Adirondack Family Time™

Are you overrun with toads?  Give them a home of their own. Here is a quick  Toad House  to make those warty creatures have a comfortable place of their own. Recycle old or broken terra cotta pots and get that toad settled in. Remember that toads can eat upwards of 1,000 insects in a day. They also eat grubs, slugs and bugs! © Diane Chase, author of  Adirondack Family Time: Tri-Lakes and High Peaks (Your Four-Season Guide to Over 300 Activities)  available  online  or bookstores/museums.

Bald Mountain Fire Tower in Old Forge, NY In the late 1800s and early 1900s, enormous forest fires were threatening residents and landowners. New ways had to be looked at to try to protect and report how these fires could be managed. Two different fires, 1903 and 1908, which damaged over 1 million acres of woodlands, became known as the "Great Fires" leading to an organized system of forest fire management throughout the Adirondacks. The first Adirondack fire tower, made of wood, was built on the summit of Mount Morris (now known as Big Tupper Ski Area) with other towers being constructed over the course of the next five years. There have 120  fire towers  at various locations around New York State with 57 of them within the boundary of the Adirondack Park. The log and wood structures were slowly replaced by steel towers between 1917 and 1930, which could be more easily maintained. A full-time work force from  Forest Rangers  to Fire Observers were organized...

Smokey the Bear, the iconic American symbol for forest fire prevention, actually was preceded by an earlier fire prevention strategy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt first started a fire prevention campaign when millions of acres of National Forest were being lost due to careless people. The campaign started with Uncle Sam and took a r eligious turn before tapping into the war movement. When Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Japanese submarines fired shells exploding a Santa Barbara, California oil field - the war was brought to American soil. With young men and experienced firefighters enlisted in the war and stationed away from the home front, fear grew that these attacks would continue to destroy lives, property and National Forests.  Citizens were encouraged to take a personal interest in fire prevention and organize community prevention efforts. With the success of Disney's 5th animated movie, Bambi, the fire prevention campaign shifts ...

I’m all for a good craft. My bathroom shelves and corners of every room in my house are filled with scraps of paper, string, and other tidbits waiting to be transformed into a fun afterschool activity. The one thing you won’t find on my website is a craft for a paper poppy for Remembrance Day, Veteran's Day or Memorial Day.  The paper poppy as a symbol for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day is sacred. In my opinion it shouldn’t be lumped into the same type of holiday craft madness as  Valentine’s Day  or  Christmas  (Oh, I have crafts here.   I like cutting and folding paper with the best of you. I like recycling, reusing, and repurposing.) There are so many blogs and websites posting crafts on how to honor veterans by making a paper poppy. I don’t mean to disparage those websites. I feel that the crafter's heart is in the right place. I just feel that the focus is off.  By making your own paper poppy, you aren’t able to connect a chi...