Rutland Daily Herald from Rutland, Vermont • B7

Sunday, December 29, 2013 Rutland Daily Herald undaMacjazine The Times Argus B7 THE OUTSIDE STORY Mistletoe shoots tree, in hopes of spreading infestation symptoms may have other causes.) Although dwarf mistletoes can be serious forests pests in other parts of North America, none of the foresters I checked with seemed much concerned with A. pusillium. Marshall Patmos, the former county forester for Cheshire County, N.H., and a Christmas tree farmer, takes a tolerant view of mistletoe infestations. Many Christmas tree customers, he says, prefer trees with a little character. The "elf shelves" created by mistletoe and other tree parasites have quirky appeal, as do old bird nests and even damage from moose browsing.

Whatever the decorative merits of its witches' brooms, the plant's strategy for seed dispersal is downright awe inspiring. Unlike leafy mistletoe, which relies mainly on birds, dwarf mistletoe turns its seeds into ammunition. In early spring, approximately five years after the plant germinates, it sends up sprouts. These grow about 3 centimeters high before producing drab, greenish-brownish flowers. Once pollination occurs, male sprouts wither and fall off.

(The empty basal cups, where sprouts once grew, look a bit like sapsucker holes.) The female sprouts linger until autumn, incubating single-seeded berries. So how does the mistletoe launch its seeds? Professor Cynthia Marie Ross Friedman of Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, an authority on dwarf mistletoes, explained the process to me. As each berry ripens, a mucilaginous layer of cells called viscin develops underneath the seed. The viscin attracts water from the rest of the plant, resulting in increasing hydrostatic pressure in the berry. At the same time, on the opposite upper side of the berry, cells begin to die off near the stem.

Eventually, a trigger point is reached. The berry explodes off the stem and the seed is launched into the air at a 45-degree angle the ideal angle for maximum range. Seed speeds may reach 50 mph, and seeds have been known to travel as far as 60 feet. If this seed bullet hits a tree, the sticky viscin helps it adhere to its victim, and stay there all winter. The following spring, a tiny sprout will emerge from the seed and dig into the host tree's bark.

Recently, as my Vermont family unarmed tromped through the woods in search of a Christmas tree, I kept a lookout for swollen branches and witches' brooms. While I had no interest in taking Eastern dwarf mistletoe home with us, I would have liked to indulge in a group hug beneath an infested bough, perhaps accompanied by an off-key round of "Good King Wenceslas." Alas, it was not to be. There was no sign of mistletoe in our woodlot. We ended up harvesting an oddly perfect young spruce, the kind that would have left some of Marshall Patmos' quirkier customers wistful for moose. As for the hallway chandelier (OK, light fixture), I'm still looking for substitute greenery.

Deck the halls with invasive buckthorn? Elise Tillinghast is the publisher of Northern Woodlands magazine. The illustration for this column was drawn by Adelaide Tyrol. The Outside Story is assigned and edited by Northern Woodlands magazine and sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund of New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: wellbornnhcf.org. Of their function to roots which harvest nutrients from the tree's living tissue and anchor themselves to the wood. Signs of the plant's presence another's your own hands demonstrated that chest compressions alone were as good as or even better than combining them with rescue breathing.

In both studies, one conducted in Jane BRODY Health By ELISE TILLINGHAST One of my family's cherished Christmas traditions, back at our farm in Virginia, is to search out mistletoe balls growing high in the hedgerows. Then we take out a 20-gauge shotgun and blast them to pieces. We aren't doing this out of Yule tide spite there's simply no other practical way to harvest a plant that grows on thin branches high above the ground. When peppered with bird shot, oak mistletoe (Phoradendron leucar-pum) rains down in sprigs. These look pretty tied up in ribbons and hung from a chandelier.

In Vermont and New Hampshire, mistletoe balls are out of reach in an absolute sense; they don't grow here. So, as I've been feeling homesick these past weeks, I decided to find out what mistletoe species live this far north. That how I discovered Eastern dwarf mistletoe. It's a small, homely plant, although it does have an interesting visual impact on spruce boughs. It's also trigger-happy.

It turns out mistletoe in these parts doesn't get shot it shoots. And its frequent target is Christmas trees. Arceuthobeum pusillium grows on spruce trees (most frequently on black spruce) and less commonly on other conifers. It is one of 19 species of dwarf mistletoe native to the United States. Like all mistletoes, it's parasitic.

Although capable of photosynthesis, it harvests most of its minerals, sugar and water from the tissue of its host tree. For most of its life, it lives hidden from view, under its host tree's bark. An extensive web of cortical strands (imagine the runners of ground-growing ivy) connect to "sinkers" similar in Millions of people have been trained in CPR in recent decades, yet when people who aren't in hospitals collapse from a sudden cardiac arrest, relatively few bystanders attempt resuscitation. Only one-fourth to one-third of those who might be helped by CPR receive it before paramedics arrive. With so many people trained, why isn't bystander CPR done more often? For one thing, people forget what to do: The panic that may ensue is not conducive to accurate recall.

Even those with medical training often can't remember the steps just a few months after learning them. Rather than make a mistake, some bystanders simply do nothing beyond calling 911, even though emergency dispatchers often tell callers how to perform CPR. Then there is the yuck factor: performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a stranger. So pervasive is the feeling of reluctance that researchers decided to study whether rescue breathing is really necessary. Two major studies, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in July 2010, clearly I love the annual ritual of making New Year's resolutions.

Every year you have another chance. So don't be discouraged if you didn't meet last year's resolutions. Keep trying, especially if at the top of your list was to become a better money manager. Fidelity Investments found that for the third consecutive year surveying consumers, the top three financial resolutions for 2014 are saving more, paying off debt and spending less. As you begin listing the things you want to change about your finances in the New Year, I want you to think a little differently about the promises to yourself.

I have four resolutions I want you to add to your list. You might not think they affect your finances, but they can impact your financial well-being. Resolve to mend broken relationships. It's so easy to Taking On Consider The of Washington state and London and the other in Sweden, a slightly higher percentage of people who received only bystander chest compressions survived to be discharged from the hospital with good brain function. When a person collapses suddenly because the heart's electrical function goes awry, it turned out, there is often enough air in the lungs to sustain heart and brain function for a few minutes, as long as blood is pumped continuously to those vital organs.

In addition, some people gasp while in cardiac arrest, which can bring more oxygen into the lungs. Indeed, the studies strongly suggested that interrupting chest compressions to administer rescue breaths actually diminishes the effectiveness of CPR in these patients. Based in part on these findings, the American Heart Association has removed rescue breathing from bystander CPR guidelines for teenagers and adults in sudden cardiac arrest. in a tree include crown die-back, swollen branches, and messy, dense patches of growth called "witches' brooms." (Although any of these life into About 900 Americans die every day because of sudden cardiac arrest. Nearly 383,000 of such episodes occur outside hospitals each year, 88 percent of them at home.

Thus, the life you save with CPR may well be a relative's. Sudden cardiac arrest is not the same as a heart attack. A victim of sudden cardiac arrest collapses suddenly, becomes unresponsive to gentle shaking and stops breathing normally. The arrest occurs when the heart's electrical system malfunctions, resulting in highly irregular signals that leave the heart unable to pump blood. After just four minutes of this, the brain's ability to recover from a lack of oxygen begins to seriously decline.

About 95 percent of people in sudden cardiac arrest die before reaching the hospital. Many of them were otherwise healthy. A victim's chances of survival fall by 7 to 10 percent every minute the heart fails to pump. Since 2010, the heart association has advocated a simplified version of bystander CPR. When encountering a person who has collapsed and is unresponsive, the most important emergency action after yelling for someone to call care? About 18 percent of Americans have provided or are currently providing long-term care for someone, according to a study by Northwestern Mutual.

One of the things I hear often from caregivers is that they can't get their adult siblings to help take care of a parent. And why? Issues. Hurt feelings. I was talking to a group of seniors and I asked them if they could expect help from their adult children. Many lowered their heads or admitted they didn't have a good enough relationship to expect help.

Even if you have money to pay for your care, you'll need someone to help monitor both the nursing assistance and you. Resolve to become healthier. For many people, health care will be one of their largest expenses in retirement. A couple age 65 who retired in 2013 is estimated to need $220,000 to cover medical expenses throughout retirement, according to Fidelity Benefits Consulting. By the way, this estimate does not include any costs associated with nursing-home care.

911 is to administer rapid, forceful chest compressions until medical help arrives or an automated external defibrillator, or AED, can be used to shock the heart back into a normal rhythm. Put one hand over the other, with fingers entwined, place them in the center of the chest between the victim's nipples, and press hard and fast. Each compression should depress the chest by about 2 inches and should be repeated about 100 times a minute. If done to the beat of "Stayin' Alive," the old Bee Gees song, the proper rhythm will be achieved. The chest should be allowed to rise up momentarily between compressions to allow the heart and lungs to refill.

You don't have to take a course to learn compression-only CPR. You can prepare by watching a video by the American Heart Association. Search online for "hands-only CPR instructional video," or check out the association's Web page on the topic. There are also free mobile training apps available for iPhone and Android phones. Chest compressions alone should be done only for teenagers and adults in sudden It applies only to retirees with traditional Medicare insurance coverage.

It does not include other health-related expenses, such as over-the-counter medications, most dental services and long-term care. Here's a key to that estimate: It's calculated for average retirees, but the cost could be more or less depending on where you live, your longevity and your health. Fidelity says many people nearing retirement underestimate the amount of savings they may need to cover health care costs. In one poll, respondents guessed that they would need only $50,000. I'm trying to take my own advice.

I've been taking classes called aqua spin at a local county-run community center. I have arthritis and riding a stationary bike underwater is less stressful on myjoints. So to save money, get healthy or healthier. Eat better. Exercise.

Your health can have a big impact on your wealth. Resolve to become connected in your community. We know the safety nets created by cardiac arrest. Conventional CPR, with rescue breathing, is still recommended for infants and younger children. The combination should also be used for teenagers and adults in cardiac arrest who collapsed unobserved and may not have any air left in their lungs, as well as for victims of drowning, drug overdose or collapse because of a breathing problem.

The heart association has changed the recommended protocol for conventional CPR in hopes of improving its effectiveness. The current recommendation is to start with 30 chest compressions (at a rate of 100 a minute) followed by two one-second breaths, repeating this sequence until help arrives. When providing breaths, the victim's head should be tilted back to open the airway. For an infant, the rescuer's mouth should cover the baby's nose and mouth. For children older than 1 and for adults, the victim's nose should be pinched and the mouth covered by the mouth of the rescuer, who should observe the chest rising with each rescue breath.

Jane E. Brody is a columnist for The New York Times. for 2014 states and the federal government are not enough. So where can you turn if you need help? If you've been involved in your community, you'll have better resources and know more about where to go if you find you need financial assistance. I often consult the people I volunteer with for information that will help those in need.

You can't tap contacts you haven't made because you don't have time to volunteer. Resolve to help the poor. This resolution is a bit different than the previous one. Serving others less fortunate may help you realize how much you have. As a result, you may come to the understanding that you don't need to spend so much or go into debt to get more stuff.

A lot of people volunteer to help the needy around the holidays. But the need is great all year round. And here's the bonus to you: When you help people who have much less than you, it tends to put your wants in perspective. Michelle Singletary is a financial columnist for The Washington Post. some financial resolutions apart from people in your family.

But it may be those very people you will need in a tough financial situation. I'm not suggesting you be nice to your siblings or relatives just so they can bail you out, especially if you're a poor money manager. But as we learned in the last recession, we may need to lean on folks when we fall financially. And you're not likely to be able to lean on somebody you haven't talked to in years. Maybe things can't be resolved.

Color Money Michelle SINGLETARY Some relationships might be too toxic to fix. But with family counseling or individual therapy, you might be able to resolve the issues that drove you apart. It's worth the try. Here's something else to consider. Who is going to take care of you in your old age? If you're estranged from your adult children or other relatives, who will let deep-seated issues tear you help you if you need long-term.