will be sitting on our counter,
dispensing suckers from his smiling
face to all the little children who drop in
on Thursday and Friday during regular
office hours.
+ + +
The kids were also thrilled to pieces
last Saturday morning when they
awoke to find the landscape covered by
the beautiful mantel of snow. It even
gave yours truly a bit of a "rush" to see
the beauty of the first snowfall, and I
can remember when I was a kid, we
were excited by winter until well past
the New Year's holiday.
There seemed to be a million ways to
use the stuff, depending on the
temperature which gives the snowkja
packing quality, ranging from 0 which
was either slush or 20 below snow, to a
perfect 10, somewhere around the
freezing mark which means you can
make perfect snowballs, forts, etc., all
day without getting your mitts soaked.
However, my enthusiasm for winter
quickly waned last Saturday, shortly
after I had taken off or put back on
snowsuits, looked for mitts and hats,
and tried to match similarly sized boots
to three different size kids for the sixth
time in pne day!
I + + +
We also have an unusual sight in our
garden this year - being able to watch
the rain gauge go around the second.
time. The gauge holds 100 mm ( four in-
ches to you old timers) and its already
Damage amountm to $1,400 resulted
following a two -car crash on October 13th.
The accident at the corner of Huron and
Albert Streets occurred when a car driven
by Mervin Glen Rice, 51, of Port Elgin and
a second vehicle driven by Timothy
Munnings, 27, of Clinton renlliiled:Vo one
was injured in the crash but,damage to the
Munnings car amounted to $800 and $600 to
the Rice vehicle.
Police reported that two cars collided on
Huron Street on October 17th, resulting in
$2,700 in dama s. A car driven by Grace
DePutter, 33, of RR 1, Bayfield received
$2,000 in damages while a second vehicle
driven by Douglas Cameron, 29, of Clinton
received $500 in damages.
sitting at 80 mm its second time around.
I still think the ag department should
start researching the possibilities of
growing rice here!
+ + +
On top of all that,.the kids got another
thrill a week ago when Webster, our
normally white house feline, turned
orange after receiving a bath in tomato
juice, to which he objected to very
strongly.
It seems he had a rendevous with one
of the local skunks which seem to be in-
vading our town, with the cat coimg out
on the wrong end of the deal, so to
speak.
+ + +
First it was an $11 million jet to ferry
his royal highness and his henchmen
around the province in regal splendor,
and now its $650 - that with interest will
amount to $3 billion - for a share of an
oil company. When will Billy Davis stop
spending? He must be trying to emulate
those oil -rich Arab sheiks who jump
around the world at their own leisure in
their Lear jets.
While one of his henchmen,
agriculture minister Lorne Henderson
says the farmers aren't really in trou-
ble, and. won't offer them any aid,
despite the tearful pleas of thousands of
farm families, another minister gives
away a couple of more million dollars to
the nurses association so they can make
$25 grand a year.
Now don't get me wrong, the nurses
have a tough job and probably deserve
their money, but it makes me wonder
though to see a guy sweating it out for
10 years on a farm shovelling manure
and then end up with nothing and told
by the banks that he 'wasn't a good
manager.
While Mike Bossey of the National
Hockey League gets $600,000 for
pushing a piece of rubber around an
frozen water for a couple of hours a
week, some farmers are seeing their
whole lifestyle going down the drain,
and by all appearances, most other peo-
ple don't give a damn.
+ + +
The Main Street Wit says he knows a
local farmer who owes the government
and the banks so much money that they
can't decide whether to throw him in
jail or recognize him as a foreign
power!
done, while larger operations were still
Iooking at large unharvested, unplowed
fields.
On top of the.poor harvest conditions, the
corn is coming off at 30 per cent moisture,
which means farmers will have to spend
up to 40 cents a bushel to dry down the crop
to its 15 per cent storage level.
The yields are encouraging, however,
Mr. Pullen says, with reports coming in
ranging froth 70 to 130 bushels per acre.
The monsoon -like fall is a third strike for
many farmers, particularly younger ones,
farm organizations say, as the poor
harvest comes on top of low prices, record
high interest rates, and soaring input costs
for fertilizer, seed, and fuel.
"This winter will have a lot of tales to
tell," one older farmer noted sadly the
other day as he surveye 'the situation.
Although the fall p1og of Huron's clay
soils can be done as late as January,
should things dry up and the snow stays
away, it's too late now to put in the winter
wheat crop, Mr. Pullen says, and in some.
fields where planting was late, aid ger- 25 11 - 5 9 3
mination delayed, there could , be . „ 2ii 11 2' , a .. 5 .1
substantial losses, particularly if the field • Rair333 inn Ra in 21.4 mm
is underwater for any. length of time. Snow 10 cm
11 bth year ®Noe 43 Wednesday, October 28, 1981
Rabies not a severe problem here
Wildlife maybe vaccinated by hamburger bombs next year
Association Mr. Watt said, as the costs.
would. have been too high to collect the
samples.
If the vaccine is ready, the hamburger
bombers could take to the air as early as
next fall with the real vaccine.
Hunters and trappers have also. co-
operated with the ministry in researching
the movements of the foxes equipped with
radio collars, which has shown that Huron
County foxes have an average of 8.4 pups
per litter, the highest recorded litter rate
in the world which is related to the high
incidence of rabies. In northern Ontario,
foxes average about only 4.5 pups 'per
litter.
The research also revealed that a
juvenile fox in Huron County can travel up
to 200 miles a day, and a rabid animal
doesn't follow the territorial boundaries
that are instinctive to normal animals.
'Burn topage 3
By Jim Fitzgerald
Although areas to the south and north of
Clinton are suffering from an increased
number of incidents of rabies, it is nota big
problem here, Ed Harrison of the Huron
County Health Unit said this week.
But Mr. Harrison warned that with
Clinton on the fringe of the area, area
residents should be on the lookout for
animals acting strangely, especially
skunks and foxes and warn their children
not to, handle any animal unless it's the
family pet.
"Pepole should also keep up the im-
munization program with their dogs and
cats in case they do come in contact with a
rabid animal.
"There is a high incidence in .the wildlife
population," Mr. Harrison said, but he
expected the number of reported incidents
involving livestock to fall sharply with the
onset of winter, and the animals seeking.
hibernation.
Huron County has been the centre of an
experiment by the Ontario ministry of
natural resources to try and control the
disease, which, in Southern Ontario, has
the highest reported rates in the world.
Since 1972, the ministry research
program, called ORRAVAX (oral vac-
cination program) is attempting to vac-
cinate wild animals by dropping ham-
burger balls laced with an'oral vaccine.
Weather
1981 1980
HI LO 1-11 10
OCTOBER
20 14 1 8 2
21 7 1 8 4
22 3 .1 7 2
23 6 -2 7.5 e.4
24 4 - 5 13 0
Under encouragement from the World
Health Organization, it is the most ad-
vanced research program in the world and
involves bombing from an airplane, known
fox and skunk habitats with the two -ounce
packages of raw hamburg, laced with the
vaccine.
Proper bombing methods have already
been worked out, and with a marker
chemical, but the program is stalled until
Connaught Laboratories works out the
problems with the vaccine.
Otherwise, there is no positive way of
controlling rabies, which cost an
estimated $10 million a year in preven-
tative shots, clinics, diagnosis, and
compensation to farmers for stock
destroyed because of contact with the
deadly virus.
The ORRAVAX program hopes to
eventually control rabies in southern
Ontario and reduce the large outbreaks.
The cost . of the program would be a
fraction of the cost of the present losses.
Ian Watt, a senior researcher with the
ministry in Maple which has been involved
with the ORRAVAX program for its nine
years, was in Huron County recently to
collect skunks from trappers. The
research unit has set up a field station in
the county and will remain here until early
December.
Research has shown that 74 per cent of
the foxes have been digesting the marked
hamburger, which is frozen in small
baggies to keep it from splattering on
impact and slows down spoiling. The
marker chemical, the antibiotic
tetracyline, then shows up under the
microscope in ..samples of the animal's
teeth.
Because they aren't as mobile, only 56'
per cent of the skunks had traces of the
marker in their teeth, but Mr. Watt at-
tributed that to the animals slower
movements when compared to foxes. Both
levels are reliable 'vaccination levels,
however.
The whole program wouldn't have been
possible without the coo-operationof
hunters and trappers in the area, par-
ticularly the Huron County Trappers
.Hospital fund crosses$100,000 mark
By Jim Fitzgerald
The thermometer at the Clinton Public
Hosptial is getting hotter....the find raising
thermometer, that is.
This week, the 10 -foot thermometer
reached a significant milestone when it
passed the $100,000 mark and is edging
near the $115,000 mark on its way to the all
important $170,000 needed to get the
construction phase of the new emergency
wing off the ground.
A total of $353,000 in total must be raised
for the new $866,000 addition. The Ontario
ministry of health earlier this summer told
the hosptial's board of governors that they
had to have at least $170,000 in the bank
"Would you like to try an apple," was the question asked around town last Friday and
Saturday, as the Clinton Cub and Scout troop were out in full force selling the red fruit to
area people. Here Mark Walker, 9, holds up a specimen for the photographer's in-
spection. (James Fitzgerald photo)
before the first sod could be turned.
The remainder of the financing will be
covered by $100,000 from the hospital's
reserve fund, a $110,000 grant from Huron
County Council, and a $303,000 ministry of
health grant.
A door-to-door blitz of Clinton homes is
planned for mid-November, getting un-
derway on November 12th and continuing
until about November 25th. Area residents
can make either a one shot donation or a
pledge that could be paid off over a period
of months or years.
All donations are tax deductible and the
names of the supporters will be published
in the News -Record, if the giver wishes.
A big shot in the arm for the fund carne
this week from the Anstett family of
Clinton, who gave $7,000 in honor of the
family's connection with the hospital over
the last 30 years.
John Anstett president of Anstett
Jewellers, which has now expanded into a
chain of six stores with its head office in
Clinton, said all seven of his children were
born in the hospital over the past 30 years,
and the family felt a strong attachment to
the hosptial.
Mr. Anstett, who has been a
businessman in Clinton for 30 years, said
he decided to give a $1,000 for each of his
children.
Local nurses get
30% pay raise
By Jim Fitzgerald
Clinton Public Hospital's 16 full time and
22 part-time Registered Nurses who are
part of the 24,000 member Ontario Nurses
Association in 134 Ontario hospitals, have
been awarded an arbitration board wage
increase ranging from 31 per cent at the
starting level to 29.2 per cent at the
maximum seven-year rate.
The board's recommendation, which has
yet to be accepted by the hospital boards
involved, will be implemented in four
stages over a two-year contract, expiring
October 1. 1982.
A number of hospitals. including Clinton,
had given their nurses an interim increase
this month of 19 per cent after the nurses
had been without a contract since Sep-
tember 30,1980.
The award raises the starting salary
rate from $1,450 a month in the old con-
tract to $1,900 by the April 1, 1982. At the
seven year level, the old contract rate of
$1,676.66 per month will rise to $2,165 by
next April, when negotiations begin all
over again.
The massive document with the main
recommendations by the arbitration board
Turn to page 3
'.CLINTON
HOSPITAL
BUILDING
FUND
350
325
3�b
27s
250
225
200
175
ISO
12E
100
75
S0
25
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