Page 12A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, June 17, 2017
FATHERHOOD: Is more experience than expertise
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Hundreds of Mormon crickets cling to the side of a residence on West Second Street
on Friday in Arlington.
CRICKETS: Females are capable of laying
more than 100 eggs during the summer months
Continued from 1A
from poisons to predators to
building a physical barrier
around local homes.
Jordan Maley, extension
agent for Oregon State
University in Gilliam County,
said it is already too late to
have much of an effect on
this year’s Mormon cricket
outbreak, but he encouraged
everyone to come together
later this winter to collaborate
on a long-term treatment plan.
“We want to develop a
strategy for taking care of
these things,” Maley said.
“They may be around for a
while.”
In the short-term, residents
are left to hose the insects off
their garage doors and sweep
them off their sidewalks. One
woman said she has been
scooping up the bugs and
drowning them in a bucket.
Mormon crickets are not
actually crickets, but members
of the katydid family. They
take their common name
from Mormon settlers in
Utah, who encountered them
while pushing westward.
They can grow up to 2-3
inches as adults, hatching
from their eggs in the spring
and undergoing seven stages
of development known as
instars, where they essentially
outgrow and shed their skin.
“If you’ve ever seen one of
these things, they’re horren-
dous looking,” Maley said.
Females are capable of
laying more than 100 eggs
during the summer months,
according to Paul Blom, an
entomologist with the Oregon
Department of Agriculture.
Blom, who is responsible for
18 Eastern Oregon counties,
attended Friday’s meeting to
share a few thoughts about
withstanding the infestation.
A multitude of birds and
animals naturally prey on
Mormon crickets, Blom said,
including seagulls, crows,
chickens, turkeys, rodents
and coyotes. Physical barriers
can also work, he added,
since Mormon crickets are
flightless.
As for chemicals, Blom
gave a few options such as
carbaryl — commonly sold in
stores as Sevin bait. Because
Mormon crickets are canni-
balistic, the poison kills not
It may sound like a small change, to
shift priorities to accommodate a new
human being’s presence in this world.
And I am not saying the transformation
is heroic. I am only saying it is dramatic.
Out of this metamorphosis come all
kinds of fathers who alter the men they
were before to fit into a new frame. There
are studious conveyors of information,
sages of wit and wisdom, buddies up for
a good time, mentors guiding in the ways
of the world. We all have pieces of these
characters in our own fatherhood as we
try to impress important values into our
children.
And of course we’re all hilarious at all
times, and will be for all time. Dad jokes
are born with the baby.
But Father’s Day is a good time to
recognize that dude your dad used to be.
If he’s been doing it right — downgrading
his own priorities to meet your needs —
you may find it hard to believe the stories
he has to tell about the days before you
came along. But you’ll probably still
recognize his character and personality in
those tales.
And that’s the remarkable part. He
has grown no wings nor appendages, but
he has become a new person, and that
change happened the day he first laid eyes
on you.
Fatherhood is far more experience than
expertise. He had to stumble along, using
the lessons from his life before to try to
cobble together a foundation from which
you could build your own. He probably
messed it up a time or two, and maybe
much more often.
But if he was there, building and
guiding and trying, give him some credit.
Try to connect to the man he was before.
If nothing else, it will help you understand
the man he became after you arrived.
And for goodness sakes, laugh at one
of his jokes.
■
Daniel Wattenburger is the managing
editor of the East Oregonian. Email him
at dwattenburger@eastoregonian.com.
Looking Like 107 Years Old?
LET'ER TUCK!
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Entomologist Paul Blom, with the Oregon Department
of Agriculture, speaks to residents at a town hall
meeting about the Mormon cricket outbreak on Friday.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Mormon crickets congregate on top of a wood pile in
the yard of a residence on Hemlock Street on Friday.
only the insect that took the
bait, but others that prey on it
as well.
Whatever the treatment
plan, Blom said the problem
needs to be dealt with collec-
tively by the community.
Otherwise, the insects will
just keep coming.
“If you’ve treated your
section and no one else does,
you’ve gone nowhere,” Blom
said. “You guys really have to
coordinate and treat it as a big
block issue. You will be more
successful if you do.”
Apart from being a real
nuisance in town, the sheer
volume of Mormon crickets
this year may pose a threat
to crops as well. Charlie
Anderson, who farms wheat
up Blalock Canyon west of
Arlington, said this is the
most Mormon crickets he’s
seen over the past decade.
And, what’s more, they’ve
started chowing down on his
fields.
Anderson figures he’s
already lost 1 percent of his
crop, and at the rate it’s going
it could be as much as 5 to 10
percent.
“There’s too many of
them,” he said. “I don’t think
there’s enough product to
treat this now.”
The U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Animal and
Plant Health Inspection
Service, or APHIS, does have
a Western rangeland grass-
hopper and Mormon cricket
control program that covers
federal lands. According to
Blom, APHIS will occasion-
ally help state and private
landowners, though they are
required to split the cost.
Maley said landowners
need to be on the lookout
this growing season so they
can formulate a communi-
ty-wide plan of attack moving
forward.
“Hopefully through this
growing season we can build
up enough information to find
out where these things are,
and what we’re dealing with,”
Maley said.
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