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Family history of heart disease leads to a world of hiking

Lisa Abbott scrolled through the online auction offerings of the American Alpine Club’s fundraiser. As a rock climber, ice climber, scuba diver and marathon runner, she enjoyed daydreaming about the various trips up for grabs. One offering stood out: a guided two-week trek through the Khumbu Valley in Nepal to the base camp of Mount Everest. As senior vice president of human resources and community affairs at Lifespan, Rhode Island’s largest health system and employer, Lisa could not take a few months off to climb Mount Everest. But reaching base camp, at 17,598 feet, fit her ...

PGC advises to leave young wildlife alone

​HARRISBURG — Whether in their backyards or high on a mountain, it’s almost certain Pennsylvanians will encounter young wildlife this time of year. While some young animals might appear to be abandoned, usually they are not. It’s likely their mothers are watching over them from somewhere nearby. So when encountering young wildlife, be it deer, birds, raccoons or other animals, the best thing you can do is leave it alone. “Well-intentioned people might step in to help a young animal that appears to be alone, not realizing its mother is nearby and it’s not in need of ...

Court declines to disturb beach area

PORTER, Ind. — A federal appeals court has declined to disturb an Indiana Supreme Court ruling, later codified into Indiana law, which declared that Lake Michigan’s shoreline is — and always has been — owned by the state for the public’s use. In a 3-0 decision earlier this week, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said the three lakefront property owners in the town of Porter who claim their holdings include a private beach lack standing to challenge Indiana’s high court ruling and statute in federal court, The (Northwest Indiana) Times reported. Circuit ...

A good or bad outing … that all depends

By Shirley Grenoble sports@altoonamirror.com How did your spring gobbler season go this Year? My reports from hunters far and wide indicate it was a mixed bag. My friend, Joanie Haidle, and I traveled to Missouri to hunt and ran into the same complaints from hunters there that we have had in Pennsylvania for the last three years. “The birds are hardly gobbling,” many hunters said. “You better get him right at dawn or then wait until 11 a.m. because that is the only time they gobble. That was exactly how it went on our first couple days. A landowner had allowed us to ...

Turkey dishes not just for November

Last year I cooked some wild turkey for a group of friends. Like many, they were wary, expecting to taste something they hoped to tolerate but did not expect to like. I cooked it in a simple way ... turkey breast in a crockpot. Then I sliced it and made home-made gravy for it. Most of those who tried it remarked how similar it tasted to what they called real turkey. They went back for seconds and there were no leftovers. And that is not the way I generally cook wild turkey. From the day most of us got the recipe from The National Wild Turkey Federation back in the 1970s, we’ve ...

PGC paying tribute to Sewickley’s Oliver

If you’ve been to state parks or public lands in Southwestern Pennsylvania, chances are John C. Oliver III had a hand in acquiring some of that acreage. Regional parks that Oliver helped secure additional property for include Ohiopyle, Moraine, McConnell’s Mills and Raccoon state parks. That’s just a small part of his work. Oliver, 82, of Sewickley Heights, was honored by the Pennsylvania Game Commission as the first recipient of a conservation award named for him. He joined the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in 1970 and became its president in 1978. He held the position ...