Dan Egan joined Cary Institute researcher Jane Lucas for a discussion on his bestselling book “The Devil’s Element,” at the Cary Institute in Millbrook Thursday, Jan. 16. Egan’s book is a comprehensive look at the ecological problems posed by phosphorous.
MILLBROOK — Bestselling author and veteran journalist Dan Egan joined Jane Lucas at the Cary Institute in Millbrook for an interview and discussion on his latest book, “The Devil’s Element,” Thursday, Jan. 16.
Fluffy white snowflakes were falling on the dark Cary Institute campus as eager visitors streamed inside to escape the cold and hear about phosphorous, the element Dan Egan said is too-often overlooked for its monumental importance to life on Earth.
Egan’s fascination with the fertilizing element started while he was working as a journalist covering the ecological devastation of Lake Erie. That lake, he said, was one of many victims of phosphorous.
Phosphorous is an important element to modern human life. Egan described the botanical concept of the “limiting element,” or the observation that the least abundant ingredient for life will be the limiting factor. In the early days of botanical chemistry, this was a huge discovery. Once scientists could isolate elements like phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium, and they understood the role they played in plant growth, food production sky rocketed.
Egan credits the fertilizer revolution as the sole reason why the planet can support a human population of seven billion and counting, but he said our dependence and misuse of chemical fertilizers has huge consequences for our communities.
Egan’s research points to a growing body of evidence suggesting phosphorous contamination can turn rivers and freshwater lakes lethal with toxic algal blooms.
What’s more, toxic algal blooms caused by phosphorous contamination can even be swept out to sea, which occurred in Mississippi in 2019. That year, massive flooding upstream in the Mississippi river basin forced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open the Bonnet Carré spillway on the Mississippi river in Louisiana on two separate occasions for an annual total of 122 days. The deluge of fresh water diluted the Gulf of Mexico enough that it could support the freshwater toxic algae that plague Lake Erie and other waters across the country. That summer, the state of Mississippi had to close its beaches all year long because of a huge bloom just off its shores.
In the question and answer portion, one concerned audience member asked what could be done to fix the problem. Egan said the issue isn’t one individuals can change on their own. The root of the problem, he said, is industrial agriculture. Fertilizer pollution is historically under regulated, and he said many businesses haven’t realized the utility of reclaiming phosphorous until recently.
Copies of Egan’s book are available for sale at Merritt Bookstore in Millbrook. The Cary Institute hosts regular science seminars and ecology lectures. A full list of planned events can be found online at www.caryinstitute.org.
WASSAIC — Ariel Yotive has a motto, “Work with what you’ve got.” Her unique Vitsky Bakery in Wassaic has the fruits of that motivation flying off the shelves.
Literally, during apricot season, one of her neighboring farm orchards may be harvesting fresh-off-the-tree fruit that is transformed into danishes. Local hives supply honey for Cream Buns with White Chocolate or a Ricotta Custard with a chunk of honeycomb floating in the middle. “I use what is around,” said the baker.
At Vitsky Bakery, Yotive’s approach has become a defining philosophy. Working closely with nearby farms, beekeepers and gardeners, she creates a constantly shifting menu shaped by the season, surplus and chance, turning overlooked or fleeting ingredients into inventive pastries that have made her Wassaic bakery a destination for locals and weekend visitors alike.
Yotive wanted to be a baker since she was five and has a video of her vowing to do it way back when. Working beside her grandfather in Illinois at his Quality Bakery, she learned to make bread — and still has his recipes and notes — but got started out in the food trade roasting whole animals and cooking everything in a resort camp in Patagonia.
After a stint at Bard College from 2006 to 2010, she worked at Troutbeck in Amenia and fell in love with the Oblong Valley, where today she has created a warm, sun-splashed mecca for baked goods of all sorts.
Vitsky Bakery is located at the south end of Wassaic’s Main Street, nestled in front of the Metro-North railroad, which flies by behind the counter, and an atmospheric creek that burbles along with its otters and snapping turtles.
There are chairs outside and picnic tables to sip coffee and tea, and even on a brisk, snowy day, a family munched pretzel scones and traditional hot cross buns. Yotive is still working on getting a café inside.
Yotive’s workday starts at 1:30 a.m., baking bread and proofing yeast. Dozens of muffins take three to four hours, and some mornings in the winter she has to shovel snow. She opens at 8:30 a.m. every Friday, which includes a challah bread special, and on Saturday and Sunday, which feature the big hits: cardamom buns and bialys.
The baker describes her style as French/Jewish with viennoiserie and “Frankenstein” touches — meaning she puts together unlikely components. One morning she made croissants that didn’t work out. Rather than trash them, she repurposed them as her famous and madly popular Walnut Croissants, cut in half and rebaked after being filled with walnut frangipan. “I bake what I want and what is local,” she said, avoiding ingredients like lemons which don’t grow in these parts. “I’ve learned to let go of expectations.”
If a local grower’s garlic bulbs are too small for market, they become sandos, Yotive’s name for sandwiches, with zucchini from an overflowing nearby garden combined into Goat Cheese Danish/Beet Lettuce with HBE’s (Hard-Boiled Eggs), a sandwich that Yotive said started as a joke and later became a regular offering.
A bumper crop of rhubarb became Sugar Twists and Raspberry Rhubarb Cobbler. Any flowers of the week adorn Elderberry Custard Buns, Apple Rose Scones, Winterberry Pastries, and Wildflower Honey Twists. Local syrup becomes Maple Custard Pie.
Yotive’s partnership with local organic farms and neighbor-sourced ingredients has created a network of local businesses that help support one another. Part of her philosophy is to be part of the community and bring people together. Yet long hours and driving from farm to farm to collect ingredients takes its toll. “It’s hard to have a social life and a family when you work from the middle of the night to late afternoon, instead of 9 to 5.”
Using fresh also requires long hours preserving and freezing the fruit or vegetables of the moment. Tomatoes later become fabulous Focaccia Slices, bottled jams, or herbs turned into Cheddar Dill Biscuits. She also has “regular” bakery items like chocolate croissants, cookie boxes, sunflower bread, babka, honeyoat rye and even gluten-free options.
Yotive said she tries to allow her brain to combine what is immediately available with a standard item. This produces her Brown Butter Apple Custard, which goes beyond the bakery status quo. “I like to punch it up, try the exotic, and go beyond food culture,” she said, mentioning her Earl Gray Buns.“I try to utilize what I have.”
Walk-ins account for 90% of her sales, with a steady stream of customers through the day, but she also sells online. Yotive doesn’t make cakes to order but she said customers are glad to accept whatever she has available.
And as for the name? Ariel Yotive’s grandfather dropped the “Vitsky” from the family name “Yotvitsky” so his Quality Bakery didn’t sound too exotic, Yotive said. Ariel has picked it up and run with it. Her outpost of inventive and enticing baked goods must be visited to be appreciated, an experience best summed up by one customer who bought for his family one of everything that was left. He absentmindedly bit into something he just purchased without knowing the clever name, or the unexpected ingredients, only the flavor that turned his face to joyous wonderment.
Dr. Mark Marshall, an internist at Sharon Hospital, said, “The statistics suggest it’s the worst flu season in 30 years.”
A severe and fast-moving flu season is straining health care systems on both sides of the state line, with Connecticut and New York reporting “very high” levels of respiratory illness activity.
Hospitals, schools and clinics are seeing a surge in influenza cases—a trend now being felt acutely across the Northwest Corner.
“The statistics suggest it’s the worst flu season in 30 years,” said Dr. Mark Marshall, an internist at Sharon Hospital.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, respiratory illness activity is currently classified as “very high” in both Connecticut and New York. Emergency department visits for influenza are very high and increasing, the agency reported, while COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) activity remain at low levels but are also trending upward.
Health officials say the holiday season created prime conditions for the virus to spread, as people gathered indoors in close quarters and traveled more frequently, increasing exposure and transmission.
Hospitals, schools, nursing homes and primary care providers across the Northwest Corner are also reporting unusually high flu volumes.
Dr. Sarah Humphreys, chief medical officer at Community Health and Wellness Center in North Canaan, said influenza has dominated patient visits since the holidays.
“We’re seeing a ton of influenza. People are coming in with body aches, fever, congestion and gastrointestinal issues,” Humphreys said.
She noted that clinicians are also seeing many infected children, particularly those connected to boarding schools. One private school in the region, she said, shut down prior to winter break after reporting more than 100 flu cases. “At boarding schools it spreads like wildfire.”
At Sharon Hospital, emergency department physicians are reporting a sharp increase in influenza cases, with more patients requiring hospitalizations than in a typical winter.
Between Dec. 1 through Dec. 9, “Our emergency department saw 100 patients who tested positive for influenza A,” said Marshall. Of those patients, he said, 11 required hospitalizations.
The Sharon Hospital physician said clinicians have seen an uptick in flu cases since the COVID-19 pandemic eased, which he attributed in part to people becoming less vigilant about preventive measures such as staying home when sick, masking when appropriate and hand hygiene.
He also noted that a mutated strain of influenza A, H3N2 subclade K, which is associated with more severe illness, particularly among older adults and individuals with preexisting health issues, is contributing to higher hospitalization rates.
That local experience mirrors what health officials are reporting across New York.
The New York State Department of Health announced Jan. 2 that the state recorded the highest number of flu-related hospitalizations ever reported in a single week.
“We are having a more severe flu season than prior years,” State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said in a statement. “Almost 12,000 more people were admitted to a hospital during this most recent seven-day period compared to the prior week.”
The department’s most recent data shows a total of 4,546 flu-related hospitalizations statewide, nearly 1,000 more than the previous week.
Marshall said the impacts of the flu season extend beyond Sharon Hospital and the Northwest Corner, with mounting pressure within the broader Nuvance/Northwell health network, underscoring the pace at which the virus continues to spread.
He described what clinicians refer to as “surging,” a rapid influx of patients arriving with respiratory illness, many of whom require hospitalization, which leads to backups as patients wait in emergency departments for inpatient beds.
“We’re seeing a little of that in Sharon, but at Vassar, they are seeing severe surging,” Marshall said, referring to Vassar Brothers Medical Center, a 349-bed, acute care hospital in Poughkeepsie.
The North Canaan Community Health and Wellness Center has been inundated with flu-infected children in recent weeks, and officials advise families to isolate sick children from older adults and others most at risk for serious illness.
The facility’s chief medical officer emphasized that clinicians continue to recommend the seasonal flu vaccine, despite misinformation suggesting this year’s vaccine is ineffective because it was distributed before the emergence of the H2N3 strain.
“The flu vaccine will decrease the severity of the illness. Unfortunately, it has not stopped spreading,” said Humphreys, who also advised people to protect themselves by wearing a mask in waiting rooms or while moving through health care facilities where the virus may be airborne.
Public and private schools across the region have also been affected by this year’s brutal flu season, particularly in the weeks leading up to the holiday break.
On Dec. 19, the last day before winter break “about 12 percent of the high school’s population, 39 students, were absent,” Nichols noted. Teachers, too, caught the flu, with about 36 staff members falling ill prior to the break.
However, once students returned to class after break, flu cases declined.
“When you don’t have 200 to 300 kids in the same space, you lessen the transmission,” said School Superintendent Melony Brady-Shanley.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if in the next couple of weeks to 10 days, between COVID, RSV and Flu, that the numbers go up.”
Brady-Shanley stressed the importance of keeping children home when sick until they are fever-free, and reinforced basic hygiene.
“If you can get kids to wash their hands three to four times per day, they are less likely to get sick.”
Ed Sheehy and Tom Taylor of Copake, New York, and Karen and Wendy Erickson of Sheffield, Massachusetts, traveled to Salisbury on Saturday to voice their anger with the Trump administration.
SALISBURY — Impassioned residents of the Northwest Corner and adjacent regions in Massachusetts and New York took to the Memorial Green Saturday morning, Jan. 10, to protest the recent killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good at the hands of a federal immigration agent.
Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot at close range by an officerwith Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly known as ICE, on Wednesday, Jan. 7. She and her wife were participating in a protest opposing the agency’s presence in a Minneapolis neighborhood at the time of the shooting.
The incident sparked protests and vigils nationwide, both in remembrance of Good and in opposition to what demonstrators described as a broader pattern of government overreach.
In Hartford on Thursday evening, Jan. 8, two vehicles that authorities believe were operated by ICE officers drove through a crowd that had gathered in memory of Good. Connecticut Public Radio reported that at least one person had been struck by the vehicles and that police are investigating potential charges.
In Salisbury, the protest unfolded calmly but with a palpable sense of urgency. Just before noon, roughly 160 demonstrators lined Route 44, holding signs and cheering as passing motorists honked their horns.
Organizer Sophia deBoer stood alongside her husband, Lee deBoer, and fellow activists Kathy Voldstad and Amy Lake to greet demonstrators as they arrived. Along with Al Ginouves, the group has organized weekly protests against the Trump administration since April 2025’s nationwide “Hands Off” movement.
“It’s time that people stood up to this lawless administration,” Sophia deBoer said as the crowd waved their signs.
Local immigrants’ rights advocate John Carter echoed that sentiment. “I need to put my body where my soul is,” he said.
Attendees cited a range of emotions for turning out, from anger and fear to cautious optimism
Joan Gardiner said it was “outrage and fear” that brought her to the protest, while Christine Clare said, “Being out here today, this makes me hopeful.”
Calls for justice dominated many of the messages displayed on protesters’ signs. Asked what motivated him to attend, Salisbury resident Louis Tomaino pointed to the words on his sign: “We all saw Renee Good murdered. And we all saw murder excused.”
SALISBURY — Richard Paddock, a longtime Salisbury resident whose deep curiosity and generosity of spirit helped preserve and share the town’s history, died last week. He was 78.
Paddock was widely known as a gifted storyteller and local historian, equally comfortable leading bus tours, researching railroads or patiently helping others navigate new technology. His passion for learning — and for passing that knowledge along — made him a central figure in the Salisbury Association’s Historical Society and other preservation efforts throughout the Northwest Corner.
“He was an incredible storyteller,” said Salisbury Association Executive Assistant and Historian Lou Bucceri, who co-chaired the association’s historical society with Paddock. He remembered the bus tour of Twin Lakes that Paddock led that was so popular a second one had to be scheduled. He also was instrumental, along with Bill Morrill, in obtaining a Revolutionary War cannon for the association.
The Twin Lakes neighborhood was central to Paddock’s life, where he spent summers as a young boy. His family’s ties to the area stretched back generations. His grandfather, Charles Paddock, lost his wife and three of his four children during the influenza epidemic of 1917, leaving him to raise an 8-year-old son — Paddock’s father.
Charles Paddock later found work as a chauffeur for the family of Herbert Scoville Jr., who maintained a mansion in Taconic. Scoville, a trained scientist, spent years working for the CIA before serving with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and became a tireless advocate for nuclear disarmament in the latter part of his life.
In a 2016 interview with Jean McMillen, who recorded more than 400 oral histories of Salisbury residents, Paddock reflected on the Scoville family’s generosity, noting that several longtime employees — including his grandfather — were granted an acre of land after 25 years of service.
“You hear a lot of stories about brutality between the householder and the employees. That is just not the way it was here with the Scoville family. I have done some research. I know several of the current generation of the Scoville family. I got interested in the family and they played a big role in my grandfather’s life and my father’s life and certainly I live now on that piece of land that they gave my grandfather, so they steered my life as well,” Paddock said.
Peter Wick, a longtime friend of Paddock, said their relationship began when they were both young boys — Paddock visiting his grandfather in Twin Lakes and Wick visiting his own family in the area. Both of their grandfathers worked for wealthy residents in Taconic.
Wick, now of Granby, called his friend “an inspiration. He was definitely one of my best friends. I think I need to ask Dick something and then realize he’s not there. He was so smart, especially when it came to technology.”
Paddock’s family lived winters in East Hartford and he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in electrical engineering. He spent his career at IBM, where he developed a deep interest in computers and became highly proficient in the field.
McMillen, who became close with Paddock and his wife, Fran, said he was so very helpful in teaching her how to use computers for her oral histories.
“He was so knowledgeable and gifted; he never made me feel dumb. He always showed kindness and generosity.” McMillen said.
She added that Paddock had wide-ranging interests, including history and railroads.
Paddock’s passion for history led him to become active in the Salisbury Association’s Historical Society, and, later, the Friends of Beckley Furnace. The East Canaan furnace produced iron ore back in the 1800s, bringing a flourishing industry to the Northwest Corner. In his oral history, Paddock explained the members decided to help the state make some use of the furnace, which it had purchased in 1945. Spearheaded by the late Ed Kirby and Fred Hall, the committee was able to get some money to stabilize the structure.
“They wanted to turn it into a real asset in the park system,” he told McMillan. “Times have not changed much; the state of Connecticut had the inclination but not the resources to really operate that. We formed a non-profit and a bunch of us old gray-haired guys take care of that site.”
For many years, Paddock and several others spent Saturday mornings at the site, interpreting its history for visitors and often surprising them by explaining that railroad car wheels were made from iron produced at the furnace.
“Think about the time frame between 1830 and 1900,” he said in the oral history. “Westward expansion is being carried out on top of wheels made in Connecticut. Certainly not exclusively, but the best wheels that went the farthest were made here in northwest Connecticut. This silly little town had a lot of impact on the development of the country.”
Christian Allyn joined the group as a young docent, working alongside the older volunteers on those Saturday mornings. He recalls many fond memories from that time, including a surprise visit from former First Lady Laura Bush in 2014 and selling iron ingot paperweights to visitors.
Allyn said he learned a great deal from the men “who would dive deep into both the business and personality sides of the iron industry. Those lessons were foundational in establishing my life in the Northwest hills.”
Railroads were another of Paddock’s passions. He was particularly interested in the long-gone Central New England line since, as a child, he discovered tracks that crossed a causeway at Twin Lakes. As he did with every subject of interest, he did extensive research on local trains and would present programs on the topic.
Bucceri echoed the sentiments of many: “If you didn’t know Dick, I’m sorry. I miss him so much.”
— Ruth Epstein
