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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 •