Countess Margit Sigray Bessenyey, who was the last known private owner of Mount Aventine on the grounds of Chapman State Park in Charles County, will be the focus of a
Ari Allen doesn’t particularly like being out in the freezing cold on a winter’s day.
But her team of Siberian huskies and one Alaskan husky does.
“I love my dogs. That’s probably the only motivation that would get me outside in this kind of weather,” the Hempfield resident said this week as she prepped three of her dogs for a sled-pulling run atop Laurel Mountain.
Another motivation is the camaraderie she enjoys with other members of the West Penn Mushers, a Facebook-based group of regional sled dog enthusiasts who harness their canine companions to sleds or skis for runs over snow, or to bicycles or other wheeled conveyances for runs on dry land.
Robert Stanger
I have noticed that signs that there was once human habitation on land taken over by the Game Commission, other than perhaps mounds of earth where there were once the foundations for dwellings, are apple trees, now often rather large and gnarled but still producing an annual crop.
Such trees would supplement settler diets of limited ingredients with a tasty fruit high in fiber and vitamin C that could be easily stored for long periods.
Perhaps the area’s “apple heritage” could be linked to Johnny Appleseed (1774-1855), whose real name was John Chapman This follower of the Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (“the life of religion is to do good”) traveled through much of the northern U.S. planting apple trees en route. He was born in Leominster, Mass., and died in Fort Wayne, Ind.