July is indeed Lakes Appreciation Month. Aren't we lucky that Pennsylvania's state parks and forests provide so many different places - large and small - to Appreciate the heck out of them! 

Thanks to the Friends of Beltzville for this dose of serenity, shot early last month.

Lakes Appreciation Month it may indeed be, but forests always need our love, too. So here's a really nice story about a new company looking to reforest Pennsylvania's former mine lands. Thanks, Dave Hess and the PA Environment Digest, for sharing this one!

ALERT! We have just learned from Prince Gallitzin State Park that someone has been trying to divert payments from vendors for this year's Apple Cider Festival from our payment portal to their own PayPal/Venmo mobile payment portal. Please note that PPFF does NOT process payments for anything this way and any communication from a private person claiming to be the "only host accepting payments" for the Festival is a scammer. 

Ironically, this "Nicole" person says not to pay anyone else because "scammers are hot and heavy as always." Sigh. 

On a MUCH happier note, congratulations to Kaylee Frederick of Johnstown, at 18 the youngest ever finisher of the Badwater 135 ultra marathon in Death Valley. Her proud mom is Georgetta Frederick, a leader of the Wolf & Beam Keep Them Clean graffiti squad and a stalwart volunteer for the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail. (And, yes, that's 135 MILES from Death Valley to Mount Whitney.)

(It's there. The store settings just refuse to upload the cover photo.)

This is the time of year when the events calendar is so jam-packed that it's really hard to pick just one from each region, even some days one from a given park! 

Put a bookmark on the PPFF Events calendar and DCNR Calendar of Events so you never miss an announcement.

We wrapped up June wondering where the dam is at McCalls Dam. Correct - it IS no more. Johnny McCall was the early (1850) settler and miller who built the original dam but for many a year White Deer Creek has flowed freely.

Congratulations to our June winner, another Pam - this one from over in Washington County.

To kick off July, we'll appreciate the largest of our Pennsylvania lakes (although we can hardly claim sole sovereignty) - Lake Erie. Originally, it played a small but significant role in a popular children's book but the reference to it was removed when the author was shown that the pollution he decried was much improved. What is the book and who is its author?

Enter each week to increase your chances of a fabulous prize at the end of the month when I'll draw one entry from all correct answers received during the month.

Green boxes are pictures and news; blue boxes are events.

National Simplicity Day - July 12th

Honoring the 205th birthday of Henry David Thoreau

Quote: Thoreau, Walden Or, Life in the Woods, 1854.

Photo: Shawn Grenninger