Freelance

By GEORGE BROOKBANK

I’ve been writing a gardening column for the newspapers since I first came to Tucson some 35 years ago, and it’s been an enjoyable activity. I like to think that it has been a useful one and people have learned good useful information from the articles.

But my story is now coming to an end. This is my last column for the Citizen.

It’s been rewarding. I felt good helping people fine-tune their gardening and landscaping skills to overcome unfamiliar desert conditions.

So, with a cheerful farewell, here is a partial personal primer on how to meet the challenges of growing plants in the desert.

• Know your soil

In my case, it began a long time ago with my soils professor at the College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad in the West Indies, stressing the need for any agricultural development to be preceded by digging inspection pits throughout the area. He had us students walk down into the pits, scraping samples of soil from different layers for visual observation. Later, the samples were chemically analyzed to confirm, or correct, our thoughts about what we saw.

He told us of a large international tire company that had decided to grow its own rubber trees. Hundreds of acres of rain forest were cleared. The soil seemed, on the surface, to be fertile, but in a short time those acres turned to a sandy waste. None of the scientists had bothered to look under the top layer of accumulated leaf litter to discover the poor soil that lay beneath. Likewise, here in the desert we need to know what we’ve got in the way of soil if we want to be successful in raising plants.

• Choose plants suited to our environment

If a plant comes to us from a long way off where conditions are different, there’ll be extra maintenance work in caring for it locally. And, in direct relationship, the greater the travel distance, the greater the trouble.

• Water carefully

Plants need adequate water, especially during a growth period, usually in the spring and the fall. During winter and summer, desert trees and shrubs are likely to be dormant and don’t need a lot of water, though they must have some. Water deeply so that the moisture lasts longer and you avoid salts accumulating by evaporation from surface sprinkling. Don’t spray foliage because our water has too many salts in it. Use “gray water” on arid-land trees and shrubs, and conserve good water for the imported kinds of plants. If your washing powders contain sodium and borax, don’t use gray water. Hold rainfall on your property by building berms and banks, to stop it from running away. Divert rainfall from the roof and driveways to your plants, that are better clustered instead of being scattered.

• Plant and garden in fall

The air is cooling and the soil still is warm from summer. The conventional spring planting is “back to front” for our desert because the soil is still cool from winter and the intense heat of summer quickly comes before new plants get their roots growing.

• Protect plants from desert animals

Depredation by desert animals is inevitable when you change the environment by growing lush plants and irrigating them. Animals will be attracted to your landscape because you provide them with food and water. Wire-mesh barriers are perhaps the best way to save your plants.

• Enjoy your time outdoors

Work wisely, and don’t overdo it.

• Never give up!

If results seem unsatisfactory, find ways to do things differently.

Goodbye, and good luck.

George Brookbank is a horticultural consultant and author of three desert gardening books. He can be reached at 4067 N. First Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719; call 888-4586; or e-mail wgeob@msn.com.

Syndicate

By BAXTER BLACK

Agriculture, in the broad sense, is enjoying a renewed respect. Enrollment in ag classes in universities has increased; vo ag classes and FFA memberships are thriving in spite of often apathetic or hostile school administrators.

Anti-agricultural industries, including extremist “green” groups, animal rights loonies and even well-meaning but ill-informed obstructionists are being relegated to irrelevance.

This change in the public’s attitude toward modern farming practices – including the use of herbicides, antibiotics, dewormers, growth stimulants, genetically modified foods, feedlot practices, hog confinement and poultry production – may be related to the condition of our world.

A new world at war with terrorists, on the lookout for bioterrorism, helpless against illegal immigration, battling the furious caprices of nature’s catastrophes. And a country almost at war with itself politically, facing the continuing degradation of civility led by Hollywood and the growing realization that nothing is sacred to those who would sell your soul or their own for one last headline.

Where can a human turn to escape the dire warnings and savage threats that rain down on us like fire?

In the fairly stable world of agricultural marketing that includes chemicals, pharmaceutical and Western wear, tractors and seeds, a new segment of the buying public is being recognized.

They are Large Property Owners. The name is a bit of an oxymoron in that these people own 5 to 40 acres. LPOs are defined as urban people going back to the land.

They are folks with good jobs and a desire to raise their children closer to nature. They’ve got no grandpa’s farm to go home to.

They buy a lamb, steer, rabbits, horses, a bush hog, a tractor, a pickup, fencing, steel panels and gates. They enroll their kids in 4-H. They try gardening. They trade monolithic malls for grass, trees, horsehair, sunsets, and county fairs. And, of course, they learn the hard way through drought and sweat and heartache and backache, what farming can be like.

They also get a taste of that sweet satisfaction, that soul-deep comfort, that an intimate relationship with nature brings.

Now they look at their neighbor down the road who has a dairy, grows corn or runs steers through different eyes.

So to those of you many farmers and ranchers who make the weighty decision to sell your place to developers, if it’s any consolation, many of your buyers may be LPOs.

To our benefit, they want to be part of 21st-century agriculture. And that ain’t all bad.

Baxter Black – philosopher, cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian – is an occasional contributor to National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” which airs from 6 to 10 a.m. weekdays on KUAZ-FM (89.1) and KUAZ-AM (1550). He makes his home in Benson.

Freelance

By GEORGE BROOKBANK

I don’t know what you think of mistletoe, but this is the time of year when it is put to use and you can easily see the darned stuff hanging in trees.

When I was a young man, a boy really, forward girls at Christmas parties would put a sprig of mistletoe over the doorway where you had to pass, and they would stand there.

Maybe this is still done, but the kind of mistletoe then was not the same as what we see on our desert trees. Perhaps the magic has gone out of it.

Now that the leaves have fallen off desert trees, the mistletoe seems much more threatening.

The trees have gone through a hotter than usual summer and the soil is desperately short of moisture.

Dormant trees are relatively secure, but when they put out new leaves in the spring, we better make sure we water them generously.

Meanwhile, the mistletoe, stimulated by the winter sun, continues to grow and draws moisture from the trees, weakening them.

If nothing is done, the trees could be dried out by the pest and eventually will die from the lack of moisture.

The easiest thing to do is to pull off the clumps from the branches. They are lightly attached in the early stages.

A hooked stick will enable you to get to the tallest branches and a sudden jerk will bring the stuff to the ground.

In severe cases, where a branch is heavily infested and bulging from the mistletoe’s roots, the whole branch should be sawn off.

When a tree is so heavily infested that the mistletoe starts sprouting from the trunk, it’s a matter of time before the tree dies.

I don’t know of any safe, successful chemical that will take care of the problem, though some are advertised.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of control? Please let me know.

Both sexes of mistletoe do damage, but it’s the females that produce the numerous small berries that are good food for birds.

The seeds are sticky and birds need to wipe their beaks after a meal.

In so doing they smear the seeds into the rough bark of mesquite, acacia, palo verde and other trees.

During a rainy winter, the seeds germinate, somewhat like an orchid, and soon send a root into the branch.

When you clean up your trees, don’t let the clumps lie on the ground for the birds to eat the berries. Put them in a plastic bag and hide them.

There is a mistletoe variety with larger leaves and white berries – like the provocative bunch over the doorway at Christmastime – that is a parasite on cottonwood trees.

You can see this in Fort Lowell Park.

Some years ago, local Boy Scouts made a trip to Mount Lemmon to gather these magic sprigs and sold them in a fund-raiser.

•

Midwinter is the time to make a sundial on a south-facing wall. It will be an enjoyable and fascinating garden feature all through the year, though it won’t be accurate as the seasons change. Nevertheless, it’s a fun thing to have and it’s a wonderful family project if you have clever children.

There are plenty of books in the library on how to make sundials; the easiest to make is one that is painted on a south-facing wall.

The pointer directs to the Pole Star, and how you find that out on a midwinter’s day is your problem, but it can be done.

Every day of the year the pointer will cast a shadow straight down at noon and, for accuracy, it’s helpful to align this on a midwinter’s or midsummer’s day.

Winter is easier for comfort’s sake.

As a refinement, you can make the pointer the right length (about a foot) and show the start of a shadow at midwinter noon.

The shadow will be longer in summer when the sun is higher, so your dial will also show the seasons on your wall.

• • •

Weedy houseplant needs old sol, not fertilizer

QUESTION: I have a purple wandering Jew in water and it’s close to a northern window in my kitchen. It has always been thin and weedy and I’d like it to be strong and sturdy. What fertilizer, and how much and how often and so on, should I give it?

ANSWER: I don’t think that fertilizer will help. This is a plant that enjoys full sun to flower and to develop its bright leaf color. It sounds as if your window is simply too shady for this plant. I’d try to grow it out in a sunny place and replace it with a houseplant that is more tuned to shady situations. They won’t have bright colors or flowers (but neither has your plant) but a variegated philodendron should do well and give you some leaf color.

George Brookbank is a horticultural consultant and author of three desert gardening books. Send questions to George Brookbank, 4067 N. First Ave., Tucson, AZ 85719; call 888-4586; or e-mail wgeob@aol.com.

Syndicate

By BAXTER BLACK

“The greatest thing since sliced bread.”

This common expression that many of us use represents a milestone in convenience. In the late ’20s and early ’30s, sliced and wrapped bread became widely available.

I’m not a cook, so it is difficult for me to imagine the mechanics of how that inventive someone devised the method to slice a loaf as thin-crusted and weak-knead as Wonder Bread. Did it involve machetes? Table saws, piano wire, laser beams? Can you imagine two bakers and a candlestick maker trying to mash a wad of dough through a harp, or the grill of a ’53 Buick, or a window at Alcatraz?

Unwrapping nature’s goodies has always tested the ingenuity of man, be it coconuts, spuds or watermelons. But there are still several seemingly simple tasks that require considerably more effort than their benefit warrants: dentistry, peeling the shrink-wrap off of CDs, sharpening a paring knife, or house-training a rabbit.

The Simplot Company, along with others, learned how to peel potatoes with lye and scrubbers. The Gallo Brothers no longer have bare-footed cloggers dancing in a vat of grapes. Citrus scientists gave the orange a navel which made hand peeling much easier. Freestone peaches, seedless grapes, spineless prickly pear, polled cattle and chicken nuggets are the result of deliberate genetic selection to improve the convenience of our food preparation. (Note: this assumes that the nuggets are made from free-range boneless chickens)

But there are still some monumental obstacles to be conquered in our quest to make life easier. The pomegranate for instance: a delicious fruit that is as difficult to eat as Styrofoam peanuts. Watching someone eat a pomegranate is akin to watching a mother chimpanzee pick lice off her baby and pop them in her mouth!

Maybe the answer lies in breeding a pomegranate with the juicy seeds hanging on the outside! And a large stem that could act as a handle. It would be like eating a lumpy tapioca Popsicle.

How about eating crabs? If the purebred livestock people could be put in charge of the crab industry, in a short time we’d have 2-legged crustaceans with claws as big as a ham. The shell would come off as easily as a Hershey wrapper. All the rest of the crab, as well as old gummer crabs and corriente crabs would be ground into crab cakes. Think of it as “efishant” crabs. And maybe someday we’ll breed a CD or DVD wrapper with a navel. Might be a job for the Orange County Choppers.

Baxter Black – philosopher, cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian – is an occasional contributor to National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” which airs from 6 to 10 a.m. weekdays on KUAZ-FM (89.1) and KUAZ-AM (1550). He makes his home in Benson.

Freelance

By MARK R. SNELLER

What does our post-monsoon weather have in common with cold winter months?

The answer is dry scratchy throats and sensitivity to allergens.

In the winter, we turn on the home heaters. This drops the humidity to the low double and even into single digits. We may even wake up to a sore throat and think we are coming down with something. A glass of water on the night stand generally alleviates these symptoms.

Likewise, when the monsoon ended, we entered a period of low humidity outdoors. During the rainy period, the relative humidity often exceeded 50 percent and, at times, reached into the 80s and even 90th percentile. That’s why evaporative coolers didn’t work, and we tended to sweat a lot more.

As soon as the monsoon rains stopped, we entered a period of very dry weather. This tended to dry the respiratory tract and make us more sensitive to a variety of particles in the atmosphere.

These particles include mold, and while it dried out and the number of spores dropped off from our record counts, they still remained at a high level in most areas of our community.

Pollen hit its peak in early September. Although the number of pollen grains in the air remained relatively low compared with other years (thanks to the late onset of the monsoon season), we still had enough allergens to trigger allergic responses in sensitive persons. The pollens included carelessweed (Palmer’s amaranth), salt bush, Bermuda grass and native grasses, fall ragweeds, Russian thistle and a variety of others that varied in number depending on where you lived in our community.

Many doctors and scientists believe that it is our dry weather that has led to the high incidence of allergic reactions in the desert Southwest, certainly higher than the national average.

Therefore, we can expect an increase in the number of people who have symptoms of itchy and watery eyes; dry, scratchy throat; and sneezing. Some of this is from dust that also dries out and is more easily airborne during breezy conditions, as well as the allergens that are still with us.

Over the next few weeks, we can expect mold to remain in the moderate to high range and pollen to drop into the low range. The exception to this is occasional rainy periods that will cause mold to leap into the high to very high range for a short time.

The next pollen onset will be in mid to late October when desert broom (Baccharis sarathroides) begins to flower.

These woody plants line the water courses and highways everywhere we look. The ragweed-related plant produces copious amounts of pollen. Once the female flowers become fertilized by the male pollen, we see the white cottony seeds floating through the air everywhere.

Many people think these seeds cause their misery, but by then, the pollen has already done its damage.

Mark R. Sneller, Ph.D., is an indoor air consultant and director of Aero-Allergen Research. Send questions to Breathing Easy, P.O. Box 12023, Tucson, AZ 85732-2023.

The Associated Press

The Associated Press

KINGMAN – The arraignment of country singer Mindy McCready has been postponed until Aug. 30.

The troubled singer had been scheduled for arraignment Friday on charges of unlawful use of a means of transportation and hindering prosecution in Mohave County Superior Court, but she did not appear. A McCready representative contacted prosecutors in advance.

July 26, the 29-year-old was released from a Florida hospital after an apparent suicide attempt. She reportedly took large amounts of two unidentified substances, consumed alcohol and left a four-page suicide note.

During her arraignment July 25, McCready’s co-defendant, Guillan Cissin-Deangelo, pleaded innocent. He faces the same charges as McCready in addition to unlawful imprisonment, identity theft and attempted fraud.

Lake Havasu City police have said some of the charges stem from alleged theft of a pickup truck and forcing a woman to accompany them against her will.

McCready had a No. 1 hit in 1996 with “Guys Do It All the Time.”

Syndicate

By BAXTER BLACK

Dave is a local rancher in the mountain valleys of central California. May 5, he took three of his buddies into the high country to check the summer range. They four-wheeled up into the Alpine zone and finally reached the line camp at Dripping Spring.

The snow-covered peaks were melting like ice cream. The spring was beautiful, the willows were budding. It was still coat cold. Dave checked the corrals, the little outhouse, the tool shed and the spring. To his curiosity, he noticed a black bandanna tied high in a birch tree that overhung the spring. He puzzled over its significance; a hiker’s souvenir? A hunter’s signal? A cowboy’s joke? A talisman? A scarecrow to drive off beavers?

He stood on his ATV and was able to reach the bandanna and managed to untie it from the limb. It seemed fresh and clean, no doubt, rain and sun had laundered it well. He put it around his neck. It made him feel dashing! Inside the cabin, the larder was checked. It was kept supplied with canned goods, matches, some firewood and blankets. Notes were made on what was needed.

Dave found two cans of Miller Lite beer in the sink. “Super!” he thought, picking up and taking them out to the spring. He set them in the icy water to cool. They finished the springtime cleanup, repaired a few corral poles, replenished the D-con, nailed a shingle, repapered the outhouse.

Dave dug one of the beers out of the cool spring and popped the top. Just as he was about to taunt his crew he heard one of the boys holler from inside the cabin. “Look at this,” his friend exclaimed, holding up the guest book that stayed in the cabin. He read aloud, “To all those who venerate the tradition of the cowboy, we, his true friends, have scattered the ashes of Charlie Blaine, one of the best buckaroos ever to work for the Dripping Spring Ranch from 1957 to 1971, over the spring as his final wish. May his black bandanna wave until it frays and becomes part of the mountains he loved. And instead of a statue, in his honor he asked that we leave two cans of his favorite beer as a monument to his eternal resting place.”

The three men in the cabin took off their hats and paused out of respect. Dave walked in with the bandanna covering his face like a bank robber and crushing the empty can. The reader continued, “Date, May 4, 2005. May he rest in peace.”

Baxter Black – philosopher, cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian – is an occasional contributor to National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” which airs from 6 to 10 a.m. weekdays on KUAZ-FM (89.1) and KUAZ-AM (1550). He makes his home in Benson.

Syndicate

By BAXTER BLACK

I am writing this column on my veranda. The heat of the day is dissipating. Shadows are growing longer in the canyon to the south. The bottoms of the clouds are turning pink, and the mountains to the east of the valley are glowing purple. Cindy is bustling in the kitchen. I think I smell Teriyaki sauce. My 12-year-old is being mauled by five little cow dog puppies. The horses are fed. The cows are fat. The quail are chuckling, and dusk is waiting in the wings.

As I take a sip of my icy beverage and relax, I remind myself of my New Year’s resolution: to stop once a day and remind myself that this is as good as it gets. But as that thought sinks in, I become fully aware of how many have given so much so I could be right here. “Right here” for me is to be an American.

Lucky enough to be born in a country where I am free to worship God, free to better myself as best I’m able. Lucky enough to be born in a time when the knowledge of human kind is expanding exponentially – in medicine, physics, transportation, chemistry – extending and improving all our lives.

Lucky to be born while prejudices are fading, poverty is constantly having to be redefined and America’s light continues to shine as a ray of hope for the less fortunate worldwide. But the reality of the debt I owe comes home to roost every day in the papers when I read the names of those soldiers killed in the war on terror.

Every one of them is directly responsible for the freedom I enjoy. They are each one part of a long line of Americans from all walks of life – soldiers, civilians, policemen, firemen, CIA, research scientists, inventors, ministers, teachers, legislators and parents who have sacrificed, toiled, sweated and believed in what America stands for and put their money where their mouth is, whether it’s carrying a gun, a stethoscope or flowers to the nursing home.

I owe George Washington, Bill Gates, Grandpa Tommy, Lewis and Clark, Cochise, Federico Peña, Thomas Edison, Uncle Paul, Madeline Albright, Donald Rumsfeld and Pastor Blair.

Two hundred and twenty-some odd years ago a group of citizens as different as Jefferson and Adams or Bush and Gore, conspired to declare our independence and invent a country.

They did just that, like none other on Earth. And that I got so lucky to be blessed to be born here is a miracle I do not take for granted.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Baxter Black – philosopher, cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian – is an occasional contributor to National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition,” which airs from 6 to 10 a.m. weekdays on KUAZ-FM (89.1) and KUAZ-AM (1550). He makes his home in Benson.

Syndicate

By BAXTER BLACK

At springtime I often have the honor of speaking to state FFA conventions and at college graduations. The students are bright, above average young people who have chosen to enter agricultural or veterinary endeavors. I say to them, there is a difference between the study of science and the study of liberal arts; in science there is a right answer.

An artist can paint the word “penicillin” on a carton of milk. It can be done with calligraphic flourish, embellished with gold leaf and win a blue ribbon for style and creativity, but it’s still a carton of milk.

An author or screenwriter can write an elaborate story starring Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk where space travel, zoolike aliens and fantasy planets abound. Their work can win Academy Awards or Pulitzer prizes but it’s still just “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

But in the sciences you can’t write an essay on why you think the atomic weight of uranium is really six and because you wrote it well, make it fact. There is a reason that chemistry and physics and math and genetics and physiology are harder than English or theater or journalism. It’s because there is more at stake if you are wrong. You can’t print a retraction if you choose the wrong chemical, cut the wrong artery or plot the wrong missile trajectory.

We, particularly in agriculture, have the obligation to our customers (people who eat) to understand what we are doing, to make decisions based on facts and to act responsibly. The urban consumer is beset everyday by a blizzard of half-cocked, brightly wrapped, well-advertised, slick, disingenuous, sometimes well-meaning cow pucky. Many of these consumers do not have the background to separate the veterinarian from the pet psychic, the magic mineral peddler from the nutritionist or the physician from the celebrity who plays one on TV. These consumers, our customers, are as susceptible to the snake oil “health food” salesman as I would be to the con man selling original Rembrandts for $20.

As a scientifically trained person, you have an obligation to act like one. People will turn to you and expect you to know the right answer in your area of expertise because when the chips are down and life hangs in the balance, someone has to be responsible.

Arm yourself with information. It will be your light saber!

Freelance

By MARK R. SNELLER

Last time we reviewed the problems with indoor air quality. These problems fall into two categories: gases and particles.

Let’s continue this topic with a review of particles that affect our respiratory health.

There are at least 50 types of particles in our indoor air. The most important of these, in no special order, are pollen that is tracked in from the outdoors, mold that is growing on walls and shelving (under-sink leaks), carbon exhaust particles from vehicles, corn starch particles (from “talcum” powder), food particles, dust mite feces, plant parts (allergenic particles released from plants other than pollen) and dust. The latter usually contains pesticides and lead.

All of these are recirculated throughout the home.

Pollen is tracked in on the shoes.

Mold can be an allergy problem when it is growing on walls (but not between the walls).

Cornstarch particles can affect a person who has a corn allergy. The number of these particles can reach an extremely high level in the bathroom, master bedroom or wherever the product is used.

Carbon exhaust from vehicles is higher indoors in homes that are near busy intersections or have a garage. They are allergenic by themselves or can promote allergies.

Dust mites need a relative humidity of some 65 percent or more to reproduce. In our local climate this is not a major problem compared with most other parts of the country. The bed is a favorite growing spot for these little creatures that are related to spiders.

We don’t know a lot about plant parts because we can’t really identify where they come from under the microscope.

We do know that many plants produce these particles, which contain the same antigens as their pollen.

Our major ragweed season is in the spring, but we can have a strong reaction to ragweed in the fall when the particles from decomposing ragweed plants are released into the air.

Dust is a major problem in our desert community. Many toxic substances have been found to attach to dust particles including a dozen pesticides, lead and other heavy metals. Scientists believe this is a problem for infants who crawl on carpeting and then put their fingers into their mouths.

Food particles are usually found among all the different ingredients that make up household dust. This has been found to be important in homes where one or more family members has a food allergy to wheat, as an example. If someone in the family makes sandwiches with wheat bread, then some of the particles become airborne or part of the dust. This dust is then inhaled by the sensitive person.

That’s why the product should not be used in a home where someone has a great sensitivity to the wheat allergen.

The way to avoid exposure to many of these allergens is to maintain a clean and simple home that has good air filtration.

Freelance

By MARK R. SNELLER

It is a policy of this writer to present to the readers a general review of indoor air quality problems in the home, school and business. So, let’s take a little time over the next couple of weeks and look at the problem areas that are well known to affect most of us.

Indoor air quality problems generally come in two classes: gases and particles. Gases can include everything from the lack of oxygen to the excessive amount of carbon dioxide we breathe. They also include volatile organic compounds or VOCs.

As far as oxygen vs. carbon dioxide, these problems arise when too many people occupy too little space with too little ventilation. The symptoms are drowsiness, lack of motivation and headaches. The cure is fresh air.

This problem happens a lot in schools, businesses and even hospitals where rooms are assigned for the use of holding many people compared with just a few before the remodeling.

The air ducts are not balanced to provide enough fresh air to the room (20 cubic feet per minute per person) and an overload occurs because there is a buildup of carbon dioxide.

Surveys and studies have found that the average home has hundreds of VOCs in the indoor air. Some of these are called background counts and include brewed coffee, cooked bacon and microwave popcorn. Others include hair spray, deodorant, fragrance detergent and dryer sheets, clothing and bedding that has been washed in the washing machine with fragrance detergent and dryer sheets, automotive exhaust, deodorants and other personal care and home care products.

Although many people believe that formaldehyde is present in carpeting, this chemical has not been used in domestic carpeting for more than 20 years.

The glues that are used to hold down commercial carpeting is at fault for giving carpeting a bad name as far as odors are concerned.

The odor of paint in new homes is a bigger VOC problem by far than that of carpeting.

However, formaldehyde is used in new clothing and bedding as a fire retardant and crease resistant chemical. That’s what we smell when we walk into a clothing store.

Plastics emit a high concentration of VOCs, especially plastic used in wrappings. Video stores emit a lot of VOCs that can lead to headaches, burning eyes, and a wide variety of symptoms.

Most common furniture polishes contain a lot of petroleum distillates. These are lung irritants.

The VOCs follow similar rules. These include hundreds, if not thousands, of products and include nail polish and its remover (acetone), chemicals used in hair and nail salons, paints, varnishes, polishes, cleansers, degreasers, detergents, anti-static products for the clothes dryer, perfumes and fragrances. They include air fresheners, bug sprayers, and insect repellents.

Books have been written about VOCs and their effect on our health. The object is to switch to products such as lemons, vinegar, baking soda, borax and water to solve our domestic cleaning needs. Non-fragrance products are available for personal care products.

Citizen Staff Report

HT: 6-11 No.: 45

HOMETOWN: Phoenix

CLASS: Senior

KEY STATS: 15.8 ppg, 10 rpg

LUTE OLSON SAYS: “He’s doing a better job of getting down and getting a seal on his opponents so we can throw the lob to him.”

Freelance

There are certain locations in the world that by their very character seem to have amassed a history of supernatural phenomena. Most of these places have a creepy look, a violent history or both.

In his book “The World’s Most Haunted Places,” author Jeff Belanger features our own Tombstone as a place that fits in with all the other renowned haunted locales around the world.

Belanger lists the specters that inhabit Tombstone’s Big Nose Kate’s Saloon right along with Jackie, the little girl spirit of the Queen Mary; President Abraham Lincoln’s ghost, who haunts the White House; and the phantoms of the various royals who over the course of several centuries had their heads handed to them in the Tower of London.

In its glory days, Tombstone did not have a spot called Big Nose Kate’s Saloon. The building where that bar now does business once had the more high-flown name of the Grand Hotel. Big Nose Kate, for whom the saloon is obviously named, was the lady of the evening who was Doc Holliday’s paramour.

One of the other world denizens at Kate’s is “Swamper,” the one-time janitor who lived in the tiny basement room and who seems to be accommodating enough to come around when called by the bar’s patrons.

Some of the spirits are somewhat playful. There is, for instance, the ghost that makes the barstools go around and around.

Then there are some who don’t seem to have left the desires of the flesh too far behind when then departed this planet. They have been known to “help” the ladies up the stairs by giving them a loving push on the derriere.

There also seems to be one very chivalrous ghost who literally stood by the side of a woman when a couple of bad hombres were intent on giving her a hard time. She did not see her rescuer, but she did feel his hand on her shoulder. Needless to say, the apparition had the desired effect and the bad guys high-tailed it out of the place.

Big Nose Kate’s Saloon also has some of the usual phenomena that are experienced in other haunted places. Folks report hearing footsteps when rooms should be empty. In this case the feet are wearing cowboy boots, of course. So many glasses fall off the shelves for no apparent reason that the bartenders keep an accounting.

One of Belanger’s theories for why there are haunted places is that they have often been the sites of great and sudden violence. Certainly many places in Tombstone would fit that kind of description.

But I think perhaps what we have run into here is 19th-century sensibilities. What would you feel like if you crossed over in a place with the majestic name of “Grand Hotel” and found yourself spending eternity in Big Nose Kate’s Saloon? Wouldn’t you act up just a little?

“The World’s Most Haunted Places” is a 2004 publication of New Page Books and is available at local bookstores. Belanger says he has never seen a ghost.

Freelance
Carmen Villa Prezelski COLUMN

Only thing twins were deprived of were designer-label clothes

Carmen Villa Prezelski

I read the other day that the brand new husband of a certain curvaceous entertainer is so taken with a particular portion of her anatomy that he presented her with a $25,000 gift to show it off.

Well, it’s probably a bit further south than the part that might have come to mind. It turns out that the guy is crazy for his new bride’s always expensively pedicured feet, and he bought her a pair of gold-leafed flip-flops to show them off.

Even at those prices, the extravagance of gold encrusted flip-flops pale in comparison to the wedding that an Indian industrialist threw for his daughter last week. The festivities, which extended over six days, were held in several venues in Paris, including the famed Versailles. From all reports, Louis XIV would have felt right at home at this soiree.

Daddy supposedly spent $60 million feeding and watering the 1,500 guests in a manner befitting his daughter’s wedding. After all, it’s only money and nothing is too good for his little girl.

But when it comes to our kids, such conspicuous consumption does not seem to be limited to the famous or the fabulously rich.

These days, new moms – who might have a little more disposable income and perhaps a case of the guilts – are sparing no expense to make sure their babies have nothing but the best in designer everything.

Moms are furnishing nurseries with $900 cribs, which are appropriately dressed in $1,500 bedding.

The babies themselves are wheeled around in $1,500 baby carriages while they, no doubt, spit up on their $200 Burberry plaid dresses.

When our sons were babies, luxuries of any kind were hardly an option. We were not rich, but we were young and trying to make ends meet on a staff sergeant’s pay. Of course, the fact that we had twins and had to buy everything two at a time made things a little tougher. Mama would help out by pitching in for some shoes once in a while or one of my sisters would buy a couple of outfits from Sears or Penneys.

Now mind you, nobody ever went hungry. Still, usually due to my poor budgeting, there were times when the milk for the kids ran out just before payday. There was more than one occasion when we had to sit on the couch and count out the change in the jar to find enough to buy half a gallon that would last a couple of days before the new pay period.

And when we brought the milk home, they drank it from plastic cups with Disney characters on them. That’s about as close to designer as they got.

So if either one of our sons complains he was somehow deprived, I’m afraid the answer will have to be simply this: If deprived means an absence of Burberry plaid, $115 sandals or designer anything, then the answer is a resounding yes.

Freelance
Carmen Villa Prezelski COLUMN

Only thing twins were deprived of were designer-label clothes

Carmen Villa Prezelski

I read the other day that the brand new husband of a certain curvaceous entertainer is so taken with a particular portion of her anatomy that he presented her with a $25,000 gift to show it off.

Well, it’s probably a bit further south than the part that might have come to mind. It turns out that the guy is crazy for his new bride’s always expensively pedicured feet, and he bought her a pair of gold-leafed flip-flops to show them off.

Even at those prices, the extravagance of gold encrusted flip-flops pale in comparison to the wedding that an Indian industrialist threw for his daughter last week. The festivities, which extended over six days, were held in several venues in Paris, including the famed Versailles. From all reports, Louis XIV would have felt right at home at this soiree.

Daddy supposedly spent $60 million feeding and watering the 1,500 guests in a manner befitting his daughter’s wedding. After all, it’s only money and nothing is too good for his little girl.

But when it comes to our kids, such conspicuous consumption does not seem to be limited to the famous or the fabulously rich.

These days, new moms – who might have a little more disposable income and perhaps a case of the guilts – are sparing no expense to make sure their babies have nothing but the best in designer everything.

Moms are furnishing nurseries with $900 cribs, which are appropriately dressed in $1,500 bedding.

The babies themselves are wheeled around in $1,500 baby carriages while they, no doubt, spit up on their $200 Burberry plaid dresses.

When our sons were babies, luxuries of any kind were hardly an option. We were not rich, but we were young and trying to make ends meet on a staff sergeant’s pay. Of course, the fact that we had twins and had to buy everything two at a time made things a little tougher. Mama would help out by pitching in for some shoes once in a while or one of my sisters would buy a couple of outfits from Sears or Penneys.

Now mind you, nobody ever went hungry. Still, usually due to my poor budgeting, there were times when the milk for the kids ran out just before payday. There was more than one occasion when we had to sit on the couch and count out the change in the jar to find enough to buy half a gallon that would last a couple of days before the new pay period.

And when we brought the milk home, they drank it from plastic cups with Disney characters on them. That’s about as close to designer as they got.

So if either one of our sons complains he was somehow deprived, I’m afraid the answer will have to be simply this: If deprived means an absence of Burberry plaid, $115 sandals or designer anything, then the answer is a resounding yes.