North Douglas herald., November 01, 2024, Image 1

November 2024
FREE
Vol #2 Issue #11
Elk Creek Glass Starts 2nd Year in Elkton
Story and Photos by Rusty Savage
Elkton, OR - Elk Creek Glass
launched their art school and studio
last year in Elkton. Elk Creek Glass
is an art school and studio. They
focus on teaching glass blowing and
fusing in their two studios. One
thing for sure, after meeting Avi
Zohar and his wife, Heather, it is far
from his first year in the business
of glass blowing and glass fusion.
of art, sold around the world. At one
point, Avi was creating art for solely
for New York galleries where the
highest quality of works are sold.
As tends to happen, Avi became
Elk Creek Glass has evolved
from a decades long love of Glass
blowing and ultimately Glass fusion
that has fired his passion for working
with Glass. After spending years
in Southern Oregon working at an
extremely high level of Glass making,
his knowledge and experience extends
to his ability to conceptualize and
assemble an impressive array of
material, equipment and technical
know how to organize it into a
highly creative and productive Glass
Shop and a unique set of courses he
designed to pass his knowledge on.
After working for many years
in the highly stressful world of world
class Glass works, where projects
take many months and the quality and
intricacies mean 10’s of thousands
of dollars worth of beautiful works
more and more disillusioned with the
high stress “Big Bucks” operation
it takes to perform at that level.
Big bucks he says, as in big bucks
in your equipment, your materials
and your overhead and it still gets
harder and harder to get those “Big
Bucks” to pay for it all and try to
still make a living. Along the way
he became a teacher which is where
it turns out that his heart is anyway.
So, eventually, the time came
where he and Heather wanted to
continue that dream along with
making a new on. And so they found
the beautiful property on the edge of
Elkton right on the Elk Creek and
made the move of a lifetime. They then
started making their mark on the new
paradise ranch. Along with the dog,
the chickens and farm animals and the
domestic improvements, Avi started
building his workshop complex.
The first makeover began in the
Chicken Coop. Completely revamped,
it became the “Hot Shop” where the
glass is worked in the large ovens or
“Glory Holes”. With several size and
type of ovens he can create pieces and
parts for creating his beautiful fused
glass pieces. Watching him work in
this amazing workplace is reminiscent
of craftsmen from an earlier time.
Graceful yet precise and detailed he
whips these brittle doodads out with
out effort or fanfare.
In addition to the Hot Shop he
then assembled parts and equipment
Continued on Page 4
First-ever Known US Case of Bird Flu found in a Pig in Central Oregon Farm
Story by Rusty Savage
Crook County, OR - U.S. Department of
Agriculture officials say there is no concern
about the safety of the nation’s pork supply
at this time. The first known case of avian
influenza in a pig in the United States was
confirmed at a small farm in Central Oregon
on Wednesday.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture,
along with the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, confirmed at least one of five
pigs at Crook County backyard farm tested
positive for the H5N1 virus — the same strain
that’s made its way across the country and
has caused an outbreak in over 100 million
poultry birds since 2022. Usually sick birds
are euthanized to prevent them from entering
the food supply.
Necropsies done on two other pigs
showed no evidence of infection, but a swab
taken from another pig, one of two “teacup
mini” pigs that were co-housed with infected
chickens inside a chicken coop, did test
positive. Those pigs were also euthanized and
results of the testing of their tissues are still
pending.
Pigs are sometimes called a “mixing
vessel” for flu viruses, because they can be
infected with both bird flu viruses and human
flu viruses. If the animals are co-infected at
the same time with two or more viruses, the
viruses can swap genes, potentially creating a
hybrid virus that is better able to spread to and
among people than bird flu viruses typically
are. This phenomenon, called reassortment, is
what gave rise to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
Because pigs can play this role, flu experts
have been worried that the H5N1 virus
currently spreading in cows in the United
States could make its way to pigs — though
any version of the H5N1 virus in pigs would
be an unwelcome development.
USDA officials say the farm was
Continued on Page 6