OSU veterinary grad Johnny Archer comes home to practice at Ash Creek Animal Clinic
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, December 22, 2023
Johnny Archer DVM has come home. A few months ago, he began his full-time veterinary medical practice at the clinic he has known since earliest boyhood – the Ash Creek Animal Clinic, founded by his mother, Laura, in 1990 and joined by his father, Robert, a few years later.
Archer will be providing large-animal care for farm stock locally part of the time. It will be the first time in decades that the riverside city where Archer grew up has had a vet with such special skills. He was the “smartest kid at Central High School” recalled one of his classmates recently, who remembered him as quiet and studious – and always known as Johnny, never John.
All three attributes seem to currently apply. During an interview recently with the town’s new Dr. Archer, a graduate of Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine at OSU, Johnny reflected on his training, his profession and his return to Independence.
TN: I understand you went to the University of Missouri to receive special training in large animals, including goats, hogs, horses, and sheep. What is the immediate difference you noticed in treating these animals?
Archer: Well, size. There was the case of an injured cow, for instance, and to be able to perform the procedure, we needed to have it on a hydraulic table. In the process of securing the cow's feet, it kicked forward. My finger was cut deeply, and it required stitches. In fact, the finger was broken. I wanted hands-on experience, and I got it!
TN: How did you proceed with a broken finger?
Archer: Well, carefully, of course (laughs). This was all about learning. Working with these animals, you find what lines you cannot cross. I worked about a 55-hour week. I worked in different situations, though mostly on what people would call "farm animals." I learned to change gloves a lot, to have clothes that would protect me from picking up ticks.
TN: Were you concerned about Lyme disease? Is that why?
Archer: Not just Lyme disease, but there are a lot of tickborne diseases -- and a lot of ticks in Missouri. I wore rubber boots all the time. West Nile virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, is rare but it has been found there. Also, chickens can get bird influenza, which usually doesn't infect humans, but it can.
TN: Was there any condition you were always on the lookout for?
Archer: There was constant surveillance for foot-and-mouth disease.
TN: Why was it so important to you to get training for treating large animals? Farm animals?
Archer: There aren't many here who are trained to do that, and we're surrounded by agriculture. But I just want to say ... when we talk about "farm animals," it isn't only "producers," regarded as food. There are people who have pet goats and pet chickens, and they need help with them when they're sick or injured. I am hoping I can do that and add to the practice.
TN: So, you got an idea that large animals, even on farms, often are seen as important members of the operation?
Archer: I remember when I saw a pig arrive in a stroller. It seemed to me this showed a real attachment, and it made an impression ...
TN: Were there any other memorable moments of animal-inflicted injury, other than the one with the cow that disabled your finger?
Archer: I had a llama spit, but I wasn't sure it was at me. It seemed like a reaction.
TN: So, do you have to be part animal psychologist when you are with such big creatures?
Archer: I think that is true of all animals. But I think you need to do that for people, too.
TN: Can you give me an example?
Archer: I think there is one we see frequently. It is the death of a pet. People grieve differently, so you give them that opportunity. Maybe they want to leave the room. Maybe they want to be right there. One great benefit for me was to see how my parents handled situations like these. I was lucky to grow up seeing that.
TN: Missouri is a very different state. How did you like it there?
Archer: It's beautiful. Lots of hills, lots of trees, very green. It's a lot more humid than it is here. And winters can be snowy. But Columbia is a wonderful city. I was working a lot, so I didn't really have the same college scene as some did, but Mizzou -- the University of Missouri -- is really a great college town.
TN: The University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine is a really prestige veterinary school, and I am a Midwesterner originally so I'm confident of that pronouncement! You must have been cream-of-the-crop to clinch a spot in the program.
Archer: Just getting into vet school is hard. First, they look at your grades. Then there is a lot of (postgraduate) school. Sometimes I do wonder about the future, if there will be enough veterinarians in some places.
TN: It sounds like a long road to your profession. I know your mom and dad, who founded the veterinary practice, Ash Creek Animal Clinic, are proud and happy to have you back.
Archer: I am glad to be back. I missed Oregon -- and them. ▪
Snowberry season seems to be forecasting a cold winter ahead as plants fill with a bounty of berries
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, December 22, 2023
Those white berries that look like pearls, on low-slung plants with branches that wave like necklaces in strong wind, can reliably forecast the winter in 2024, according to experts in snow conditions across the globe.
The snowberries are plump and bountiful down by the Willamette River and across Independence – a sure sign of winter. So, move over woolly caterpillars, there’s a plant that can predict cold weather better than you fuzzy butterflies-to-be.
And, if so, this riverside city is in for some snow.
At least that’s what the Scots think. For years, a master skier and resort employee on Cairngorm Mountain – a leading winter destination – has been forecasting snow by the berries, as they say. Colin Matthew gained worldwide attention with his accurate predictions based on the plants’ robustness this time of year.
Matthew was busy on the slopes when a recent call was made asking about Independence and its bursting snowberry bushes, but this entirely logical question was politely answered. After all, Oregon so closely matches Scotland in weather that one 25-year-old account on climate calls the UK country and the Pacific Northwest state “drizzlingly similar.”
An associate who was in the lodge explained that Matthew was occupied, but confirmed that the snowberries are prodigious this December, just like those in the Beaver state, so it’s anticipated that the winter will be “snowy and cold.”
This is seen as good news for the ski resort, and also for Scots who favor snowflakes over raindrops, which many do. There are some Oregonians who feel that way, too – a snowfall is better than a downpour to some. To both groups this apparently has to do with a more frequent appearance of sunshine in the presence of snow.
But snowberries aren’t limited to foretelling the immediate future weather. In fact, the snowberry plant is inextricably linked to a giant piece of U.S. history.
It was a hot August day in 1805 when branches covered with small snowballs caught the eye of none other than Meriwether Lewis, who was anxiously waiting to meet Shoshone Indians along a creek in Montana.
Lewis couldn’t help but be fascinated by the plant, which appeared to have berries like the honeysuckle he knew, but with fruit that was astonishingly albino and remarkably round. “As large as a garden pea and as white as wax,” he observed in his journal.
Lewis collected some of the white “globules,” eventually harvesting seeds that were sent off to Thomas Jefferson, launching the snowberries into American lore. Jefferson planted them and was delighted to see pearls grow in his garden, which he wrote eloquently about, according to the National Park Service.
And that might have been the crux of snowberry fame if some Native Americans hadn’t notified the early explorers about the important properties of the plant, apart from the ornamental aspect. Snowberries were crushed to create a hair cleansing solution; roots were soaked to make tea to treat stomach pain and twigs were combined with liquid for use as a medicine to fight fever.
This versatility is part of their appeal. Snowberries are said to have strong vegetative features: they tend to grow where planted and seldom fail to thrive. This may be why the Scots seem to regard snowberries as kindred. In fact, the Scottish poet George Wilson, in the 19h Century, concludes a rhyme about “snowdrops” by likening them to “the bow that spans the cloudy sky, a symbol that brighter days are nigh.”
The reference to brighter days apparently means snowy rather than rainy ones – as in dreary with no sun, of course. ▪
Rep Paul Evans is proposing legislation to create a special fund for wildfire control
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, December 22, 2023
With wildfires now looming potentially much sooner and more severely than ever before, Rep. Paul Evans is proposing that 25 cents of every thousand dollars of assessed value of property tax be applied to fire safety measures for battling the risk.
“We can sit here and watch everything burn or ask voters for help,” Evans said during a town hall forum at Straub Middle School recently in West Salem. Under his plan, which he expects to introduce in the coming legislative session in February, local control of the revenue would be preserved, but the effort would be statewide.
The concept arrives in the wake of a tool for predicting property risk of every neighborhood, which was developed by several agencies -- predominantly Oregon State University -- that looks at vegetation, weather patterns and other factors to assess the threat of fire.
In a continually updated scientific chart of Oregon, every tax lot in the state is evaluated for risk, ranging from a category of zero to extreme. The lots also are classified as to whether they are part of the “wildlife-urban interface,” which refers to housing where there are woods, grassland and wilderness.
The chart, a map called the “Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer,” shows large parts of Oregon now fall within the “extreme risk” category for wildfires. However, it also shows some regions west of the Cascades as being under threat, too.
Evans was appointed chair of the House Interim Special Committee on Wildfire Recovery in the aftermath of devastating wildfires in 2020.
During that same period, Chief Ben Stange at Polk County Fire District No. 1 in Independence, predicted worsening of fire conditions, including a growing “wildlife urban interface” due to growth within the state. That forecast is currently being seen on projections in the “Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer.” ▪
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, December 22, 2023
Johnny Archer DVM has come home. A few months ago, he began his full-time veterinary medical practice at the clinic he has known since earliest boyhood – the Ash Creek Animal Clinic, founded by his mother, Laura, in 1990 and joined by his father, Robert, a few years later.
Archer will be providing large-animal care for farm stock locally part of the time. It will be the first time in decades that the riverside city where Archer grew up has had a vet with such special skills. He was the “smartest kid at Central High School” recalled one of his classmates recently, who remembered him as quiet and studious – and always known as Johnny, never John.
All three attributes seem to currently apply. During an interview recently with the town’s new Dr. Archer, a graduate of Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine at OSU, Johnny reflected on his training, his profession and his return to Independence.
TN: I understand you went to the University of Missouri to receive special training in large animals, including goats, hogs, horses, and sheep. What is the immediate difference you noticed in treating these animals?
Archer: Well, size. There was the case of an injured cow, for instance, and to be able to perform the procedure, we needed to have it on a hydraulic table. In the process of securing the cow's feet, it kicked forward. My finger was cut deeply, and it required stitches. In fact, the finger was broken. I wanted hands-on experience, and I got it!
TN: How did you proceed with a broken finger?
Archer: Well, carefully, of course (laughs). This was all about learning. Working with these animals, you find what lines you cannot cross. I worked about a 55-hour week. I worked in different situations, though mostly on what people would call "farm animals." I learned to change gloves a lot, to have clothes that would protect me from picking up ticks.
TN: Were you concerned about Lyme disease? Is that why?
Archer: Not just Lyme disease, but there are a lot of tickborne diseases -- and a lot of ticks in Missouri. I wore rubber boots all the time. West Nile virus, which is transmitted by mosquitoes, is rare but it has been found there. Also, chickens can get bird influenza, which usually doesn't infect humans, but it can.
TN: Was there any condition you were always on the lookout for?
Archer: There was constant surveillance for foot-and-mouth disease.
TN: Why was it so important to you to get training for treating large animals? Farm animals?
Archer: There aren't many here who are trained to do that, and we're surrounded by agriculture. But I just want to say ... when we talk about "farm animals," it isn't only "producers," regarded as food. There are people who have pet goats and pet chickens, and they need help with them when they're sick or injured. I am hoping I can do that and add to the practice.
TN: So, you got an idea that large animals, even on farms, often are seen as important members of the operation?
Archer: I remember when I saw a pig arrive in a stroller. It seemed to me this showed a real attachment, and it made an impression ...
TN: Were there any other memorable moments of animal-inflicted injury, other than the one with the cow that disabled your finger?
Archer: I had a llama spit, but I wasn't sure it was at me. It seemed like a reaction.
TN: So, do you have to be part animal psychologist when you are with such big creatures?
Archer: I think that is true of all animals. But I think you need to do that for people, too.
TN: Can you give me an example?
Archer: I think there is one we see frequently. It is the death of a pet. People grieve differently, so you give them that opportunity. Maybe they want to leave the room. Maybe they want to be right there. One great benefit for me was to see how my parents handled situations like these. I was lucky to grow up seeing that.
TN: Missouri is a very different state. How did you like it there?
Archer: It's beautiful. Lots of hills, lots of trees, very green. It's a lot more humid than it is here. And winters can be snowy. But Columbia is a wonderful city. I was working a lot, so I didn't really have the same college scene as some did, but Mizzou -- the University of Missouri -- is really a great college town.
TN: The University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine is a really prestige veterinary school, and I am a Midwesterner originally so I'm confident of that pronouncement! You must have been cream-of-the-crop to clinch a spot in the program.
Archer: Just getting into vet school is hard. First, they look at your grades. Then there is a lot of (postgraduate) school. Sometimes I do wonder about the future, if there will be enough veterinarians in some places.
TN: It sounds like a long road to your profession. I know your mom and dad, who founded the veterinary practice, Ash Creek Animal Clinic, are proud and happy to have you back.
Archer: I am glad to be back. I missed Oregon -- and them. ▪
Snowberry season seems to be forecasting a cold winter ahead as plants fill with a bounty of berries
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, December 22, 2023
Those white berries that look like pearls, on low-slung plants with branches that wave like necklaces in strong wind, can reliably forecast the winter in 2024, according to experts in snow conditions across the globe.
The snowberries are plump and bountiful down by the Willamette River and across Independence – a sure sign of winter. So, move over woolly caterpillars, there’s a plant that can predict cold weather better than you fuzzy butterflies-to-be.
And, if so, this riverside city is in for some snow.
At least that’s what the Scots think. For years, a master skier and resort employee on Cairngorm Mountain – a leading winter destination – has been forecasting snow by the berries, as they say. Colin Matthew gained worldwide attention with his accurate predictions based on the plants’ robustness this time of year.
Matthew was busy on the slopes when a recent call was made asking about Independence and its bursting snowberry bushes, but this entirely logical question was politely answered. After all, Oregon so closely matches Scotland in weather that one 25-year-old account on climate calls the UK country and the Pacific Northwest state “drizzlingly similar.”
An associate who was in the lodge explained that Matthew was occupied, but confirmed that the snowberries are prodigious this December, just like those in the Beaver state, so it’s anticipated that the winter will be “snowy and cold.”
This is seen as good news for the ski resort, and also for Scots who favor snowflakes over raindrops, which many do. There are some Oregonians who feel that way, too – a snowfall is better than a downpour to some. To both groups this apparently has to do with a more frequent appearance of sunshine in the presence of snow.
But snowberries aren’t limited to foretelling the immediate future weather. In fact, the snowberry plant is inextricably linked to a giant piece of U.S. history.
It was a hot August day in 1805 when branches covered with small snowballs caught the eye of none other than Meriwether Lewis, who was anxiously waiting to meet Shoshone Indians along a creek in Montana.
Lewis couldn’t help but be fascinated by the plant, which appeared to have berries like the honeysuckle he knew, but with fruit that was astonishingly albino and remarkably round. “As large as a garden pea and as white as wax,” he observed in his journal.
Lewis collected some of the white “globules,” eventually harvesting seeds that were sent off to Thomas Jefferson, launching the snowberries into American lore. Jefferson planted them and was delighted to see pearls grow in his garden, which he wrote eloquently about, according to the National Park Service.
And that might have been the crux of snowberry fame if some Native Americans hadn’t notified the early explorers about the important properties of the plant, apart from the ornamental aspect. Snowberries were crushed to create a hair cleansing solution; roots were soaked to make tea to treat stomach pain and twigs were combined with liquid for use as a medicine to fight fever.
This versatility is part of their appeal. Snowberries are said to have strong vegetative features: they tend to grow where planted and seldom fail to thrive. This may be why the Scots seem to regard snowberries as kindred. In fact, the Scottish poet George Wilson, in the 19h Century, concludes a rhyme about “snowdrops” by likening them to “the bow that spans the cloudy sky, a symbol that brighter days are nigh.”
The reference to brighter days apparently means snowy rather than rainy ones – as in dreary with no sun, of course. ▪
Rep Paul Evans is proposing legislation to create a special fund for wildfire control
By Anne Scheck
Trammart News Service, December 22, 2023
With wildfires now looming potentially much sooner and more severely than ever before, Rep. Paul Evans is proposing that 25 cents of every thousand dollars of assessed value of property tax be applied to fire safety measures for battling the risk.
“We can sit here and watch everything burn or ask voters for help,” Evans said during a town hall forum at Straub Middle School recently in West Salem. Under his plan, which he expects to introduce in the coming legislative session in February, local control of the revenue would be preserved, but the effort would be statewide.
The concept arrives in the wake of a tool for predicting property risk of every neighborhood, which was developed by several agencies -- predominantly Oregon State University -- that looks at vegetation, weather patterns and other factors to assess the threat of fire.
In a continually updated scientific chart of Oregon, every tax lot in the state is evaluated for risk, ranging from a category of zero to extreme. The lots also are classified as to whether they are part of the “wildlife-urban interface,” which refers to housing where there are woods, grassland and wilderness.
The chart, a map called the “Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer,” shows large parts of Oregon now fall within the “extreme risk” category for wildfires. However, it also shows some regions west of the Cascades as being under threat, too.
Evans was appointed chair of the House Interim Special Committee on Wildfire Recovery in the aftermath of devastating wildfires in 2020.
During that same period, Chief Ben Stange at Polk County Fire District No. 1 in Independence, predicted worsening of fire conditions, including a growing “wildlife urban interface” due to growth within the state. That forecast is currently being seen on projections in the “Oregon Wildfire Risk Explorer.” ▪
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