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Tom Dudones has always loved art. As a child in Illinois he sketched cartoon copies of Disney characters, dabbled in watercolors and marveled at works by some of the world's best known artists. But, life sometimes has a way of sidetracking dreams.His Air Force career took him from Texas to Alaska. And then he was offered a job at the DEC in the Adirondacks. He and his family relocated to Saranac Lake, just a few houses down from where his wife, Janet, grew up. Dudones worked for more than thirty years as a fisheries biologist, climbed all 46 High Peaks alone, fell in love with birding. And always there was his art. Now retired, Tom devotes his time to bird watching, photography and painting. It keeps him busy. He's done over 500 paintings and drawings in the last five years, and Dudones says he's running out of wall space in his home studio. Todd Moe stopped by for a chat.

You know those gorgeous hanging baskets, those urns and planters that are so tempting in the greenhouses right now? Here's the formula Amy Ivy likes: a thriller, a filler and a spiller. To put it another way: something eye-catching. Something to add color and fill in the space, and something that'll trail over the sides. Fill the container with potting mix, arrange the plants side by side, add water, and a good measure of patience.

There are reports that state senators who received payments for chairing committees that they actually did not chair are now under a probe by the state attorney general and at least one U.S. attorney.

California, Hawaii, and local communities all across the country have been grappling with the question of how old should a person have to be to buy cigarettes or chewing tobacco. Now, officials in St. Lawrence County are considering a new law that would raise the minimum age for buying tobacco to 21, but there are indications that it may not sell so well.

Eighteen Mile Creek in Niagara County is badly polluted, so much so that the state health department doesn’t want people to eat the fish. But the toxic hotspot hasn’t stopped the state Department of Environmental Conservation and local governments from promoting the creek as a fishing destination.

A storm blasted though the Glens Falls area, the southern Adirondacks, and parts of the Champlain Valley yesterday afternoon, knocking down trees and leaving tens of thousands of people without power.

This weekend is Victoria Day Weekend and next weekend is Memorial Day Weekend, and with the good weather, expect parking areas, popular campsites, and lean-tos to fill early. The Garden Parking is typically full by 6 am on busy weekends, but the shuttle from the overflow parking at Marcy Dam will be running this week and next from 7 am to 7 pm. This weekend through next weekend would be a good time to visit less popular areas of the Adirondack Park.

Record high water continues to threaten homes and camps along Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. But there are signs the water could stop rising soon.Meanwhile, emergency crews are scrambling to keep up with the demand for sandbags. And regulators are doing everything they can to push more water downriver.

A group of Watertown high school students will offer an up close look at one of Shakespeare's most famous plays this weekend. As part of their theater curriculum this year, the acting class studied the Bard's plays and chose "Romeo and Juliet" as their spring production. They're staging "theater-in-the-round" performances in the high school cafeteria on Friday and Saturday night.

In general, plants make food from sunlight, and animals fuel themselves by "burning" oxygen. But some animals think outside the box.Curt stager and Martha Foley look at a photosynthetic slug that hijacks the genetic machinery of the algae in its diet, and at a jellyfish that needs no oxygen, burning the alternative fuels of hydrogen and sulfur.