Extension

Look around you -- what do you see? People are rushing around getting ready for the holidays.
It’s all too easy to get yourself stuck in the same old stressful cycle year after year. Many of us, it seems, fail to recognize this self-destructive pattern and come to dread the holidays.
Perhaps this feeling is, in part, due to a lack of conscious thought about what the holiday season really means to us. If we can take this into consideration, then we might be better able to spend time doing what we really think is important.

Winter weather in Kentucky tends to present challenges in the form of snow, ice and freezing temperatures.  
What isn’t talked about, though, is the discomfort caused by weather inside the home. The itch that plagues many people during winter can be the result of inside air that does not contain adequate moisture.
Low humidity levels can cause high levels of discomfort including dry skin and stuffy sinuses.

Reports of bed bugs again are on the rise in the United States; once nearly eliminated, they now are commonly found in homes, apartments, hotels and theaters.
While mostly prominent in the Upper Midwest and the Northeast corridor, the pests have established themselves in Trimble County, and can be found in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region and Louisville.
If you or your family are traveling for Thanksgiving or Christmas, there are some precautions to take to prevent bringing bed bugs home with you.

By MICHAEL PYLES
Trimble County Extension agent

Common chickweed, henbit, and purple deadnettle are cool-season weeds we usually see in crop fields during the fall and winter.
How-ever, other weeds, such as dandelions, have become more prevalent in recent years, according to J. D. Green, an Extension weed specialist at the University of Kentucky.
Dandelions are generally considered a major lawn or pasture weed, but increasingly have been found in grain-crop fields.