From the mayor’s desk: Meadow Martell

Change is in the air. Days feel cooler and shorter. Nights seem longer and darker. Time to get my jacket out for the morning walk with the dog. Sunday a couple neighbor friends and I had a lovely walk on the Jack Pine Loop Trail on 8$ Mountain Rd. I definitely felt invigorated and ready to tackle winterizing and putting in a few winter plants in the garden.
The City is also focusing on getting ready for winter mode- cleaning ditches, general maintenance and winterizing. Things we all should be thinking about.
Weather changes can also affect our physical and mental health. Our cognitive performance, our preference for different colors and different types of music, and the kind of foods we tend to eat all vary over the course of the year. The seasons also appear to influence how kind we are to others. For example, charitable contributions increase dramatically especially around holidays. This is also a time to be optimistic, but also prepared.
People in Oregon can now order additional free at-home COVID-19 tests from the federal government. Each U.S. household can receive four free individual at-home COVID-19 tests, delivered for free via U.S. Postal Service. Learn more at https://www.covidtests.gov/.
If you have COVID-19 tests that may have expired, check the expiration date on the box and search https://www.fda.gov/medicaldevices. maintained by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA has extended the expiration dates of many at-home COVID-19 tests. If your test has expired, you can throw it away in the regular trash. The at-home tests target a part of the virus that does not change as new variants emerge. Therefore, any unexpired at-home COVID-19 tests can detect currently circulating COVID-19 variants.
Last weekend I was able to attend a very meaningful event for me. A memorial plaque designation was placed on the original Takilma Peoples Clinic (TPC) building. It was a wonderful gathering of old and new friends who have been and are involved in providing quality health care that is available to everyone, regardless of financial resources. TPC is what brought me to the Illinois Valley. I was the clinic’s first executive director and wrote the federal grant that provided the resources to expand health care into our schools in Cave Junction and into Grants Pass. The last 37 years have been quite a journey for me from director to landowner to mayor. And beginning next year in 2025, we will see what is next. Maybe the best is yet to come!