Nature at your doorstep – Ferncliff Forest
Spring is a kind of kaleidoscope. Its array of delicate colors — lavender, white and pink in early forest flowers, red in the tops of swamp maples, and gold-green in budding trees — shifts with the turning earth. The eye wants to focus close, at the ground underfoot, then far, at the greening landscape and...
Sesame Street’s stolen thunder now belongs to DJ Lance
Recently, I’ve had occasion to watch a little too much children’s television. And by “too much,” I mean I suddenly burst into song to describe household objects, letters of the alphabet and everyday occurrences. Partially, I blame Netflix whose instant streaming comes with an evil, evil default setting of playing episode, after episode, after episode...
Nature at your doorstep – Spring Farm
To walk along one of the hedgerows of red cedar trees that separate the rolling meadows of Spring Farm is to experience the dominant landscape of our recent agricultural past. Yet the fields here are maintained not for pasture, hay or other crops, as they were in the 19th century, but rather to provide habitat...
Nature at your doorstep – The winter march
Though it’s natural, in late February and early March, to anticipate the coming of spring, yet I relish the bracing quality of such truly wintry days as remain to us. “Winter comes to make walking possible where there was no walking in summer. Not till winter can we take possession of the whole of our...
No, I’m not that Mark Sherman
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this, but I do, from time to time — but no more often than five times a day — Google my name, to see where it falls in terms of placement. A friend once told me this is called “ego-surfing,” but I would prefer to think of it as...
Nature at your doorstep – The Foothills
Among the many kinds of walks we take, the walk close to home, along a less traveled path, has much to recommend it. Such a walk can be taken on the Foothills Trail at Mohonk Preserve. I walked alone there — with only my black Labrador retriever, Sam, for company the first two times —...
Roses are red, yeah, whatever
As luck would have it, the official publication date for this piece is Feb. 14, aka Valentine’s Day. So I think it only appropriate to write about love. But this is a humor column, and how can one be funny about something as serious and beautiful as love? I guess I’ll Google it. These days...
Nature at your doorstep – Poets’ Walk
Poets’ Walk is one of those places in the Hudson Valley that remind us that the Romantic view of nature took root early in our region, perhaps before it did anywhere else in America. If the Catskills were, as some have called them, “America’s First Wilderness,” it must be remembered that in the 19th century...
Nature at your doorstep – Stony Kill Falls
For outdoor adventure close to home, mingled with scenic grandeur, nothing beats a winter walk to a waterfall. Such a walk is most challenging, and most inspiring, when snow covers the ground and days of freezing weather have sheathed our local streams in ice. From the variety of fine waterfalls in the area, we chose...
The excitement of then
I have noticed that as my friends and I get older, we spend more and more time talking about our pasts. I’m not exactly sure why this is, though I think it probably relates to the following two facts: First, our short term memories are deteriorating more than our long term ones, so, for example,...
Blessed are the bugs
“A new study made at University of Washington suggests that global warming seems to lead in fact to more insects. Warmer climates seem to increase their reproductive rate and population growth, with widespread effects on agriculture, public health and conservation.” – from Softpedia.com, November 1, 2006 “I don’t like the country. The crickets make...
Out of step
Apparently legislature minority leader Dave Donaldson didn’t get the memo that last week’s Ulster County organizational meeting was for the purpose of swearing in legislators, not swearing at them. Not that firebrand Donaldson used bad language. He didn’t have to. Donaldson, in an anti-Republican rant against GOP chairman Terry Bernardo, shocked some legislators, amazed others,...