Gary Ball Announcement

Posted on January 2, 2021 by Thom Hoch

Gary Ball, lot 163, passed away Dec. 18, 2020 at the  Roseburg VA Care Home.  He and his wife, Elaine, were residents of Timber Valley from October 29, 2008.  He is survived by his wife, Elaine, and their dog Lucy.  It was his request that there be no memorial. We extend our condolences to Elaine and the family.

Posted in Announcements, General Interest, Members, Obits | 3 Comments

BARBARA’S LEAVING US

Posted on December 29, 2020 by webadmin

Who?  Where?  When?  How??  I dunno.  “Ask Barbara.” For 16 ½ years Barbara has been the go-to for all information, the glue that holds Timber Valley SKP Park together.  And now she’s leaving us! By the way, did you know that Barbara has a last name? It’s Davis, and now that we’ve learned it, we have to let her go. Noon, Thursday, Dec. 31 will be her last day.  With Covid rearing its ugly head we can’t have a fare-well party or even a mass gathering. So come on, let’s at least leave off cards at the office.  Kim assures us she will see that Barbara gets them.

Barbara has been a fixture in the office since 2004. She has survived many boards, many managers and many of us who all thought we were her boss.   She lives in Sutherlin and plans to remain here.  She has two kids and five grandchildren. We’re told she has “acreage with chickens, a cat and flowers”.  (What a combination!) We know she likes to go to garage sales and shop. So you garage sales people look for her!  She also “loves Seven Feathers” so maybe we’ll see her there when Covid calms down.

We’re told her plans are to “just relax” and we wish her the best with that.  Kim says she will be on call if needed so we may see her in the office sometime. Cards with best wishes will be most appropriate.  Thank you Barbara, we will miss you. And enjoy retirement.  You deserve it.

Posted in Announcements, Events, Featured, General Interest, News | 11 Comments

Christmas Thoughts

Posted on December 29, 2020 by webadmin

See the source imageby Jackie Deal

While a few Christmas lights still twinkle and the Christmas dinner pounds abound, let’s think of Christmas Past. I remember three kinds of Christmases; perhaps you’ll remember them too.  There’s the Minnesota Christmas:  COLD,Cold cold.  The Oregon Christmas: rainy, wet, foggy.  And the Arizona Christmas: cactus, palm trees and sand.

You may have known them by other names but the surroundings were probably similar. The Minnesota Christmas always meant snow, in fact after I moved from Minnesota I just couldn’t feel Christmassy until I saw some snow. However, the most snow I ever saw was in New Hampshire where I spent one winter.   In the morning, ready to go to work, you open the door and there’s nothing but white, white, white.  The snow was deeper than the door! It was nothing to walk in snow up to your waist.  One winter was enough!

Oregon, the Willamette and Umpqua River valleys, where I’ve experienced many Christmases is stingy with its snow. Rain and fog are normal.  The fog lifts and drops and the scenery changes: sometimes you’re surrounded by mountains and other times, nothing exists but your own driveway. It’s really rather enchanting.  And the rain, there are different kinds of rain. My favorite is the soft, gentle mist-like rain that makes you lift your face and say “Oh, isn’t this a lovely, nice rain.” Of course, there’s also the blasting horizontally driven downpour that makes you wonder why you don’t live in Arizona!

Christmas in Arizona?  Aw, totally different.  Twinkle lights nestled in palm trees and adorning cactus.  There’s nothing like it! Santa doesn’t come on a sleigh, maybe a hay wagon pulled by a camel.  It can get a little crispy, cold (not by Minnesota standards!) and winter jackets feel good. Once, just once, I saw snow on the desert floor and sparkling on the cactus:  what a novel sight! But if you’re waiting for snow, you‘ll miss Christmas.  Now I know, Northern Arizona in the mountains does have snow but they don’t share it with the valley and the deserts.

Whatever, wherever your Christmas, this was the year of the Covid Christmas for all of us.  So let’s look ahead:  Covid can’t last forever.  It will be contained faster if we all do our part.  You know the drill:  masks, wash hands, 6 feet apart.  This too shall pass but Christmas?  Aw, it will last forever.

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IN MEMORIUM, JAYNE HICKMAN

Posted on December 24, 2020 by webadmin

Jayne Hickman passed away Dec. 18, 2020 after a 17 month illness. Jayne and Les moved into the park in 2017 and Les says that he met “wonderful people” here in Timber Valley who helped him care for Jayne in her final months. Jayne was born in New Orleans and Les in New Mexico; they RVed the United States for almost 15 years. They heard about the Northwest from a Park Ranger in New Mexico who said she looked forward to retiring here. At that point their travels hadn’t taken them to the Northwest so they decided to try it and they liked the area. They lived in Green (Roseburg) and waited three years to get into the park.

Les says he has a son in Vermont but he knows he “doesn’t like snow and cold” so his current plans are to stay here. His friends and all of Timber Valley wish him well in the coming years.

Posted in Announcements, Members, Obits | 1 Comment

TWO CHOICES?

Posted on December 23, 2020 by webadmin

Two Covid 19 vaccines?  You mean we get a choice?  Nope, not really. Yes, two vaccines have been approved but we better be happy to have one or the other and don’t get choosy. Let’s take a look at how the vaccines are made and a bit more about them.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – “U.S. regulators authorized Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Friday, a week after granting the first U.S. authorization to Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s coronavirus shot.”  So to be exact:  Pfizer (a US company) and BioNTech (a German company) vaccine was approved first and one week later Moderna (a Massachusetts’s company) received U.S. approval.

Are they the same?  Are they different?  From what I could find they are made the same way (which we’ll go into in a minute), they’re equally effective and equally safe. BUT the temperature required to keep them stable long-term is vastly different.

Pfizer’s vaccine must be stored at ultra-cold temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 Fahrenheit). Once thawed, it can only be refrigerated for 5 days. The vaccine requires a special shipping container packed with dry ice to keep it at the proper temperature.

Moderna’s vaccine can be stored at standard freezer temperatures of -20 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) for up to six months. After it’s thawed, it can be kept in a refrigerator for up to 30 days. Sounds a little more consumer friendly, doesn’t it?

Now I imagine you’ve heard that they are made differently from the other vaccines, for example the flu vaccine? Other vaccines are made from dead or attenuated (weakened) viruses which incite the body to repel them.

Now we get into RNA and DNA.  You’ve all heard of DNA: With a swipe from your mouth or a hair from your head scientists can now prove if you really fathered that child or if you are that axe-murderer.

The clearest explanation I found was from “Technology Network:  DNA encodes all the genetic information and is the blueprint from which all biological life is created”. So, pretend all this DNA information is on a thumb drive (the little doohickey that can record all the info on your computer, otherwise called a “flash drive”).  How do you read it?  “RNA is the reader that decodes this flash drive.”

Both vaccines use RNA technology.  “The instructions spur the immune system into action, turning the body into a virus-zapping vaccine factory.” Again let me emphasize: No actual virus is contained in the vaccines. It can’t give you the virus.

Now, you’ve all seen picture of the little round corona virus with its spikey hairdo.  Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines target those spikes on the surface of the coronavirus that it uses to smash its way into healthy human cells. The spikes also give the family of viruses their distinctive name. They’re supposed to look like a crown or corona.

One last note:  a new “mutation” of the Corona virus was detected in September in London, England; by November, one fourth of all the case diagnosed were from that mutation.  By mid-December, two thirds of the cases were from that mutation.

Scientists say that viruses mutate all the time.  This just happens to be 70% more transmissible (according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, he’s the one with the covid-like mussed-up hairdo). All joking aside, we are assuming the vaccine will target this mutation; there is no evidence that it won’t. Please, God, keep the British safe and, please, let them keep their latest discovery to themselves.

Posted in Creative Work, Editorial, Featured, General Interest | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Covid – Count the Days – 2; 5-6; 14

Posted on December 15, 2020 by webadmin

 

With Covid-19, the key numbers are two days, five to six days, and 14 days. (The following information was taken from   “Healthcare” by Bruce Y. Lee, Senior Contributor).

Two Days, the Latent period: This is the period of time between getting infected with the virus and first becoming contagious. The virus, like the cotton boll weevil, has to get a foothold in your body and make enough copies of itself to get ready to do damage.  You feel fine.

Five to six days, the Incubation period: you have been infected and enough time has passed for the virus to cause symptoms.  In other words:  you become sick and you know it!

Symptomatic period: This is the time from the end of the incubation period when you first start having symptoms to when your symptoms resolve. So far, so good; it takes 5-6 days for symptoms to show.  You may not even know you are “sick” during this 5-6 day period. And then this period doesn’t end until you are free from symptoms: up to 14 days or  more.

Now let’s muddy the waters: The Infectious or contagious period: This is the time from the end of the latency period when you first become contagious until you are no longer contagious.  Ignore the incubation and the symptomatic periods for now. From that first invasion by the boll weevil: you are contagious.  You don’t know it and neither does anyone else! During this time, you will have an infectious personality and you can spread the virus to others.

You aren’t immediately infectious once the Covid-19 coronavirus gets inside your body. It has to get into your respiratory tract and begin to reproduce. But once enough new viruses are produced and released: you are contagious. As Bruce Lee says, “Symptoms, if you end up having them, won’t come until later when your immune system says, “WTH,” and starts mobilizing against the virus.” You are shedding virus at least one to two days before you develop symptoms. In fact, you may be most contagious during the period between the end of the latent period and the end of the incubation period.

Studies have suggested that the incubation period can last anywhere from two days to 14 days. This is why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been recommending that you quarantine yourself for at least 14 days after close contact with someone who is infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus  (Current advice lowers this.)

In other words, on average you will develop symptoms five to six days after you’ve been infected with the virus.  A majority of those infected will have an incubation period of seven days or less. And potentially over 90% of those infected will have an incubation period of ten days or less.

One other warning: you can be Asymptomatic.  That means you are sick, you are contagious but you have NO symptoms. And while you may feel okay, you ae possibly the most dangerous of all!

Confused?  Join the crowd.  Wear your mask.  Six feet apart.  And pray for those who have been caught by the Covid 19 boll weevil.

Posted in Featured, General Interest, News | 2 Comments

Merry Covid Christmas at Timber Valley 2020.

Posted on December 9, 2020 by webadmin

Twas a bit before Christmas and all through the Park,
SKPs were preparing goodies (at home) including chocolate bark.

Covid could not dampen their spirit, SKPs would not bend
They’d not consider abandoning others and especially a friend.

Santa, being high risk, refused to fly putting the reindeer out of work,
so TV members accepted the ruminants duties ergo correcting the quirk.

Christmas dinner was canceled due to the governors rules,
So the Hilty’s volunteered to use their food preparation tools.

Mike and Terry will fire up the oven baking enchiladas and cooking rice,
Members may collect meals on Christmas eve for a very small price.

Members continue to buy toys for firemen to give away,
This year is no different with the supply growing day by day.

Ladies helped the Lions with trees being given to families in need
By wrapping boxes and filling them with trimmings to the top indeed.

The tree in the Clubhouse has been trimmed and looks ablaze,
Tinsel, balls, lights carefully placed by Jacks & Jills to amaze.

The Covid Grinch is nasty so we wear masks and stay indoor.
Next year the holidays will be celebrated with jubilation for sure.

We’ll have the vaccinations which will help us be immune,
and 2021 will revive meetings, fun and ability to commune.

I close this ode with hope and prayers to you all at this time
Mainly because I’ve run out of words that rhyme.

Sharon Elliott

Posted in Editorial, Featured, General Interest, Humor | Tagged | 4 Comments

Pickles, Tea, and Confinement

Posted on December 4, 2020 by webadmin

By Jackie Deal

I just ate 3 baby dill pickles.  I don’t like dill pickles. I especially didn’t like these 3 dill pickles. But they have zero calories and this is important. Important because I’m in self-quarantine and that means I’m home alone with food all day.  A friend said, “Yah, you keep eating and no exercise and you could be the Thanksgiving pumpkin.” (I thought pumpkins were for Halloween?)

But while I was not enjoying my pickle I was doodling on the internet and what to my wondering eyes should appear:  “Today is National Pickle Day”.  I kid you not. So hang in there for more about pickles than you probably want to know.

Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, supposedly credited her health and good looks to her love of pickles, and Roman general Julius Caesar was said to have fed pickles to his troops in the belief that they would make them stronger. I’ll go with Cleopatra, “Please pass the pickles.” Archaeologists believe that ancient Mesopotamians were the first to start pickling in 2400 B.C.  Let’s see, what else I learned: pickles can help beat a hangover. You might remember that if we ever get out of these shut downs!

Now if you’re from Connecticut, stay tuned. In Connecticut, legend has it that state laws require that a pickle must bounce to legally be called a pickle. While the Connecticut State Library found that there are no laws that specifically state this, there are regulations in place that were started after a pair of pickle packers, Sidney Sparer and Moses Dexler, were arrested in 1948 for selling pickles that were “unfit for human consumption.”

After their arrest, Food and Drug Commissioner Frederick Holcomb told reporters that the best way to check for good pickles is too see if they bounce when dropped. Afterward, the state’s pickle-bouncing regulation went into effect. Fortunately, I’ve eaten all my pickles so I couldn’t try the bouncing test.  But the next time you buy pickles you’ll know how to be sure they’re good.

After all this higher education I decided I needed a cup of tea.  I don’t like tea.  Black or green?  It looks the same in the cup and to me tastes the same.

I like English novels and the English characters in them seem to think a cup of tea will solve all problems.“Your house burned down?”  “Come in and have a cup of tea, you’ll feel better.”  “Your husband left you?”  “Oh, you poor dear, you need a cup of tea.”  “The vicar’s teenage daughter is pregnant?”  “Have a cup of tea that will solve it.”

I might explain: the self-quarantine was because I was a “secondary exposure”.  That means I was exposed to someone who was exposed to someone with Covid. According to everything I find, secondary exposures do not need to be Covid tested.  Since I didn’t want to miss out on anything exciting I went to be tested.  My doctor’s office wouldn‘t test asymptomatic but they suggested Rite Aide drug store.  There I basically did a self-test while in my car.  I was told to put the cotton applicator “mid-way- up my nose, twirl it twice and hold it there for 15 seconds.”  Five days after exposure is the recommended time to be tested. My test was negative, which means “I ain’t got it.” All the tests can tell you is that at the moment of the test you don’t have the disease.

One last item I gleaned from NBC news,” Covid could kill as many Americans THIS WINTER as the Germans and the Japanese did during WWII.” Now that’s food for thought! And that’s a mighty sour pickle and pretty hard to swallow!

Posted in Creative Work, Featured, General Interest | Tagged | 2 Comments

An Epidemic Within a Pandemic

Posted on November 30, 2020 by webadmin

By Jackie Deal

There are epidemics and there are pandemics.  To be a pandemic the situation must be world-wide.  And while we’re in the midst of a pandemic, there’s also an epidemic.  This epidemic “has been linked to increased risks of Type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline, and disability in people over 60, also death from cancer, heart disease and stroke.”  Wait a minute, let’s repeat that!  It leads to “Type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline (as in decreased mental abilities) and disability, ALSO, death from cancer, heart disease and stroke”. WOW! 

Simply put:   it’s “Sitting Disease”. One study showed that sitting less may lead to a longer life.  Now if it was something in the environment, like a plastic or an insecticide, you’d avoid it, right? You’d do all you could to prevent cancer, heart disease and stroke, right?

But sitting less?  That’s too simple, isn’t it? We like our remedies a little more complicated.  But wait ‘til you hear the remedy. “You need to move for at least 10 minutes every hour,” says Dr. Levine of the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix and Arizona State University. He has researched sitting disease for three decades. 

So how much do we sit? Well, start with breakfast, coffee, and the morning TV news: that’s an hour or two—of SITTING. TV sitting takes up a lot of our time all day long.  It wouldn’t take a lot of effort to get up and move around once or twice during the commercials.    You don’t really like those dull commercials, do you?  Why not resolve to move around during just half the commercials for a starter?  Maybe on the half hour or the hour.

”The rule of thumb in retirement is the same as during your work years: If you’ve been sitting there for an hour, it’s too long. For 10 minutes of every hour you need to be up and moving in what’s called non-exercise movement, because it’s not intentional exercise.”  (Intentional exercise would be the gym or Physical Therapy.)  A new acronym that tickles me is “neat”.  NEAT stands for” non-exercise activity thermogenesis”, and includes stretching, turning, and bending. 

Okay. Simply put: “Thermogenesis” is the production of heat in the body.  Your body “burns” calories that generate heat when you move vs. sitting around and letting the calories become fat.

 Dr. Levine recommends that you aim for 10 minutes of NEAT each hour. Exercise physiologist Fabio Comana, an instructor in San Diego State University’s School of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences, agrees, “Get moving more often with small goals,” he says. “Stretch out your entire body, all the muscles that are cramped. If you do it five or six times a day, you’ll start to notice a difference.”  How neat is that?  

If you’re trying to control your weight (and aren’t most of us?) you might be interested in “lipoprotein lipase “. LPL is an enzyme in the body that plays a critical role in converting fat into energy.  Remaining sedentary for long periods of time can reduce the body’s levels of LPL.

So how much total time do you sit each day?  Would you say close to ten hours? How much physical activity would it take to cancel that out? There’s an answer based on a very extensive study: a “meta-analysis” of nine previous studies, involving a total of 44,370 people in four different countries who were wearing some form of fitness tracker.  The analysis found the risk of death went down with “moderate to vigorous intensive physical activity” every day.

How much?  “Up to 40 minutes is about the right amount to balance out 10 hours of sitting.”  A walk around the neighborhood could be anywhere from 20-40 minutes.  And the study concluded: “any amount of exercise or even just standing up helps to some extent”. So:  MOVE IT!

Posted in Featured, General Interest | 2 Comments

How I Became a Cult Member

Posted on November 28, 2020 by webadmin

by Sharon Elliott

Be forewarned, this author thinks in satire and writes in cryptic. In the event you are ultra sensitive or insulted by the use of some words, I suggest you skip this effort to be humorous.

So here’s what and how things happen. My daughters were informed that their mother was homeless, living on the street and had been taken in by a cult. A car engine in Eugene revved and wheels squealed  as one offspring took off for a drive south. Two other girls made airline reservations from both Columbus Ohio and Pittsburgh to Eugene, rented a car prepared to follow the first sister. All the while there was a lot of texting back and forth planning for an intervention.

The above happened as a result of a conversation with my great granddaughters. One asked “Grandma where is your house?” My response was “I don’t have a house.” Then I was asked “Do you live on the street then?” My response was “Yes, I live on a street.” Next the question was “Do you have friends?” I said “Oh yes, I am surrounded by people that look a lot like me.” Their father, in attempt to be funny told them “She lives in a Cult.” He then sent a text to my daughters and related the conversation in a manner that they believed their mom had lost it.

Now lets review the truth. No I do not have a house but I have a snug and ample home. I do live on a street, Hummingbird Lane and do I live in a cult. I looked up the meaning of a cult and this is what I found. A Cult is a derivative from the word Culture and is made up of a group believing in the same norms and values. So yes that word fits too. (Timber Valley SKP park has as its purpose to provide a low cost place to live for pleasure, recreation plus charitable and cultural opportunities)

How is our Cult alike and different than some more of the historical groups. Remember the Hale Bop Group. Well some of us wear white tennis shoes but not at the same time. We have a governing body but they do not serve Kool-Aid at the meetings. Thank goodness.

We are not only considerate of each other but tend to be concerned and loving toward our neighbors and friends. If we become aware of a need, we step up and fill the need. 

Our Cult’s physical neighborhood is spectacularly beautiful with tall trees, and vistas. There is a wonderful path through the woods which takes us into nature. The area is teeming with animal life like deer, birds, squirrels and an occasional bear or cougar. Then there are turkeys. No not the speeders but the two legged multi-colored feathered type. 

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and even though we cannot join together for  turkey dinner with all the trimmings there will be soup. Giving up a traditional event this year will hopefully assure one next year.

Until now I have not considered myself a cultist but I feel honored to be a member of this place.

Posted in Featured, General Interest | 8 Comments