Can You Spot a Turkey When You See One?

If you’re coming into or out of Huletts during the next couple of months and you happen to see any wild turkeys, the Department of Environmental Conservation is asking that you report your sightings to them.

The DEC is undertaking a statewide count of wild turkeys in the months ahead to better understand the bird’s population in the state.

The Albany Times Union has a good article about it here with the address of where you can download a form to report a wild turkey sighting.

We’re Going NFL

As the NFL playoffs approach, we are going to bring you a story about a current NFL player who has ties to Huletts and the surrounding area in the days ahead.

Now we know that many of you have strong feelings regarding certain football teams, but we think you’ll enjoy knowing the connection that Huletts has to a certain NFL team.

To demonstrate the growing influence of the “blogosphere”, we have been granted an interview with this player and will bring you the details and our interview with him in the days ahead.

You might even decide to change who you root for in the playoffs this year.

Merry Christmas

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

From our family to yours: have a Blessed Christmas and best wishes for a Happy New Year.

The Lost Radio Ad

This is truly a piece of history. It is an actual radio ad for the Huletts Hotel from approximately 1956 to 1958. Be sure to listen to it before reading the rest of the post below.

[media id=1]

Only read below after listening.

The “gag” of the joke revolves around the fact that the keys for the hotel’s rooms would open more than one door. Our serious guest finds this out unexpectedly but during the last years of the Hotel’s existence this was a known fact. This harkens back to a more innocent time where the “gag” is on the guest who has never stayed in Huletts before. It speaks for itself that this was actually advertised. So we wanted to share a little history and a little fun. What a truly special place Huletts Landing is, where all the doors open with one key and you find friends in every room.

New Rules to be Considered Next Month

The Lake George Park Commission will be releasing a draft of their proposed rules to protect stream corridors next month.

The Albany Times Union reports on it here.

This article is a bit oversimplified because it equates runoff with only private property development. Most people don’t know that when the LGPC was created, it was not given any authority to regulate other government entities. The biggest factor in pollutants reaching the Lake is runoff from County and State roads, especially salt and oil. But the LGPC has no authority to regulate other government bodies. This past summer, Washington County dug trenches down the mountain to facilitate runoff from County Route 6. When they did this, they destroyed areas Ed had created to catch runoff from the road. He had dug mini-sediment-basins over the course of a few years to catch any salt before it entered any stream. In the course of about two hours all of these were destroyed. The County’s response was that they could do whatever they wanted to because the LGPC regulations didn’t apply to them – and they did.

While we agree that every stream should be protected, we would like to see the government subjected to the same rules that private property owners are. Especially, when road pollutants are the biggest factor in runoff reaching the Lake. Until they are, the biggest source of pollutants will continue to flow.

He Gets a Commission

One of our guests passed along this cute story about her young son. We share it here with you for the holidays.

After returning from their vacation in Huletts, her son started first grade. As one of his first assignments, he had to create a web-page about the things he had done that summer. This may be hard to believe that first graders are creating web pages, but the mother tells us it happened just like this.

Well he worked for a couple of weeks and diligently built his webpage. It was a montage of all the things he had done in Huletts, illustrated by pictures his family took. There were shots of him playing on the beach, him riding his bicycle, going to the soda fountain, etc. I’m sure you get the idea.

Well it comes time to present his website to his class and he pulls it up on his monitor with all his first grade classmates gathered around. On seeing all the things he had done in Huletts and what joy he had, his classmates were completely incredulous that there was a place where a first grader could have so much fun. Two asked simultaneously; “is that a real place?” To which he replied; “Of course, it’s a real place, it’s Huletts Landing and that’s where I go on vacation!” He then proceeded to pull up our website and show them how they could make a reservation. His mother said every child in the class said they were going to tell their parents.

Now how’s that for word of mouth advertising!

The Huletts Cookie

If you’re looking for a good cookie recipe for the holidays, we pass this one along to you. We call it the Huletts Cookie.

(Recipe may be halved)

2 cups butter
24 oz. chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 8 oz. Hershey Bar (grated)
5 cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups chopped walnut

Measure oatmeal, and blend in a blender to a fine powder. Cream the
butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour,
oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey Bar,
and nuts. Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies. Think of all the good
times you’ve had in Huletts when you eat it!

Cruella DeVille Would Be Happy

Remember the cries of Cruella DeVille to “kill the puppies, kill ALL the puppies” in 101 Dalmatians? Well Governor Paterson is killing all the pheasants and closing the Reynold’s Game farm by the end of the year.

The Reynolds Game Farm, is the last-of-its-kind New York game preserve where pheasants have been bred and released into the wild since the 1920’s. You won’t hear much about this in the mainstream press but this is the type of thing that makes upstate sportsmen really mad. The reason is that this preserve is funded by excise taxes collected on all firearm and ammunition purchases. Instead of releasing the birds into the wild in the Spring, they will be slaughtered and given away in the city and the Governor will claim credit for a free holiday bird. Sad but true.

Read about it here.

How is Washington County Run?

With the recent votes by the Washington County Board of Supervisors on both the budget and the beach, I though it would make an interesting post to explain how Washinton County is governed.

There is no County Executive in Washington County. The County is run by it’s Board of Supervisors with each Supervisor having a weighted vote in proportion to their town’s population. Out of the 17 Towns in the County, Kingsbury is the largest with a population of 11,171 and Putnam is the smallest with a population of 645. Dresden is the second smallest town with a population of 677. Every 10 years, after the federal census, these numbers change. A simple majority of 2067 votes is needed for most issues. Special circumstances require a 2/3 majority vote. I contacted the County and got the weighted voting table for each town and supervisor. As you can see, Dresden is at a disadvantage because of our low population.

Town Weighted
Vote
Argyle
268
Cambridge
158
Dresden
50
Easton
167
Fort Ann
269
Fort Edward
423
Granville
457
Greenwich
352
Hampton
65
Hartford
167
Hebron
131
Jackson
126
Kingsbury
711
Putnam
48
Salem
197
White Creek
248
Whitehall
295
Total
4132

Saturday Quote

“Family life is full of major and minor crises — the ups and downs of health, success and failure in career, marriage, and divorce — and all kinds of characters. It is tied to places and events and histories. With all of these felt details, life etches itself into memory and personality. It’s difficult to imagine anything more nourishing to the soul.”

– Thomas Moore

Boys: Keep Your Eyes Open on the Beach

This video proves that it’s good to be nice to people you meet on the beach. We have a good source, who wants to remain anonymous, who tells us that when Ashley Tisdale was little she visited Huletts and swam on our beach. She’s now singing in High School Musical and at Rockefeller Center.

Wish you hadn’t gone golfing that day?