SALISBURY
Saturday's downpour didn't dampen spirits or the fire for the seventh annual New England Clambake to raise money for the Jane Lloyd Fund.
The fund was named for Lloyd, a Salisbury resident who died of breast cancer in 2005. Her family, looking for a way to give back to the community who supported her during her eight-year battle, set up the fund with the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation to help others with the day-to-day financial burdens that cancer patients often face.
Lloyd's good friend Tanya Tedder came up with the idea of the clambake, which is held at Satre Hill, the site of the Salisbury Winter Sports Association Ski Jumps every February..
One stalwart of the event has been Ray Zukowski of Northfield, Mass., a friend of the Lloyd family. He mans the pit on which the clams, lobsters, corn and potatoes are cooked. A pile of rocks are heated and then covered with seaweed and eventually tarps, he explained.
"The flavor from the seaweed is phenomenal," said Zukowski, as he oversaw a group of volunteers husking ears of corn. He said the process is used at Schuetzen Verein, a shooting club in Turners Falls, Mass., named for one in Germany.
Standing under tents as the rainfall became heavier, volunteers were determined the event would go on. "What else can you do when you have 250 lobsters?" asked Elizabeth Bock.
Tedder said more than 50 people donate their time to the clambake, where for $50 a diner gets clam chowder, a couple of dozen clams, a lobster, potato, corn on the cob and beverages. "I don't even have to make phone calls anymore," she said. "Everyone just shows up. Just like those who came out to help Jane, they come out to help with this."
She said the process is so organized that 250 people are fed in about 40 minutes. For those who may not be seafood lovers, hot dogs and hamburgers could be purchased. Music is always part of the festivities.
"This is our biggest fundraiser that helps the largest majority of people," Tedder said. "It's lots of fun and many look forward to it. It's a feel-good thing. It takes a lot of organization, but it's all from the heart."
SALISBURY — The eastern golden eagle that was released back into the wild in March 2011 at the Mohawk Forest in Cornwall has been back to the area, Todd Katzner told an audience Saturday at a talk sponsored by Sharon Audubon and the Scoville Library.
Katzner is a research assistant professor in the Division of Forestry and Natural Resources at West Virginia University and a co-founder of the wildlife telemetry company Cellular Tracking Technologies, which is tracking the bird with a cell phone type device implanted in the back of its neck. He said the bird, which was bred in Quebec, flew back up there but has returned to the Massachusetts and Connecticut area.
"We were surprised to find she's spent a lot of time here, but this is a really forested area of the state," he told the group. "So if you have one here, you probably have more. It would be good to see how many are out there."
The eagle, estimated to be about 6 years old by its plumage, wants to get to places where there is enough prey, enough food for survival, said Katzner, but doesn't want to get there too early. Eagles are central-place foragers, foraging all around from a particular spot.
"She knows what she's doing," he said.
Katzner said the researchers won't get summer data until later in the year, when they hope to be able to see where she's been this year.
Scott Heth, director of Sharon Audubon, said after the talk that once the eagle was released last year, she was tracked to a breeding ground in Labrador. He called it "incredible" that she then returned and flew over Mohawk Mountain and the Audubon center.
"The interest in this area by the eagles is probably more than we think," said Heth. "It encourages us to be more aware because they blend into the forest."
Katzner also talked about the risks of wind turbines to eagles. He said the birds don't understand the large rotating blades, so they run into them. They also fly looking downward for prey so their distraction causes them harm.
He said that eventually researchers hope the flight data will help generate a series of maps to show areas not frequented by eagles, where turbines can go. Determinations are based on topography and how high up eagles will fly, as well as their migratory behaviors.
If risk is to be limited, he said, the turbines must be sited better and they can be feathered, or turned off periodically. "There are good places to put turbines and there are bad places to put turbines," Katzner said. "If we put turbines in more places in the United States, we'll see more mortality."
SALISBURY — The town of Salisbury made a great contribution to the Civil War, which is brought to life in the exhibit "At Home in Civil War Salisbury" now on display at the Academy Building on Main Street. It was put together by the association's historical society.
When President Abraham Lincoln put out the call for volunteers to serve in the Union Army after the fall of Fort Sumter in 1861, Salisbury's men answered. Eventually 353 of its citizens went to war to help preserve the nation. More than 50 died of wounds or disease.
According to information posted on the exhibit's boards, the majority of Salisbury soldiers served in the 7th Regiment of the Heavy Artillery, Companies B, E and G, six men with the 9th Connecticut Volunteers, also known as the Irish Regiment, and eight African Americans served in the segregated 29th Connecticut Infantry Regiment. They were stationed in Cold Harbor, Va., Antietam, Md., and Gettysburg, Pa.
Several individuals are highlighted, including Horace Ball, the town's longest-surviving veteran, who died in 1938 at age 91.
He enlisted in 1863 at the age of 16, joining the Company B of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery, also known as the "Mountain Regiment" since many of those enlistees came from Mount Riga.
The longest-surviving veteran who remained in Salisbury was Charles H. Ball, who enlisted at age 15. He died in 1932. Records show he had close personal encounters during his service with both Lincoln and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. For 54 years he participated in the town's Memorial Day parade wearing his Union uniform.
One family, the Frinks, sent seven sons to war. Elisha Cleaveland was the town's first casualty, killed after serving just nine weeks. In the 1864 presidential election, Salisbury voted Democratic in opposition to Lincoln.
The exhibit will run through October.
SHARON — Out of nickels can come needed funds. The Ladies Auxiliary of the Sharon Volunteer Fire Department held its first can and bottle drive Saturday. The money amassed from the five-cent deposits will help to raise the group's coffers for its operational expenses that go toward supplies, such as food and beverages, for the firefighters at emergency scenes.
The organization also maintains a scholarship fund.
Auxiliary members Tina Pitcher and her mother-in-law, Muriel Pitcher, were at the fire house cleaning the bundles of containers before shipping them off to a DEEP-run redemption center in Bristol. Tina Pitcher said a good bulk of the cans and bottles came from the previous week's Adult Soapbox Derby put on by the fire department. Organizers offered them to the auxiliary as a way to raise money.
This is a weekly look at happenings throughout the Region 1 towns of Canaan, Cornwall, Falls Village, Kent, Salisbury and Sharon. Send items of interest about events and residents from our Northwest Corner to kcsruthe@aol.com or P.O. Box 214, Kent, CT 06757.
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