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Monday, July 29, 2013

The things you learn at the fair.


The annual county fairs or state fairs are a good time for citizens to become acquainted with the services available in their county. I picked up brochures everywhere, from the Oregon Department of Forestry. Extension Services from Oregon State University, and the County Health Department which is no longer run by the county.

The young men in this picture are auxiliary members of the Forestry Department offering lots of brochures on how to avoid fires and how to landscape and maintain a safe environment around your property. Areas with lots of forests, as we have here in Oregon, are prone to destructive fires.

Some of the highlights of a brochure put out by the Oregon Department of Forestry entitled: Protecting and preserving Oregon's archaeological and cultural resources, a guide for Forest Landowners and Operators walks the reader through the various ways a forested site needs to be assessed before a cabin or a new structure, or new use is adopted, mostly reminders to conduct a thorough assessment, identifying arrowheads and shards related to native tribal life, burial grounds, railroad grates,milling stations...

"Common sense often dictates where sites are located ...
-pay special attention to fresh water sources...
-areas offering a variety of plants..."

I took brochures on how to grow blueberries, (my plants seem to be way too puny), what to plant in deer areas, how to conserve water, and my favorite, how to dry everything. Yes, even zucchini can be dehydrated and kept for those long winter days when a cup of soup might improve with dried herbs and zucchini chips.  

10 comments:

Helen said...

You are so right about the things we can learn at our county and state fairs ... love your post tags, living in the West, Oregon ... the best!!!

ellen abbott said...

we have a dehydrator but it is so humid here it is a little less than completely successful.

Velva said...

There is an opportunity to learn everyday. Thanks for sharing.

Velva

Brian Miller said...

mmm on growing blue berries....that sounds delicious...we have similar at the fairs we went to....took my son to a comic convention on saturday and was surprised to see the SPCA there...was cool...and we enjoyed the animals and talking to the lady....so did they give you a recipe for the zucchini as well? smiles.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Rosaria .. that's great .. that the young folk participate -

There is so much information available .. and I'm so pleased you're thinking of drying your excess foods, as well as freezing them or pickling ..

Great you're being so active and interested .. cheers Hilary

the walking man said...

Nope none of those topics apply to me here. We do have deer in Detroit, impoted Japanese deer but I think the emergency Manager considers them an asset and will either sell them live or butcher them for meat to sell.

troutbirder said...

Well done. Our DNR (Dept of Natural Resources) which has subdivision like Fisheries, Parks, Forestry, Trails... etc. gets fair amount of unfair flak from the special interests but overall are very professional and do a wonderful job.

Sally Wessely said...

Back in the day when I was younger and had all my kids at home, I did a lot of canning and dehydrating. I always enjoyed having all of the dehydrated food. Yes, I did veggies and fruits. The kids loved them as snacks. We lived in an area where fruit was abundant and inexpensive to buy in bulk. I had a large garden, as did other family members. It all sounds like so much work now, but I enjoyed it at the time. I had an electric dehydrator, and I had screens where I dried fruit and veggies in the sun. That all was another lifetime ago.

I wish I could grow blueberries here! I love them. We can't grow any food in this area because of the bears. My how my life has changed.

yaya said...

You learned alot you little smartie! Our county fair is coming up in Sept. I usually find something interesting to see or learn! Jack likes to play with the dehydrator and will dry everything he picks from the garden. I think I did a blog post a couple of years ago about it! Our blueberries have actually grown this year. We've been working on getting the soil more acidic and it's working!

Hilary said...

It goes to show that we can always learn something from someone.