THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FriDAy, SEpTEmbEr 22, 2023 Page 15 Garden Club takes field trip to Salisbury About 20 members of the Saugus Garden Club visited Pettengill Farm in Salisbury on Sept. 13. Pictured in the front row: Sandy Mears, Mary Lou Graham, Maureen Murray, Kitty Amara, Donna Manoogian, Ruth Berg and Diana Crista; second row: Cindy Fogarty, Carole Bannister, Marie Tringale, Susan Hobbs, Helen Fahey, Fran Rogers, Laura Taglieri, Dolores Venetsanakos, Laura Eisener and Julia Aston; back row: Sharon Genovese and Diane Blengs. Missing from picture is Lorraine DiMilla (Courtesy Photo to The Saugus Advocate by Donna Manoogian) Saugus Garden Club Members Ruth Berg and Laura Taglieri were impressed with the dinner plate–sized flowers of rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) at Pettengill Farm. (Courtesy Photo to The Saugus Advocate by Laura Eisener) By Laura Eisener T S he Saugus Garden Club had a field trip Sept. 13 to Pettengill Farm on Ferry Road in Salisbury, where they were welcomed by Doug with a private tour of the beautiful display gardens, gift barn, 14 greenhouses and the cottage of landscape designer Mary Ann Fitzgerald. This historic heritage flower farm has been in the same family since 1972. Three generations live in the main farmhouse, and other relatives live on the land nearby. Many club members returned with intriguing plants for their own gardens. The club members then proceeded to Michael’s Harborside steak and seafood restaurant in Newburyport on Tournament Wharf. The club ended the day with a stop at Colby Farm Stand in Newbury before heading back to Saugus. On Wednesday, Sept. 20, the Saugus Garden Club held its first meeting of the fall at St. John’s Church. Before the start of the meeting, some members toured Saugus’ Community Garden located behind the rectory of St. John’s at 5:30 p.m. The meeting featured guest speaker Julie Mangnan, manager of Malden’s Community Gardens. Saugus announces two upcoming clinics for flu and the new COVID-19 Booster shot By Mark E. Vogler augus will hold two clinics soon for flu shots and the new COVID-19 booster shot, according to the town’s public health nurse Teresa Riley-Singh. Town Hall will host a clinic on Sept 25 and the Saugus Senior Center will offer one on Oct. 2 at the Senior Center, Riley-Singh announced at Monday’s Board of Health meeting. “The virus is constantly changing and the protection from COVID vaccines decline over a period of time. So, that’s why we keep getting these new vaccines and boosters,” Riley-Singh said. “So for the best protection again, the CDC is recommending that if you haven’t received a booster in the last two months, that you get this new booster that they came out with,” she said. “There is a new booster as of last week, so other past boosters are obsolete. The CDC is recommending anyone over the age of six months to get vaccinated,” she said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the updated mRNA vaccines for 2023-2024 from manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. Riley-Singh said this is the first fall and winter virus season where vaccines for all three important viruses are available – the flu, COVID-19 and RSV. CDC is also recommending that people over the age of 60 get the RSV shot. “Call your doctor. You have to have a conversation with them to get them,” she said. At Monday’s meeting, Riley-Singh told the Board of Health that 80 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Saugus last month, based on PCR Rapid Fire testing. Since March 1, 2020, Saugus has seen 10,769 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 111 confirmed deaths. “That number has been pretty steady –111, – for months now, which is a great sign,” she said. But she noted that while no Saugus deaths have been linked in recent months to COVID-19, it has been on the rise in Saugus during recent weeks. “It’s definitely an increase. Hospitalizations are going up,” Riley-Singh said. “Even though we are still dealing with COVID, we are in a much better place than we were two or three years ago. Vaccines are the best protection against COVID,” she said. “If anyone is feeling sick, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, respiratory issues, coughing, temperature, please test yourself or call your doctor. If you do test positive, five days of isolation. And then five days wearing a mask. Five days of isolation since the day of your first symptom, not since the day of your test,” she said. “It’s really important that people start wearing the mask. I know everyone is sick of the mask. But if you are in an office or school and you are at that 5 to 10 (day period), you are still contagious at that point. So, just be thinking of others.”
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