Extension News: May 2006 Archives

As New Hampshire begins drying out from recent record floods and taking stock of damaged homes, businesses, roads, and agricultural plantings, public officials have issued a number of flood-related warnings and information bulletins.

Over a week after the flooding, many people whose homes were damaged have not yet been allowed to return and survey the damage. In the Goffstown area, about 50 families were evacuated and still haven't returned to assess and start cleaning up. State and federal health and emergency officials are working hard to provide information.

To learn more:

• Testing and protecting drinking water in a flood aftermath (bulletin contains other important safety information)
• Risks from household hazardous materials in flood-damaged buildings
• Dealing with mold
• Cleanups that might involve asbestos
• Post-flood fraud and scams alert
• Bike/walk-to-work day postponed

Click here for a complete list of flood related links.

Record rainfalls throughout southern and central New Hampshire over the weekend led Gov. John Lynch to declare a state of emergency and activate the National Guard. Forecasters predict as much as 15 inches of rain will have fallen in some parts of the state by Monday night.

Hundreds of highways have washed out or flooded, many residents have left homes flooded or threatened by rising rivers, streams, and vulnerable dams. Hundreds of schools and businesses have closed. Homeowners and business owners by the thousands continue to pump water from flooding basements.

Office of Emergency Management spokesperson Jim Van Dongen says his department strongly suggests that residents curtail all non-essential highway travel. “With more than 800 roads out in eight counties, it just makes sense,” he says.

Department of Environmental Services officials warn residents to stay out of flood waters, which may contain toxins and harmful bacteria, to wear protective gear if you must travel through flood waters, to disinfect items that come in contact with flood water (Use 1/4 cup bleach to one gallon of water as a disinfectant.), and to test the water in shallow wells that have flooded before using it for drinking or bathing.

We’ve assembled this list of online information resources and will continue adding to it as we get more information.

UNH Cooperative Extension has an array of information to help New Hampshire residents recover from multiple problems caused by this weekend’s floods.

Storm damage can leave behind debris-strewn areas, contaminated water, spoiled food, displaced wildlife and conditions, if not treated properly, may lead to health problems.

With rain totals reaching as high as 11 inches in some areas, and more on the way, residents must assume that all water sources are contaminated until proven safe. Food contaminated by flood waters should be handled carefully and a determination made on what to keep or discard.

Topics include staying safe, recovering from a power outage, restoring storm-damaged buildings, helping children cope with disaster, salvaging water-damaged belongings, financial recovery and more.

To those in the flood areas, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) urges residents to do the following immediately:

• If your home, apartment or business has suffered damage, call the insurance company or agent who handles your insurance right away to file a claim.
• Before entering a building, check for structural damage.
• Do not use matches, cigarette lighters or any other open flames once you’ve entered a damaged building, since gas may be trapped inside. Use a flashlight.
• Keep electricity off until an electrician has inspected your system for safety.
• Flood waters pick up sewage and chemicals from road, farms and businesses. If your home has been flooded, start cleaning up as soon as possible. Throw out foods and medicines that may have come in contact with flood waters.
• Boil water for drinking and food preparation vigorously for five minutes before using.

If you have additional questions, please contact your local Extension office. Please click on all our links for further advice.

Current Conditions in New Hampshire:

• Road conditions and travel alerts
• WMUR-TV Weather
  
• National Weather Service – Interactive Weather Information Service for NH
• NOAA - WaterWatch – current NH water resources conditions
• Real-time NH - NH Department of Environmental Services (NHDES)
  water level monitoring site

General:

• American Red Cross (ARC)
  • Disaster Services
• Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) – Floods
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
  • FEMA En Espanol
  • Guide to Disaster Assistance

Recovery:

• Food & Drinking Water Safety:
  • Food and Water in an Emergency (FEMA)
  • Food Security and Emergency Preparedness - Food Safety
    Inspection Service, USDA
  • Keeping Food Safe During an Emergency - fact sheet
  • N.H. Drinking Water Testing
    • Fact sheet on private well water testing
    • Request water sample containers
    • Understanding your water test results
    • For other drinking water questions, call Bernie Lucey at (603) 271-2952
• Shelter-In-Place (American Red Cross) What it means, what to do (PDF version)
• Cleaning Flood Damaged Homes
• Cleaning Household Utensils and Metals & Salvaging Papers
• Disaster Recovery: A Guide to Financial Issues - (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), AICPA Foundation, the American Red Cross, and the National Endowment for Financial Education® - NEFE®)
• Helping Children Cope With a Disaster
• How To Repair a Flooded Home (ARC)
  • English (PDF)
  • En Español (PDF)
• Recovering From and Coping With Flood Damaged Property (FEMA)
  • After a Flood: The First Steps (PDF)
  • Returning Home
• Removing Odors from Refrigerators & Freezers
• Restoring Emotional Balance After a Disaster
• Saving Family Treasures Guidelines

Safety:

• Are you Ready for a Flood or a Flash Flood?:
  
  • English
  • En Español
    
    
  • Blackouts
    
    • English
    • En Español
      
      
  • Flood Safety (National Weather Service)
  • Fact Sheet En Español
    
  • Turn Around Don’t Drown (National Weather Service)
  • Your Family Disaster Plan

   

  Posted May 15, 2006 | TrackBack

Many communities across our state are considering programs to monitor and/or control mosquito populations in response to last year’s outbreak of Eastern Equine Encephalitis, a viral disease spread by mosquitoes.

If your community is among those considering a mosquito-monitoring or mosquito-control program, or if you simply want detailed information about this complicated illness, check out this new 13-page information bulletin, Eastern Equine Encephalitis Could Return to New Hampshire this Summer,  by UNH Cooperative Extension entomologist Alan Eaton.

I’m wanted in four states…got my new driver’s license and a sweet new pickup. V8 baby – 500 horsepower…and the best part is, it’s all free, yeah, for me at least.

Recognize these words from a popular commercial? It’s one of a series of ads promoting a new service addressing identity theft at a major bank. The viewer is immediately captivated by the words, coming from an older lady as she cleans her pool, but spoken in the rough-sounding voice of a thug. The thug finishes with a ghoulish laugh, as the words “Ruth F., Identity Theft Victim” flash on the screen.

Identity theft. Should you be worried about it? You may have seen a brochure from your bank, or an article in a current magazine warning you about privacy risks in an increasingly technological society. But did you read them?

Maybe you did after seeing the series of commercials mentioned earlier. The ads effectively convey the message that no one is safe from identity theft. Victims include people of any age, socioeconomic status and race.

The fastest-growing white collar crime

Identity theft is the fastest growing white collar crime in the United States. A survey commissioned by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) revealed that an estimated 27 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years. Ten million occurred in the last year alone.

Identity theft is a serious crime that has caused victims to spend months or years—and lots of money—to clear their name, correct erroneous information and clean up their credit record.

Although identity theft victims are usually not liable for the debts the thief has incurred, they often lose job opportunities, are refused loans or housing. Some have even been arrested for crimes they did not commit.

This is why the FTC has chosen the theme Identity Theft: When Fact Becomes Fiction as their focus for this year’s National Consumer Protection Week, February 6-12.

According to the FTC, identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information, such as your name, Social Security number ( SSN), credit card number or other identifying information, without your permission to commit fraud or other crimes.

How does this happen?

It doesn’t seem possible, but it’s easier than you might think. If an identity thief can obtain your personal information, he or she can use it to call your credit card issuer and change the mailing address on the card, open a new credit card account or bank account in your name, drain your bank account, take out a loan, even buy a car or a house.

According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, thieves obtain your SSN, driver's license, credit card numbers and other pieces of identification, in a variety of ways, which include:

• "Dumpster diving" in trash bins for unshredded credit card and loan applications and documents containing SSNs.
• Stealing mail from unlocked mailboxes to obtain newly issued credit cards, bank and credit card statements, pre-approved credit offers, investment reports, insurance statements, benefits documents, or tax information. Even locked mailboxes may not stop a determined thief.
• Accessing your credit report fraudulently, for example, by posing as an employer, loan officer, or landlord.
• Obtaining names and SSNs from personnel or customer files in the workplace.
• "Shoulder surfing" at ATM machines and phone booths in order to capture PIN numbers.
• Finding identifying information on Internet sources, via public records sites and fee-based information broker sites.

Protecting yourself

These actions will help prevent thieves from using your identity:

• Minimize the amount of information a thief has access to. Don’t carry more credit cards than you need to, don’t carry Social Security cards, birth certificate or passport.
• Don’t carry other items with your SSN on them unless you need them that day.
• Reduce the amount of personal information that is “out there.” Remove your name from marketing lists of major credit card bureaus, opt-out of the sale or sharing of your information when offered to you, sign up for the FTC Do Not Call Registry.
• Never give out your SSN, credit card number or other personal information over the phone, mail or internet unless you initiated the contact and you have a trusted business relationship.
• Order a copy of your credit report once a year from each of the three national credit bureaus.
• Ask about information security procedures and safeguards at your workplace.
• Place passwords on your bank, credit card and phone accounts, but don’t use options such as birthdate, pet name, maiden name, or last four digits of social security number.

Are the businesses you work for or shop at exposing you to a risk of identity theft?

This handy online checklist will help you evaluate whether your employer, the enterprises you do business with, and the businesses you patronize take all the important steps to reduce the risk of identity theft among their employees and customers.

If you do become a victim

If you fall victim to identity theft, take immediate action. Right away, contact the fraud units for the three credit reporting agencies: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. As of April 2003, if you notify one bureau, it will notify the other two. Ask the agency to flag your file with a fraud alert.

The FTC suggests you take the following initial steps:

• Place a fraud alert on your credit report and review your credit report.
• Close any accounts that have been tampered with or opened fraudulently.
• File a report with your local police or the police in the community where the identity theft took place.
• File a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

Click here for identity theft resources

by Karen Blass, UNH Cooperative Extension Family & Consumer Resources Educator, Rockingham County.

From Thanksgiving through Valentine’s Day, we Americans spike our long winter darkness with holidays, bowl games and other special events marked by feasting, food exchanges and a general celebration of abundance.

Yet, according to a report released November 19 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, last year 36.3 million Americans either went hungry or reported uncertainty about getting enough to eat at some point during the year. This figure includes 13 million children.

By national standards, New Hampshire , with the fourth-highest median household income in the nation, has a relatively low rate of hunger. Yet our state’s affluence masks the harsh truth that tens of thousands of Granite State residents can’t stretch their incomes to meet the basic food requirements for healthy living.

Hunger and food insecurity in New Hampshire

Although we don’t have hard data on hunger and food insecurity in New Hampshire , we can gauge its incidence through related indicators like these:

• A U.S. Census Bureau report issued last August estimated that 96,000 New Hampshire people lived below the federal poverty guidelines ($18, 850 for a family of four) at some point during 2003, up from 79, 200 in 2002 and 63,300 in 2000. Most of these people rely on a combination of government food assistance programs and emergency food providers to get enough to eat.
  
  
• The 2003 USDA Household Food security survey revealed that 45 percent of households reporting hunger or food insecurity have incomes above 130 percent of official poverty levels, meaning they probably don’t quality for federal food assistance programs.
  
  “We have real concerns for the thousands of people who earn just enough that they don’t qualify for food stamps and other government assistance programs,” says Val Long, Nutrition Coordinator for UNH Cooperative Extension’s Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program.
  
  “Steep increases in the costs of housing, fuel, transportation and healthcare, as well as food, haven’t been matched by increases in wages. A lot of working families have begun depending on emergency food pantries to feed their families. The emergency food system was intended to be just that: help for temporary emergencies. But people have begun relying on it chronically. That shouldn’t happen in the United States . It’s not an acceptable way to ensure that people are getting a nutritionally adequate diet that keeps them active and healthy.”
  
  
• In 2000, 36,266 New Hampshire residents received food stamps. By 2004, that number had risen to 48,449.
  
  
• Survey results released in December by the National Low Income Housing Coalition indicate that to afford the average two-bedroom apartment (including utilities) in New Hampshire , a worker must earn $16.75 per hour, more than three times the federal minimum wage.
  
  
• By the end of 2004, the New Hampshire Food Bank will have distributed about four million pounds of food to nonprofit and emergency food providers throughout New Hampshire —a million more pounds than last year, according to executive director Melanie Gosselin. “In one year, we expanded membership from 240 agencies to 342,” she says.

New Hampshire ’s emergency food providers

The federal government’s nutrition safety net, which includes the Food Stamp Program, the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program (WIC) and the School Meals Program, has traditionally built nutritious food and nutrition education into their programs.

In recent years, the net has frayed. Many low- and moderate-income people with incomes too high to qualify for food stamps and other government assistance programs can’t keep up with the escalating costs of housing, home heating fuel, and transportation. Responding to an increase in need, the state’s charitable emergency food system has grown dramatically in recent years.

Founded in 1984 as a program of Catholic Charities, the New Hampshire Food Bank serves as a centralized warehouse and distribution center for a network of nonprofit daycare centers, senior feeding sites, emergency food pantries, soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

The New Hampshire Food Bank maintains an affiliation with a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks and perishable food “rescue operations” called America ’s Second Harvest . The nationwide organization takes advantage of its collective buying and bargaining power, and today serves local agencies that feed needy people in every county in the U.S.

The New Hampshire Food Bank receives food from grocery stores, wholesalers, farmers and individuals, as well as cash donations from individuals, organizations and a variety of fundraising activities. The Food Bank requires its members to acquire nonprofit status, have refrigeration if they plan to store perishable foods, and undergo periodic inspections that ensure safe food handling practices. Agencies preparing food onsite must have state-certified commercial kitchens.

Some emergency food facilities offer classes that promote nutrition and cooking skills to the agencies and their clients. For example, a nationwide program called Operation Frontline, pairs nutritionists with chefs from local restaurants to teach cooking skills and nutrition to clients of emergency food pantries. UNH Cooperative Extension Nutrition Connections staff in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties have collaborated with Operation Frontline to teach classes which deliver nutrition education to Food Stamp clients.

In addition, some food pantries provide other services that range from cash assistance to meet emergency needs for housing, fuel, clothing, and medicine, to job training and health screenings and clinics.

Observations from the field

Persis Gow, the bookkeeper for St. Paul ’s Church Food Pantry in Concord , has noticed an increase in demand on the pantry in recent years and months. “In January 2004, we served people from 25 surrounding towns. In November, we had people from 30 towns,” she says. “In 2001 we added 363 new families—people we’d never seen before. Already this year we’ve had 400 new families, with December figures not in yet. In 2001 we served 3688 children under 18; in 2004, to date, we’ve had 4228.

Gow says people who visit the pantry include elders, single parents, and people with disabilities. “But lately, I’ve noted an increase in the number of traditional, stable, working families—mother, father and children, all with the same last name,” she says. “That’s new.”

Dot Hunt has served as treasurer of St. John’s St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry in Concord for the past 22 years. “There are at least 27 food pantries here in Merrimack County , and we’re all busy. Our numbers are up, with 400 new families this year. As many as 1200 individuals pass through each month,” she says. “We’re seeing more elderly, more working families and—what’s new for us—more single young people. Sometimes three or four single people will be living together and one will come in to get food for them all.”

Hunt says the pantry also provides emergency help with rent, medicine, fuel and clothing. “Usually I get about 12-14 requests a month for help with fuel and rent. But one month not too long ago, I had 60 calls. We’re seeing a lot of people facing eviction.”

2005 hunger study

In 2005, the N.H. Food Bank will participate in the Hunger in America Survey that America ’s Second Harvest conducts every four years. “This will be the first time New Hampshire has joined the survey,” says Erin Chamberlain, the N.H. Food Bank’s program services director. The two-part study will collect demographic data from face-to-face interviews with clients of emergency food pantries and soup kitchens, as well as from a survey of provider agencies themselves. “It will give us hard data about who is hungry in New Hampshire and how they deal with it,” says Chamberlain. “The study will also help us learn about what our member agencies are doing for the people in need and what more we could do for [the agencies].”

If you or someone you know needs food

If you face a family food emergency, or know someone who does, find the most available source of food. Call the Nutrition Connections staff person in your county or call your town hall and ask how and where to apply for local welfare. If you have children in school, go to the school nurse for help finding out whether your children qualify for free or reduced lunches. The New Hampshire Assistance Handbook offers sections on eligibility and how to sign up for food stamps WIC, and other government assistance programs.

If you want to help

Besides educating yourself about the extent of hunger and food insecurity in your own community, you can also participate in a local food drive, contribute cash to the Food Bank, or volunteer your time at a food pantry or soup kitchen.

Donating directly to the N.H. Food Bank instead of purchasing food products yourself increases the buying power of your donations. “A $10 donation to the N.H. Food Bank will buy 40 meals for hungry people,” says Gosselin. “Our buying power allows us to sell food to local pantries at only 18 cents a pound.”

Since most local pantries or soup kitchens run on volunteer labor, citizens can also consider donating time. Call to find out if an emergency food provider near you (link to list of emergency food providers) needs help.

Resources 

Nutrition Connections
This list connects you with UNH Cooperative Extension county staff who provide nutrition education to low-income individuals and families in New Hampshire. Staff can help connect you with emergency food resources.

New Hampshire Food Bank
New Hampshire ’s only food bank; warehouses and distributes food to a statewide network of 342 member agencies.

America ’s Second Harvest - America’s Food Bank Network
A nationwide network of more than 200 food banks and “food rescue” operations.

Serve New England
An “alternative to food shopping” that offers families of any income level deep discounts on major brand name foods in exchange for at least two hours of volunteer service each month. New Hampshire has 35 pick-up locations. You can buy a package of frozen meats, fresh fruits and vegetables at about half the grocery store price. No limit on how much food you can buy. Call 1-800-603-4855 for nearest location.

New Hampshire Assistance Handbook

Published in 2003, but updated for 2004, the handbook contains a listing of critical resources for people in need, including food assistance, shelters for the homeless and for battered women, nutrition education, legal assistance, fuel assistance, social services, and much more.

Kids Café
A service of the Salvation Army. Serves dinner to needy Manchester children, followed by an hour of crafts or games, four nights a week

The Paradox of Hunger and Obesity in America
Obese, but hungry and malnourished? This paper, issued jointly by Brandeis University ’s Center on Hunger and Poverty and the Food Research & Action Center , helps explain the apparent paradox of how dual threats of hunger and obesity can co-exist in individuals and families.

By Peg Boyles, UNH Cooperative Extension writer/editor, and Helen Costello, Food Security Coordinator

See also: "It can happen to anybody."

Have you already started feeling the stress of the approaching holiday season? As the weather turns colder and Halloween comes and goes, many of us will feel the mounting pressure of gifts not purchased and incomplete planning. Although often touted as a season to relax and share special time with family and friends, the holidays have increasingly become an added burden to the ongoing stresses and time demands common in our society today. As a result, more Americans are saying “time out” to the craziness, and looking for ways to better celebrate the true meaning of the season.

In a survey by The Center for a New American Dream, four out of five Americans would like to have a more simplified holiday and fewer than three in ten think it is necessary to spend a lot of money to have a fulfilling and enjoyable holiday.

Nearly two-thirds of us feel that giving and receiving gifts is awarded too much importance during the holidays. The money spent on holidays, including decorations, entertaining, gifts, travel, etc., typically doesn’t come from savings, but from a credit card. Surveys have found that a majority of Americans plan to pay for holiday purchases with a credit card. And when those inevitable bills come in January, it takes consumers an average of four months to pay them off.

Why not choose an alternative this holiday season?
The Center for a New American Dream is committed to helping individuals, families and communities counter the commercialization of our culture and identify ways to conserve natural resources. Instead of “keeping up with the Joneses,” they encourage a shift that reflects our innermost values and human needs. This shift can result in more time for family and friends, and also has a positive impact on individual and family finances.

Within the section on Living Consciously, the Center for a New American Dream  provides some suggestions for making this shift over the holiday season. Entitled Simplify the Holidays, this area of the website provides numerous tips on saving money, decreasing stress, maximizing fun, and increasing time for family and friends during the holiday season. There is information on alternative gifts, creating a community Alternative Gift Fair, and a 20-page downloadable brochure entitled Simplify the Holidays.

This brochure is a great place to start if you are serious about making changes. It includes making a plan for your holiday spending, suggestions on how to talk to your family and friends about the changes you want to make, suggestions for simpler entertaining, and alternative gift ideas, such as the gift of your talents or your time, gifts to charities, homemade gifts and more.

On the Web site, there is also a touching story about a wife who finds the perfect “gift” for her husband, which it transforms their family holiday experience. She says, “It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas—oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it—overspending... the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma—the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.” Does this sound familiar?

You can make changes
Over the last several years, our family of six has intentionally scaled back holiday spending and activities. With two daughters in college and the overall increases in the cost of raising children today, we decided to explore alternatives to those post-holiday bills.

It’s been a wonderful change. For example, all of our children create “coupons” for one another and for us. They have offered to do someone else’s chores for a week, baby-sit younger siblings, make supper one night a month, play their sibling’s favorite game, take a younger sibling out to a movie or other adventure, or mow the lawn for Dad. It has been a huge success, as we all try and figure out what would be the best “gift” for one another.

One of my daughters knitted scarves last year for the whole family, and the youngest child knitted bean bags. We have also used some gift money to plan a special family weekend trip. With older children away at college most of the year, this has provided some unforgettable family time for all of us.

We still buy gifts for our children, but not as many and not as expensive. We have discovered that our children are more interested in additional time with us than more gifts. These changes have created opportunities to talk about our family’s values, and how the experience of the holidays can continue throughout the year. It is not about deprivation; it’s about more time, fewer bills, less stress, and paying attention to the ways we can show those around us how much they truly mean to us. It shouldn’t cost money to do that.

By Karen M. Blass, UNH Cooperative Extension Family & Consumer Resources educator

After breakfast, she
Sends me outside to harvest
Poems from the land.

This poem introduces Jack Kraichnan’s just-published book of short poems, Winter to Winter: a year of seasonal change in the Monadnock foothills (Snow Brook Press, 2005).

Trained as a naturalist, Kraichnan takes his daily exercise outdoors and on foot. In late 2002, he committed himself to producing a certain number of poems during each walk, using the three-line, 5-7-5-syllable meter of traditional Japanese haiku as his form. Winter to Winter incorporates the best of the haiku Kraichnan wrote during and after walking the same five-mile loop through Dublin from mid-December, 2002, to mid-December, 2003.

Kraichnan says he didn’t intend to write a book, but simply to use haiku as an interior discipline to complement the physical discipline of walking. “I wrote the poems as a sort of journal,” he says. “They contain both what I observed and what I associated with those observations. Diane [Kraichnan’s wife] read them, liked them, and organized them to create the book.”

Kraichnan encountered all types of weather during his year of daily walks. “In our increasingly developed and engineered world, weather is one of the last forces of Nature left wild,” he writes. “Being outside in it for a year was a gift.”

Writing within the rigorous demands of the haiku format “forced me to distil my thoughts,” writes Kraichnan. “I was rigorously honest in recording what my senses perceived, and resisted altering reality even slightly to accommodate an easy turn of phrase.”

On their surface, haiku report some observation or experience of nature. The best of them invoke deep emotional and spiritual resonances that readers experience directly, without the mediation of figurative or explicitly symbolic expressions. My favorite from Kraichnan’s Winter to Winter collection:

Beneath snow and ice
In dark of pond’s still water
Turtles are waiting.

I love this idea of combining physical activity with a writing discipline as Kraichnan has done. Over nearly four decades, including 18 years as a serious competitive triathlete, I’ve walked, hiked, run, biked, snowshoed, and swum thousands of miles, almost all of it across the familiar woods and roadways near my home, in the little pond just outside my kitchen window, or in half-acre vegetable garden I’ve planted, tended and harvested for 37 seasons.

Like Kraichnan, I’ve learned that our “seasons are not as clearly defined as I had thought,” with each season offering as many micro-seasons as I have encounters with the world outside my walls.

I’ve also learned that the same piece of terrain never looks sounds, feels, or smells the same from one encounter to the next. The feeling of the ground under foot or wheel changes perceptibly as the seasons advance. The scents on the air change, as frozen ground softens to mud, lilacs bloom, a neighbor mows his lawn, a dead woodchuck rots by the roadside in the August heat, fall leaves accumulate, a hard frost stiffens the ground. On my walk today, I heard the groans of frozen trunks and limbs in the winter woods and the rattle of beech leaves still hanging on their branches; tomorrow I’ll hear the whisper of uncut hay in the field, the voices of crows in my compost pile, and the squeals of children playing tag in my neighbor’s yard.

Like Kraichnan’s, my outdoor excursions have provoked me to write many poems, most of them marking rites of passage for me and for loved ones.

When my daughter turned 18 and left home for college, I presented her with a poem titled Rock and a small rock I picked up in our backyard vegetable garden to go with the poem. I spent three months writing Rock, laboring over each word and image, in part because I wanted my child to remember where she came from, but mostly because I needed work through my own grief and summon the considerable strength I needed to let go.

It snowed the day I received Jack’s book in the mail. Returning home from a long walk, I went to the edge of my small pond. A rim of ice had formed around the edges. A sparrow flew down as if to land, then flew away, leaving me with this poem:

First snow dusts thin ice
Of backyard pond, too thin
For that small sparrow.

Kraichnan writes in his preface, “I offer this book to those who may be trapped inside too often.”
Getting outside to exercise and explore can open us to new awareness of body, mind, and spirit.

Making poems about those excursions involves another level of “getting outside.” Committing to the discipline of putting words on paper helps the poet escape the received notions and old frames of reference that also keep us trapped inside.

Yesterday turned cold, windy, and sunless. I took a lunchtime run up Route 4, and came home with this poem:

Dry beech leaf rattling
Across dead, frozen asphalt
Takes wing on the wind.

By Peg Boyles, UNH Cooperative Extension Writer/Editor

On May 21, Kristen Wentz received her commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps in a ceremony at the Memorial Union Building on the University of New Hampshire campus. Wentz, a recent graduate of the St. Anselm College nursing program, completed her Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) training requirements at UNH.

An ROTC tradition allows cadets to pick the officer who performs their swearing-in, and Wentz chose her father, Colonel Paul Wentz, Brigade Commander for the 1st Infantry Division, Division Support Command.

In an unusual twist on tradition, Col. Wentz conducted the swearing-in from his military headquarters in Tikrit, Iraq via satellite videoconference.

“It’s not that unusual for parents to commission their children,” said Lieutenant Colonel Harry D. Prantl, a Professor of Military Science who heads the UNH Army ROTC program. “In Kristen’s case, we simply used modern technology to make possible what would have happened [face-to-face] except for the circumstances.

First in the nation video-commissioning

“I’ve done a little research, and I think this is the first commissioning ceremony ever performed by videoconference from a war zone,” said Prantl.

David Foote, UNH Cooperative Extension’s director of information technology and distance education, who chairs the Granite State Distance Learning Network (see accompanying article), worked with Prantl and others over several months to sponsor and coordinate the details of the long-distance ceremony.

On the New Hampshire side, about 35 people attended the 25-minute video-commissioning—Kristen Wentz’s mother, her brother, an Army Private 1 st Class on duty in Alabama, fellow cadets, other family and friends, faculty and staff of the UNH Army ROTC program, a handful of technical people and a reporter for the New York Times.

“I found it very moving,” said Foote. “Tears flowed on both sides. Kristen’s father gave a speech. His own commanding officer [Brigadier General Stephen Mundt], attended and said a few words. They closed the ceremony by singing the Army Song.”

“At the distant end, they gathered a group of staff officers in the headquarters” Prantl said. “Col. Wentz’s commanding officer even rearranged his schedule to attend. Although the Army has videoconferencing equipment in headquarters throughout the world, they mostly use it for command-and-control communications,” said Prantl. “Planning an event like this in [a war] theater is difficult because the units move around so frequently. In fact, that’s what happened. After our first dry run with the equipment, the unit moved, so we had to start all over again.”

Foote said that technical experts Mark Leonard and David Lucas in Durham worked through a number of technical challenges with their Army Signal Corps counterparts in Iraq. “We worried we might lose the signal, but the connection remained stable and the equipment performed flawlessly,” Foote said.

Prantl said the UNH Army ROTC program commissioned 28 Second Lieutenants this year, including Kristen Wentz, the largest number since 1988. The new officers earned their undergraduate degrees from various colleges and universities around the state; through partnership agreements between their own colleges and UNH, all completed their ROTC training on the UNH campus.

Prantl said Lt. Wentz will spend the summer studying for her nursing boards and report for active duty in September.

In 1999, UNH Cooperative Extension, NH Public Television, North Country Education Foundation, Bow and Somersworth High Schools, and Verizon collaborated in conducting a pilot program that provided educational programs to teachers and students via a two-way interactive video network. The pilot tested new technology that allowed previously incompatible videoconferencing equipment to connect.

The successful pilot led to an expansion of the project into a public-private partnership called the Granite State Distance Learning Network (GSDLN). GSDLN envisions a statewide network that will offer affordable distance learning opportunities and high-speed Internet access to public and community nonprofit organizations throughout the Granite State.

According to David Foote, founding GSDLN member and current chair of its coordinating committee, the network currently has about 35 sites up and operating at schools, colleges, state agencies, public libraries, and nonprofit organizations, with more due to come online soon.

“Last year, the network delivered more than 1000 interactive conferences—300 of them Cooperative Extension events,” Foote said. “We’ve used it for two-way interactive teaching between high schools, for conferences and workshops, many types of teacher training, and trainings for public health and emergency services training—on SARS, meningitis and hepatitis.”

To learn more about the Granite State Distance Learning Network(GSDLN):

• GSDLN Homepage
• About the GSDLN
• GSDLN Coordinating Committee
• Member sites

To discuss scheduling a videoconference at a GSDLN site for your community or nonprofit organization, contact David Foote

People often ask me about ponds they think are “dying,” or better yet—have “gone bad.” Of course, what they’re really referring to is a pond becoming increasingly nutrient-laden or eutrophic. These ponds become more and more shallow, and more and more vegetation grows both in and around the pond.

However, these ponds aren’t dying or “going bad.” The ponds’ owners may not like the way their ponds look, but there is nothing wrong with them. They’re simply aging. And that, unfortunately, is something we all go through!

Given enough time, all ponds will eventually fill in with vegetation and turn into marshes. The time needed depends on the pond and its location. Some ponds last 50 years or more, while others fill in within a few years of being built. However, for every pond, the aging process is inevitable.

So, how does a pond owner slow down the aging process? Most pond owners would like their pond to stay looking like a pond indefinitely. After all, who wants to build a pond just to have their investment turn into mud and cattails?

The most important thing a pond owner can do to prevent excessive growth of weeds and vegetation in a pond is to control (stop) the inflow of nutrients to the pond. Like land plants, growing aquatic vegetation needs nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, along with various micronutrients. It is a simple fact of nature that where there are nutrients, soil and water, plants will grow.

Common nutrient sources for ponds include lawn fertilizer, manure from livestock and/or wild birds and animals, fallen leaves, leaking septic systems, and bare soil. Be sure to consider what's taking place upstream and uphill from your pond, as well as on your own land.

Unfortunately, people often find they have no control over the nutrient source. For example, this can happen when there’s an upstream nutrient source, or when the pond itself is the nutrient source.

Many ponds built by the USDA Soil Conservation Service (SCS) in the 1960s and 1970s are now much shallower because of the 30-plus years’ accumulation of leaves and sediment. These ponds are now huge, wet compost piles. The only real remedy for a pond like this is to have it dredged. For a maintenance dredge, a permit is needed from the Wetlands Bureau of the NH Department of Environmental Services (271-1969). Your county Conservation District can help you with the permit application, as well as provide you with a list of excavators in your area.

Luckily, most ponds don’t have that much muck on the bottom and aren’t completely overloaded with nutrients. For these ponds, I remind people that where there are nutrients, there is vegetation. This means you need to think about which aquatic plants you like the most, or for some people, which plants they hate the least.

Aquatic vegetation can be roughly divided into two groups. There are the macrophytes, a higher order plant that look like, well … plants! The other group is the algae, the green slimy stuff that slips through your fingers. Algae can spread quickly, and can form floating mats of dead or dying material, commonly referred to as pond scums. I have to admit, a pond covered with slimy mats of brown, dying algae truly does appear to be “going bad.”

Macrophytes commonly found in New Hampshire ponds include cattails, pickerel weed, water lilies, duckweed and rushes, along with submerged plants like coontail and bladderwort. All these plants compete with algae for nutrients. There are also several plants with attractive flowers and/or wildlife value that can be planted at the edge of your pond. Both Blue Flag iris and Cardinal Flower make beautiful, colorful additions. Shrubs are particularly good at taking up excess nutrients. Native shrubs that also help provide food for wildlife include buttonbush, nannyberry, wild grape and winterberry holly.

Good sources for these plants include your county Conservation District (many have spring plant sales) and the NH State Forest Nursery , which sells many native plants, and even has a special wetlands package.

By J-J Newman, UNH Cooperative Extension Aquaculture Specialist

This spring about a thousand New Hampshire landowners will slice the newly-defrosted ground to create thousands of welcoming holes for tree and shrub seedlings bought from the State Forest Nursery.

Howie Lewis, nursery forester, calls his nearly 40-acre nursery one of New Hampshire’s best- kept secrets. Lewis says the nursery produces a unique product. “We provide something nobody else does – tree and shrub seedlings native to New Hampshire, with seeds picked from specimens grown right here in the state. When you buy from the state forest nursery, you know the plant is suited to grow here.”

In operation in Boscawen since 1910, the nursery grows more than 50 species of trees and shrubs for reforestation, Christmas trees, and wildlife, and sells them at affordable prices. Seedlings, sold on a “first come-first served basis” include conifers, such as white, red and Scotch pine, Norway, blue, red, and white spruce, concolor, balsam, fraser and douglas fir, and hemlock.

The nursery offers many other species, including arrow-wood, crabapple, fragrant sumac, grapes, highbush cranberry, dogwood, rose, nannyberry, beach plum, elderberry, winterberry holly, bayberry, hazelnut, red oak, cedar, sugar maple and white ash. Special “packages,” each containing an assortment of 25 shrubs and/or trees, include a Christmas tree sampler and special wildlife-and-songbird, wetlands, native species, and winter survival packages.

Besides being one of his best sellers, balsam fir is Lewis’ personal favorite. “I’ve worked with this species the most. I follow seedlings from the parents in the seed orchard through to watching them grow in the seedbed.” Balsam fir is a customer favorite because it has that classic evergreen smell. Seedlings sell out, so nursery staff suggest you order early.

Ordering starts in January and ends March 30. “When you are in the nursery business, spring starts a different time each year,” says Lewis, “So we ship to a county pickup point in late April or early May, whenever the seedlings can be lifted from the ground.” Customers receive a card in the mail announcing the pick up dates. “We work throughout the year getting ready for the spring shipment and hope we have many new customers this year.”

Lewis is enthusiastic about his trees and shrubs and hopes “New Hampshire’s best kept secret” is known by all.

By Karen Bennett, UNH Cooperative Extension Forest Resources Specialist

More information:

• To receive a catalog, contact the N.H. State Nursery, N.H. Division of Forests and Lands, P.O. Box 1856, Concord, NH 03302-1856, or call 603-271-3456.
• View the State Nursery catalog and order online.
• Planting and Care of Tree Seedlings
• Establishing the Christmas Tree Plantation

The volunteers of Great Bay Coast Watch (GBCW) call them “bad guys,” scientists call them harmful algal blooms (HABs), and the press and public generally use the term “red tide.” But whatever the name, the worst bloom of toxic algae in decades arrived in the spring of 2005.

Since June of 1999, GBCW volunteers have been sampling coastal waters to capture, examine, and identify the renegade single-celled algae that create these toxic blooms, whose presence may necessitate shutting down shellfish harvesting operations to protect public health.

This spring, data collected by GBCW volunteers gave a heads-up about an emerging bloom to New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) Shellfish Program personnel. Ideally, volunteers find the toxic algae cells before shellfish ingest enough to become toxic; however, this spring’s HAB arose so quickly and at such high concentrations, volunteer sightings coincided with elevated toxin levels in shellfish tested at the state NHDES laboratory.

Good things in small packages
Phytoplankton, the common term for single-celled marine algae, provide the ultimate example of a “good thing in a small package.” Cells are so small that they are invisible to the naked eye, yet so exquisitely beautiful artists have copied them in stained glass. Individual species take several forms, among them: opalescent ovals punctuated with thousands of tiny holes, pill-box-like chains with protruding spines, and plated-and-grooved “spaceships” with flickering flagella. (See figures 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6).

Millions of phytoplankton can exist in a single drop of sea water, inhabiting a tiny world all but invisible. Through the process of photosynthesis, microscopic “meadows” of single-celled plants sustain the entire food web of the oceans. The lives of all animals that live in the sea depend on phytoplankton for energy and minerals. Phytoplankton photosynthesis is a key element of the global carbon cycle, which regulates the temperature of our planet and produces life-sustaining oxygen. Perhaps no other group of organisms plays such a major role in maintaining life on Earth.

Toxic “blooms
A “bloom” happens when conditions allow algae to multiply very fast and accumulate in dense, sometimes visible patches. Blooms of toxic algae (HABs) are what GBCW volunteers look for.

Like handsome strangers wearing black hats, the presence of toxic cells spells trouble. Scientists don’t know why these “bad guys” out of an estimated 20,000 different phytoplankton species produce toxins. When toxic cells are abundant in the water, filter feeders like shellfish will consume them and concentrate the toxins, which can then be passed along the food chain. Humans who eat the now- contaminated shellfish can get sick or even die.

Of the six types of potentially toxic cells that GBCW volunteers look for, Alexandrium species are always toxic and are the culprits that caused this spring’s event.

People who eat shellfish harboring elevated levels of Alexandrium-produced toxins can suffer Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP). PSP symptoms range from tingling of the lips to, in rare cases, respiratory system arrest and death. Coastal states spend millions of dollars annually to identify HAB-contaminated shellfish before the shellfish can be sold and endanger public health.

Volunteers as early warning system
Using volunteers to act as an early warning system for HABs began in California in 1991. Theorists opined that since it was possible to train citizens as enemy plane spotters in WWII, it was also possible to train people to use simple methods (e.g., plankton net and field microscope) to identify incoming toxic cells before the filter-feeding clams and mussels became contaminated.

In 1999, supported by a grant from the New Hampshire Coastal Program and with training provide d by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, New Hampshire became the third U.S. coastal state to use volunteers as citizen scientists to collect data on harmful algal blooms.

Many people briefly harbor a desire to be a scientist and “go where no man has gone before” or travel the seas as Jacques Cousteau did on the Calypso. Few pursue it because they think scientists are smarter, braver, or somehow different. The GBCW phytoplankton program allows all its volunteers to be scientists. The work is exacting and sometimes tedious, but rewards volunteers with small discoveries and, on rare occasions, a breakthrough. Comrades work side by side looking for the” bad guys.” Weeks and months go by without an observation—then there is a tidal wave of sightings and everyone becomes recharged.

Training volunteer phytoplankton monitors
Training volunteers to collect water quality information, fill out data sheets, and use microscopes to identify the six toxic or potentially toxic cells out of the thousands possible presents challenges. For some, just looking through the eyepiece of a microscope and seeing more than their eyelashes is the first step.

GBCW trains all its new volunteers first in the classroom at UNH’s Kingman Farm, then in a cooperative training, then with their Maine counterparts in April at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, Maine, and finally in the field.

Although the process may seem intimidating at first, most volunteers quickly learn identification methods and develop an eye for spotting anything unusual in their samples. One of us (Cooper) has developed photo-ID sheets to help in the process.

Each volunteer then becomes part of a team assigned a sampling site along the New Hampshire coast. Each team collects data weekly and sends it to the GBCW office at Kingman Farm. Potentially toxic cells observed are immediately reported to the coordinator, who relays the information to the N.H. Shellfish Program personnel ultimately responsible for the management of shellfish beds.

GBCW communicates with other scientists and with the public
During this year’s substantial HAB event, GBCW established daily communication and shared observations with scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Water Resources Administration monitoring team, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Maine Department of Marine Resources, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of Seafood Safety.

GBCW also seeks to educate the public about marine issues. The world of phytoplankton is a wonderful means of introducing students and adults to ocean food webs, the impacts of coastal pollution, and the use of satellite imagery to determine ocean productivity. Home-schooled students hav e become monitors; other students have used their phytoplankton data for science fair projects. Phytoplankton monitoring has been offered as a school enrichment activity. GBCW volunteers have for three years presented programs about phytoplankton to all the fifth grade students at the Portsmouth Middle School and to other school groups through Cooperative Extension’s Marine Docent Program.

You can learn more about the dangers of HABs from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

By Candace Dolan, Phytoplankton Monitoring Program Coordinator, and Steve Cooper, GreatBayCoast Watch volunteer.

Phytoplankton photos by Steve Cooper; at 400x magnification. Other photos by Candace Dolan.

The Great Bay Coast Watch(GBCW)
The Great Bay Coast Watch (GBCW) was founded in 1990 as part of the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension/Sea Grant citizen outreach and education program. More than 100 adult and teenage volunteers work to protect the long-term health of New Hampshire ’s coastal environment through volunteer water monitoring. Additional program funding and phytoplankton project support is provided through grants from the New Hampshire Coastal Program (NHCP) and New Hampshire Estuaries Project (NHEP).

NHDES Shellfish Program
Since 2001, GBCW has been helping NHDES manage a paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) sampling site at Star Island, Isles of Shoals. Since blooms of toxic Alexandrium species tend to move in from offshore waters, the Star Island site is ideal as it is six miles from the NH coast. Because there are few easily accessible mussels at the island, volunteers collect mussels from the plentiful mussel beds in Hampton Harbor and place them in mesh bags that are transported out and left to hang from the Star Island docks. Left to filter-feed for at least a week, the mussels collect whatever toxins may be present. Volunteers then collect and transport the mussels to the NHDES laboratory in Concord for testing.

Phytoplankton Photo ID
Identification of phytoplankton species is difficult, especially using portable field microscopes. The images aren’t as sharp as those of lab equipment, and field scopes are subject to harsh field conditions.

Two years ago, the only field aids available to GBCW volunteers were marginal black-and-white photos and small line drawings, both vastly different from the images one sees in the field. Today, volunteers have full-color, lifelike photo-ID sheets that make their job much easier.

These sheets, developed by long-time GBCW volunteer Steve Cooper, evolved slowly. According to Cooper, “In 2003, I was involved in a UNH project that required volunteers to analyze once-per-week ocean samples by determining plankton species and quantities in a fixed amount of seawater. I began taking photographs in the lab to help identify many off-shore species I had never seen before. It soon dawned on me that this concept could be useful for our coastal samplers.”

Cooper combined photos taken in the lab with others he took in the field using coastal samples. He used these photos, along with a few from other sources, to design a pictorial document to be used in the field.

The fun part? “It soon became a real quest to get good photos of all the species that the volunteers see,” Cooper says. “Sort of a Peterson’s Guide to Phytoplankton. Even better is the thrill of seeing beautiful phytoplankton structures under the microscope. Such diversity—the intricacies and beauty embodied in nature never cease to amaze me.”

With the powerful essay by Carolyn Baldwin posted below, UNH Cooperative Extension launches NH Outside, a weekly column written primarily by UNH natural resources volunteers.

NH Outside aims to connect readers to New Hampshire’s wild and cultivated outdoor environments by motivating folks to get outside more often, to learn more about the topics we write about, and to become closer observers of the natural world.

UNH Extension supports more than 1,300 trained natural resources volunteers: Master Gardeners, Community Tree Stewards, Wildlife Coverts Cooperators, Lay Lakes Monitors, and Marine Docents. These folks come to our programs motivated by enthusiasm for sharing what they know and love about New Hampshire’s natural environment. In exchange for their training and support, they agree to volunteer time in a wide variety of local and statewide educational projects.

We've recruited, and will keep recruiting, a few natural resources volunteers who like to write, offering them support for improving their writing skills and an opportunity to see their words in print. Our own agricultural resources, forestry & wildlife, and water resources staff will contribute occasionally to NH Outside, as well as review technical content of the volunteers’ columns as needed.

We’ll offer the weekly columns to newspapers and newsletters statewide, so look for them in your local newspaper. We’ll also publish them in the new NH Outside section of our Web site, so you can read them here every week.

In 2004, UNH Cooperative Extension specialists Suzann Knight and Valerie Long founded the New Hampshire Earned Income Tax Credit Alliance to bring together the many agencies and coalitions working throughout the state to help families improve their financial stability.

“We developed the Alliance to strengthen EITC-promotion efforts throughout the state,” says Long. “Its aims include encouraging development of volunteer tax preparation sites in areas that don’t yet serve EITC-eligible clientele, establishing collaborations between Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) and other free tax preparation sites, promoting best practices, developing a statewide media campaign to inform EITC-eligible residents about where they can go for free tax preparation, and generally support community EITC efforts. The Alliance is unique—extraordinary, really—in that it involves all the key players in the state working to benefit our families in need.”

“But Alliance members soon realized we needed some means of sharing information among ourselves, promoting best practices, and distributing information about the EITC to the general public,” Long says. “We developed the Web site to meet those needs.”

Dreaming of a better garden? Love to mingle with fellow gardeners? Do we have a day for you!

The New Hampshire Master Gardener Association and UNH Cooperative Extension invite you to the 4th annual Welcome Spring! Garden Symposium, Saturday, March 25, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Courtyard by Marriott Grappone Center in Concord.

Radio/ TV personality and gardening humorist C.L. Fornari will deliver the keynote address, offering ideas on garden design and how to use concepts from other gardens in your own landscape.

A dozen workshops presented by UNH Cooperative Extension horticulture staff and outside experts include: For Meat and Medicine: A Look at Herbs and Their Uses; Orchids are Easy; Daffodils 101; Water Gardens; Great Lawns for Less Money; and Shade Gardening “Beyond Hosta.”

The cost is $38 for NHMGA members, $48 for non-members and general public includes refreshments, buffet lunch, displays, books and a chance to bid on items in the silent auction.

Participants must register by March 18. To register, download this brochure. To receive a brochure in the mail, contact Karen Firmin at (603) 279-0763.

Are you interested in helping protect New Hampshire's wildlife? Are you an enthusiastic person, involved in your community? Do you manage your own land to help wildlife? Are you concerned about the loss of wildlife habitat in New Hampshire?

The New Hampshire Coverts Project is looking for applicants to attend the eleventh annual Coverts training, to be held in Hancock, September 7-10, 2005. Anyone with an interest in wildlife and land stewardship who is willing to commit 40 hours of volunteer time is invited to apply. The training is free.

The program has successfully trained more than 220 Coverts Cooperators who live in more than 100 communities throughout the state. Landowners, conservation commissioners, business people, land trust volunteers, doctors, teachers, and writers have all participated in the program over the years. These volunteers are making a difference for New Hampshire's wildlife and their habitats by managing habitat, promoting a land stewardship ethic, initiating community conservation planning, and helping to protect land.

UNH Cooperative Extension coordinates the program in partnership with N.H. Fish and Game, The Ruffed Grouse Society, and N.H. Division of Forests and Lands. For an application, phone Malin Ely Clyde at 862-2166 or email. The deadline for submitting applications is June 1, 2005.

To learn more about the Coverts Project and the training workshop, visit NH Coverts Project website.

If you’ve dreamed about turning Aunt Bertha’s recipe for wild blueberry pancake syrup into a business enterprise, or retooling your dairy operation to make artisan cheeses, the New England Extension Food Safety Consortium has a new Web site for you.

Online Support for New England Food Entrepreneurs serves as a one-stop Web gateway that walks you through the entire process of starting (or growing) a specialty food business, from developing and testing your recipe, to learning about federal and state regulations, raising capital, and finding help for business planning, marketing, transportation, packaging, labeling, equipment, and much, much more.

UNH Cooperative Extension’s food and nutrition specialist Catherine Violette and UMass Extension food safety educator Rita Brennan Olson head up the project team, which includes Cooperative Extension food science, food safety and nutrition staff from all six New England states.

“I get lots of calls from folks who want to start or expand a specialty food business, so food entrepreneurs are a group that’s long been an interest of mine,” said Violette. “The new site will replace our print publication N.H. Handbook and Resource Guide for Specialty Food Producers, enabling us to organize and keep up-to-date in one place all the information specialty food producers need.”

The well-designed site features simple intuitive navigation and an excellent site map.

Violette has organized an impressive range of information and resources specific to New Hampshire.

A Resources section connects site visitors with a wealth of information from selected food entrepreneur sites across the nation.

An innovative feedback feature allows visitors to rate various aspects of the site and make specific suggestions for improvements or additions.

Site may benefit local agricultural producers

“It’s great!” says Gail McWilliam-Jellie, director of agricultural development for the N.H. Department of Agriculture, Markets & Food. “There’s a lot of general information useful to anyone interested in starting a food business; but there’s also a lot of state-specific information.”

“We get a lot of calls from people who want to start a food business,” she says. “Since product developers have to do a lot of their own homework, it’s been frustrating not to have a source of updated information to refer people to. I like the fact that the site offers business and marketing resources. A lot of people who have a great idea for a food product don’t have a clue about how to bring that idea into the marketplace.”

McWilliam-Jellie says the site may benefit New Hampshire ’s agricultural producers. “Developing a food product that makes use of their own raw materials is one way growers can retain control over their product and pocket more of the profits that would otherwise go to middlemen.”

Are leaves dropping from your maple tree? Are you seeing spots on the basswood leaves? Does the sycamore in your yard look scraggly?

Blame the cool, wet weather during May—perfect conditions for a population explosion among a group of closely related fungi that cause diseases collectively known as anthracnose. Most common on maple, sycamore, ash, oak and dogwood, anthracnose may also affect include linden (basswood), birch and hickory.

Symptoms of anthracnose
Anthracnose fungi often cause leaf drop of maple, oak, sycamore and occasionally linden and birch. Leaf drop is common if prolonged cool wet weather occurs while the new leaves are expanding—exactly the conditions southern New Hampshire experienced earlier this spring.

Other symptoms of anthracnose include dark, discolored areas along the veins or margins of the leaves, brown or black areas between the veins and leaf spots. Twig cankers and twig death are common on sycamore and dogwood trees. Leaf drop and twig death often gives sycamore a scraggly appearance with tufts of leaves at the end of otherwise bare branches. Many trees that drop leaves in June will put out a second flush of scattered, large leaves.

Other leaf spot diseases prevalent
In addition to anthracnose, a wide range of other fungal leaf spot diseases have appeared on lilacs, rhododendrons, azaleas, crabapples, and many other trees and shrubs this year. Because many of the same diseases were present last year (thanks to similar weather last spring), dead twigs and fallen leaves provided the source of infections for this year. Add in the wet weather this year and viola! you basically have what Extension forester Marshall Patmos calls a “giant Petri dish” of foliar diseases.

What to do
Although it may be alarming to see all the dead leaves on the ground beneath your maple, or the spotted leaves on your crabapple, anthracnose and leaf spots are generally considered a cosmetic or aesthetic problem that rarely requires chemical control.

In fact, chemicals applied now for anthracnose and most leaf spots will do little to control the diseases. The symptoms now visible were caused by infections that occurred when the leaves were expanding, and these established infections can’t be “cured.” Rarely are fungicides warranted as protection from infection in the early spring.

In fact, spraying large trees is not only impractical but also often unnecessary, since many healthy leaves remain on the tree. Fungicides are warranted only in severe cases where defoliation has occurred for three or more years. (One exception: anthracnose in flowering dogwood, which often requires fungicides for effective control.)

Management of anthracnose and leaf spots generally includes pruning infected twigs and cultural practices that improve tree vigor and prevent stress. These include fertilization after the leaves have fallen in the autumn or one month before the last frost in the spring will help maintain tree vigor. Raking and removing leaves in the autumn helps control many of the leaf spots but has minimal effect on anthracnose.

It’s important to remember that trees are resilient and leaf spots