School Time Visitors

Last Thursday (9/11) thirty students and parents from the Franklin Learning Activities Group visited the Discovery Center. After the tour they practiced with compasses and tried out the Indian pump! Thanks to Jack Graham, Joe Devilbiss, and Peter Linehan who led the tour.

Visit to the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum

Yesterday, 8/14/14, the PAFFMA board held its summer meeting at the Pennsylvania Lumber Museum on Route 6 in Ulysses, PA. In what turned out to be the coldest meeting every held in summer, the board discussed plans for the annual meeting in November, the current season at the Forest Heritage and Discovery Center, and other issues.  Below are a few photos.

Here we are at the new CCC Memorial statue.

The entrance to the Lumber Museum

Getting ready to discuss business in the breezy pavilion!

A highlight of the trip was the visit to the new recreated birch still. This type of still was commonly used in the area to distill wintergreen from black birch branches until a synthetic wintergreen was developed in the 1960's. This is a fully operational model that can process a cord of branches at a time. Wintergreen is a common flavoring used in many personal care products.

For more pictures click here. 

PA Lumber Museum board member, Sam Cooke, attended the meeting, gave us a tour of the outside exhibits, and gave valuable insights on how to make a board more effective. Many thanks, Sam. Also thanks to Roy Siefert for the hot dogs and hamburgs. And thanks to Rick Flowers for the limousine service and driving!

THE FOREST FIRE PREVENTION PLEDGE

This weathered poster in the Discovery Center is really appropriate for the Fourth of July
It's hard to read the text in the photo, but here's what it says:

THE FOREST FIRE PREVENTION PLEDGE

"I give my pledge as a citizen to faithfully protect my country's forests, waters and wildlife and to do all in my power to prevent their waste and destruction from the ravages of forest fires."

2014 Golf Tournament

Here are pictures from the 2014 PAFFMA Golf Tournament at Rich Valley Golf Course. It was a bright, sunny, and very hot day! The golf and the food was great and we are looking forward to 2015.

Hitting the Target

This summer, putting out a backback pump at the Discovery Center for children to try has proved very popular. PAFFMA president Jack Graham made a target to aim for. We put some Smoky Bear stickers on it. Below, Jack demonstrates the right way to do it.

From Our Collections

The PAFFMA has a very extensive collection that can't all be displayed in the Discovery Center. At the last board meeting the members did check out the items in storage at the Bureau of Forestry District 1 office.

Pictured above is a Forest Reserve Officer Badge. According to PAFFMA President Jack Graham:

The accompanying paperwork indicates it MAY have been the actual badge assigned to and perhaps actually worn by Gifford Pinchot. The penciled letter we found folded up with the badge had accompanied it when it was sent from (I believe) the then (1960ish) Stroudsburg District Forester Jerry Robinson to Eugene McNamara. “Mac” had been the Stroudsburg District Forester before Jerry. The letter appears to be signed “GRR” which is how Jerry signed everything. Very coincidentally, I worked for Jerry Robinson for many years after he switched to State Parks. He is now passed on, but I sent a copy of the letter to his wife to see if she can confirm the handwriting and thus the authorship of the letter. 

We will follow up when we know more about the badge.

New Flowers

Today we planted some new annual flowers in the historic planters in front of the Discovery Center. With luck they will last the whole season!

Last night we had some very strong rains which caused flooding along the Conococheague Creek. Here is how it looked in Caledonia State Park.