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About The Observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 11, 2021)
8B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD THuRSDAY, FEBRuARY 11, 2021 COFFEE BREAK Estranged mom pushes closer after first grandchild’s birth DEAR ABBY: My mother and I have never been close. We talk to or see each other five or six times a year at family functions. Hon- estly, I am fine with this. I recently had a baby (her first grandchild), and suddenly she wants to come over all the time. I have tried to set bound- aries (giving a day and time when she may come over), but it makes me look like a bully, and she tells people she doesn’t feel welcome. My issue is she strug- gles with boundaries. She asks about my finances, inappropriate questions regarding my preg- nancy, etc. — topics I don’t feel comfortable discussing with her. I honestly don’t view this as my problem. We barely have a rela- tionship and haven’t for a long time, so I think she should take what I am offering. I simply DEAR do not care to see a lot of her. If she ABBY wants to see the baby, I feel I must be present because her having time alone with the baby is not an option that will work. Should I feel bad that she doesn’t feel welcome? — IT’S COMPLICATED DEAR IT’S COMPLICATED: I am sorry you weren’t willing to share what caused your estrange- ment from your mother because munication, and I want to help her overcome this. What do you suggest? — DISCREET HELPER IN THE SOUTH DEAR HELPER: I’m sug- gesting you unfriend Isabella immediately for the reason you mentioned: the fear of guilt by association. As much as you would like to help your old friend with her addiction problem, and while you might suggest she enter a treatment program, it won’t happen until she finally real- izes the drugs are not only NOT improving her life, but preventing her from accomplishing it. From what you have written, Isabella is still neck deep in denial, and you cannot fix that. ical problems. I tried to help her as much as I could, but it became clear that she was having trouble dealing with her condition. She was headed down a bad path and struggling emotionally, so we gradually grew apart. I friended her on Facebook because I still wanted to remain friendly, but she never posted anything until recently. Now she has started posting about heavy drug use and how much it “helps” her. I don’t want to be associ- ated with this. I’m building a career, and I don’t want anyone assuming I use drugs, too. How- ever, I want to remain friends with Isabella on Facebook, since it’s our only method of com- it would have given me more to work with. Assuming there is a good reason for it (which I am), your mother is correct about what she’s telling people. She ISN’T welcome. In fact, she’s quite the opposite. If she doesn’t know the reasons for it, you should make them clear to her. Because you are hearing her complaints repeated by others, feel free to explain to them the reasons. You are within your rights to set boundaries regarding your mother’s visits, and you should not be made to feel guilty for doing it. DEAR ABBY: I have known my friend “Isabella” since elemen- tary school. When we were teen- agers, we both developed med- News of the Weird Koala rescued after 5-car pileup on Australian freeway CANBERRA, Australia — A koala has been res- cued after causing a five-car pileup while trying to cross a six-lane freeway in southern Australia. Police said the crash in heavy Monday morning traffic in the city of Ade- laide caused some inju- ries but no one required an ambulance. The animal’s rescuer said she got out of her car to investigate what had caused the pileup. Nadia Tugwell, with her coat in hand, teamed up with a stranger clutching a blanket in a bid to capture the marsupial. A concrete highway divider had blocked the koala’s crossing. “The koala was abso- lutely not damaged in any way,” Tugwell said. “It was very active, but very calm.” Once the koala was in her trunk, Tugwell drove to a gas station to turn the animal over to wildlife res- cuers. In the interim, the koala was able to climb from the trunk into her SUV’s cabin. “It decided to come to the front toward me, so I said, ‘OK, you stay here. I’ll get out,’” she said. “It started sitting for a while on the steering wheel: (as if) saying: ‘let’s go for a drive,’ and that’s when I started taking photos,” she added. Tugwell said she had learned from past experi- ence how to calm koalas by covering their eyes. She lives near a euca- lyptus forest outside Ade- laide and has twice called animal handlers to rescue koalas injured in fights Vincent Yu/AP Photo Cows and buffalos eat grass at Lantau island, the biggest island within the territory of Hong Kong on Jan. 17, 2021. The Chinese Year of the Ox begins Friday, Feb. 12, and in the shadow of Hong Kong’s futuristic urban skyline, wild bovines are getting some love. Ho Loy of the Lantau Buffalo Association and her team of volunteers dedicate most week- ends to checking on the cattle that roam the biggest island within the territory of Hong Kong. Nadia Tugwell via AP A koala perches inside Nadia Tugwell’s car in Adelaide, Australia on Monday, Feb. 8, 2021. The koala was rescued after causing a five-car pileup while trying to cross a six- lane freeway in southern Australia. with other koalas. “I live up in the hills, and if you let them do what they want to do and you don’t chase them or some- thing, they’re OK,” Tugwell said. The leather trimmings of her luxury vehicle were scratched by the animal, but Tugwell said the happy ending was well worth the damage. The koala later was released in a forest — well away from the freeway. wild bovines are getting some love. Cattle and water buffalo embody hard work and serenity in the 12-animal Chinese zodiac, and were used on Hong Kong farms for centuries to plough rice fields, pull carts and pro- vide milk and meat. But as farms began to shut down in the the 1970s, many ani- mals were abandoned and their descendants became the wild cattle and buffalos now commonly seen in rural Hong Kong. Ho Loy of the Lantau Buffalo Association and her team of volunteers dedicate most weekends to checking on the cattle that roam the biggest island within the territory of Hong Kong. Starting mid- morning they distribute Year of Ox puts focus on Hong Kong’s wild bovines HONG KONG— The Chinese Year of the Ox begins Friday, and in the shadow of Hong Kong’s futuristic urban skyline, weather Association hopes to pre- serve the animals and their habitat, reduce fric- tion with growing human communities and lobby for long-term environmental preservation policies. While Hong Kong is best known for its neon-lit, densely-packed urban environment, more than three-quarters of the southern Chinese terri- tory of 7.5 million people remains green hills and forests. Over her 14 years of caring for the animals, Ho, a Lantau resident herself, has come to know them well. Water buffalo are “very shy, they spend most of the time in the wetland. So, preserving the wetland is one thing will help them to live healthy,” she said. grass and hay bought with donated funds to different herds around the island. “The animals are a very important part of our cul- ture, of our city planning, especially rural planning,” Ho said. The animals pro- vide an opportunity to explore “what that means to Hong Kong people about the nature, the remaining nature value in Hong Kong.” Hong Kong’s Agricul- tural, Fisheries and Con- servation Department estimates there are approx- imately 1,100 brown cattle and 120 water buffalo distributed across Hong Kong’s Lantau Island and rural parts of the New Ter- ritories near the border with China. The Lantau Buffalo AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION Astoria Longview 28/37 Kennewick 28/32 St. Helens 27/30 19/19 21/23 26/31 28/32 Condon FRI SAT SUN MON Snow, 2-4” Not as cold Rain and snow Baker City Comfort Index™ La Grande 0 16 25 18 Comfort Index™ 0 37 27 42 29 Eugene 0 1 0 36/48 30 17 38 31 42 32 0 1 0 0 34 26 39 33 0 2 0 0 ALMANAC TUESDAY EXTREMES TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin NATION (for the 48 contiguous states) High Tuesday Low Tuesday High: 89° Low: -42° Wettest: 1.81” 40° 19° 40° 18° 41° 19° PRECIPITATION (inches) Tuesday Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Normal year to date 0.00 0.01 0.19 0.38 0.99 0.00 Trace 0.33 1.04 1.96 0.03 0.61 0.76 4.92 3.93 AGRICULTURAL INFO. HAY INFORMATION FRIDAY Lowest relative humidity Afternoon wind Hours of sunshine Evapotranspiration 45% NNW at 6 to 12 mph 0.1 0.03 RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Wednesday) Phillips Reservoir Unity Reservoir Owyhee Reservoir McKay Reservoir Wallowa Lake Thief Valley Reservoir 9% of capacity 47% of capacity 49% of capacity 44% of capacity 37% of capacity 96% of capacity STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Tuesday) Grande Ronde at Troy 1450 cfs Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder 58 cfs Burnt River near Unity 10 cfs Umatilla River near Gibbon 146 cfs Minam River at Minam 95 cfs Powder River near Richland 90 cfs Zapata, Texas Cotton, Minn. Bainbridge, Ga. OREGON High: 53° Low: 13° Wettest: none Rome Howard Prairie The blizzard of Feb. 11, 1983, buried areas from Washington, D.C., to New York under 2 feet of snow. Philadelphia received an estimated 32 billion pounds of snow. SUN & MOON THU. 7:00 a.m. 5:14 p.m. 7:26 a.m. 5:13 p.m. FRI. 6:58 a.m. 5:16 p.m. 7:55 a.m. 6:23 p.m. MOON PHASES New Feb 11 First Feb 19 Full Feb 27 Beaver Marsh 45/53 41/53 Silver Lake Last Mar 5 Jordan Valley 30/35 Paisley 30/47 31/45 Frenchglen 30/42 Medford City Astoria Bend Boise Brookings Burns Coos Bay Corvallis Council Elgin Eugene Hermiston Hood River Imnaha John Day Joseph Kennewick Klamath Falls Lakeview SAT. Hi/Lo/W 37/29/sn 34/15/sn 40/29/sn 51/46/r 38/32/sf 52/45/r 41/35/sn 31/21/sn 25/22/sn 48/41/sn 24/20/sf 19/17/sn 24/18/sn 31/26/sn 26/18/sn 24/18/sf 47/33/sh 43/30/sf Hi/Lo/W 43/32/i 33/24/sn 38/20/sn 50/40/r 38/19/sn 50/41/r 45/33/sh 35/8/sn 28/16/sn 47/38/r 26/16/sn 28/20/sn 33/15/sn 38/23/sn 34/15/sn 28/12/sf 42/25/sn 40/21/sn Grand View Arock 34/42 37/48 32/45 Klamath Falls 30/47 Lakeview 29/43 McDermitt Shown is Friday’s weather. Temperatures are Thursday night’s lows and Friday’s highs. FRI. Diamond 29/37 Fields 39/52 44/51 Boise 30/40 44/50 Brookings 28/39 26/40 Chiloquin Grants Pass Juntura 25/38 14/31 25/38 Roseburg Ontario 31/40 Burns Brothers 38/45 Coos Bay Powers 14/34 Oakridge Huntington 20/31 Bend Elkton 23/31 31/40 Seneca 33/42 RECREATION FORECAST FRIDAY REGIONAL CITIES WEATHER HISTORY Sunrise Sunset Moonrise Moonset Florence Council 23/30 22/31 12/29 46/52 Comfort Index takes into account how the weather will feel based on a combination of factors. A rating of 10 feels very comfortable while a rating of 0 feels very uncomfortable. 21/34 John Day 8/26 Sisters 40/52 32 16 26/34 Baker City Redmond 42/49 Halfway Granite 30/41 Newport 35 17 0 16 25 22 Comfort Index™ Enterprise 0 13/23 26/35 28/37 Corvallis Enterprise 16/25 16/25 Monument 16/19 Idanha Salem 37/47 23 30 23 Elgin 16/25 La Grande 9/14 Maupin A bit of snow; up to 1” 16/20 Pendleton The Dalles Portland Newberg Lewiston 18/23 Hood River 15/20 TIllamook TONIGHT Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021 Walla Walla 16/24 Vancouver 26/31 29/36 Cold with snow, 3-6” Cattle, on the other hand, are very sociable, especially if you have food. “They will come and get your food and they are not scared of humans,” Ho said. Fiona Woodhouse of the Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the wel- fare of wildlife speaks to the overall health of Hong Kong’s environment and cultural heritage. “So, we need to ... ensure their welfare as much as possible and look at what we’re doing in Hong Kong to see how it impacts those animals and their ability to survive and live safely in Hong Kong,” Woodhouse said. — Associated Press City Lewiston Longview Meacham Medford Newport Olympia Ontario Pasco Pendleton Portland Powers Redmond Roseburg Salem Spokane The Dalles Ukiah Walla Walla FRI. SAT. Hi/Lo/W 23/18/sn 32/26/sn 26/22/sn 52/42/r 47/39/r 31/25/sn 40/28/sn 25/18/c 20/16/sn 31/24/sn 53/46/r 26/11/sn 53/45/r 37/32/sn 17/14/pc 23/21/sn 22/18/sn 20/18/sn Hi/Lo/W 25/19/sn 37/30/sn 28/14/sn 50/38/r 45/36/r 37/27/sn 42/21/sn 26/15/sn 23/14/c 36/27/sn 50/40/r 27/16/sn 50/40/r 40/33/sn 20/15/sn 26/21/sn 22/16/sn 20/16/sn Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice ANTHONY LAKES PHILLIPS LAKE Snow, 1-3” A bit of snow 20 15 36 28 MT. EMILY REC. BROWNLEE RES. A little snow A bit of snow 20 18 35 24 EAGLE CAP WILD. EMIGRANT ST. PARK Snow, 1-3” Snow, 1-3” 23 15 17 13 WALLOWA LAKE MCKAY RESERVOIR Snow, 1-3” Snow, 1-3”; frigid 26 18 18 14 THIEF VALLEY RES. RED BRIDGE ST. PARK Snow, 1-2”; cold A bit of snow 30 23 25 22