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Grow-it-yourself food. During this time of pandemic it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? Especially if you’re, like me, extremely apprehensive about the possibility of becoming exposed to Covid-19 while grocery shopping. In fact, I can’t think of a better way to avoid going out in public, while securing nutritious food, than growing your own.
The majority of Americans have become accustomed to having abundant supplies of relatively inexpensive food readily available at neighborhood grocery stores and supermarkets. And we’ve become so, even as a greater and greater number of our neighbors have grown increasingly more reliant on food banks and pantries for some, if not all, of their food. That number now includes many of the nearly 17-million Americans who applied for unemployment insurance in April, and numerous others who have (or had) jobs without unemployment insurance (e.g. freelancers, contractors, gig workers). Poverty, which has already been a reality for many in our communities, could become so for many more.
And, concerns about food supply chains are growing as well, as the pandemic impacts food storage, processing, and transportation. Are farm workers going to be able to work? And if so, how will those crops get to retail markets? Food security has never been more of an issue.
Due to their delayed 2020 summer opening, Fort Ticonderoga is launching a virtual campus.
Arab Mountain (or, more often, Mount Arab) is a 2,539-foot peak located in the Town of Piercefield in St. Lawrence County, almost five miles west of Tupper Lake and nine miles east of Cranberry Lake.
Marking 50 years of Earth Day (1970-2020) should not pass without paying tribute to the late New York State Senator Bernard C. Smith. The late State Senator and chair of the Senate’s environmental conservation committee combined a strong moral and ethical compass with political talent and negotiating skill to protect and conserve our state’s wild lands, wild rivers and natural resources from 1965-1978. He was a steadfast and very influential Republican proponent for the environment precisely when such a Republican was needed in Albany. He worked his political skills at the State Capitol, but his love for fishing and the outdoors was expressed at his home on Long Island and in the streams and rivers of the Catskills, where he had a camp near the Esopus Creek, and on the upper Hudson River in the Adirondacks.
The old neighborhoods of Saranac Lake are lively these days, as people of all ages take a break from solitude to go out walking at all hours. Like the TB patients of the past, we are eager to stretch our legs, breathe some fresh air, and wave to a friendly face across the street.
During the years Saranac Lake was a health resort, many TB patients filled their time by making arts and crafts. These activities furnished a crucial sense of purpose for people struggling with isolation and boredom.
In an effort to fill up the silence of social distance, many of us are turning to the comfort of music. Some older Saranac Lakers can trace their love of music back to a kind lady who lived in a little brick house up on French Hill.
On June 26, 1776, John Adams wrote to Abigail words appropriate for our present circumstances:
I’ve been thinking about ways that TB patients combatted loneliness. Spending much of their time alone, often far from family and friends, radio served as a source of entertainment and a lifeline to community. In 1927, a time when there were fewer than 100 radio stations in the United States, Saranac Lake founded its own local radio station, WNBZ. The people at WNBZ produced locally grown radio shows tailored to keep TB patients busy, like courses in literature and history and one called, “Let’s Learn Spanish.”
From five years ago:
Many years ago, Saranac Lake rallied to fight a deadly disease. Today’s news sure has us thinking about our local history.
Prolific Adirondack researcher and writer William J. O’Hern’s new book Adirondack Timber Cruising takes the reader on a journey through the development of timber cruising, logging, and forestry and our relationship to forests.
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