STRANGE SUMMER - it was a strange summer indeed. Early July started the strangeness by being unusually warm with many 90-plus-degree, humid days and equally hot nights. It was a little scary - “this is just the beginning of summer? At this rate, what’s the rest of it going to be like?” Luckily, that was it (the “Dog Days” of July?). It was also another unusual summer without the masses of insects suspended in the humid air that we used to have to wade through. Fewer bugs arou

WHY WAGHKONK? I should explain to the occasional reader why I call these missives Waghkonk Notes. I started writing these as the Comeau Newsletter, way back when I was the volunteer trail-keeper at Comeau. I decided to expand my horizon (literally) to include all of the Woodstock Valley, which runs from Bearsville to northern Zena, following the middle stretch of the Sawkill, going from the foothills of the Catskills to the western edge of the Hudson Valley itself. I settled

STEP RIGHT UP! - Step right up, folks, to Father Sky and Mother Earth’s Magical, Mystical, Midsummer Madness! See the Night-sky shimmer with Light and Life! Feel the heat and humidity smack you in your face with the very Force of Life itself! Watch Earth and Sky in their yearly Dance - teeming with multitudinous life- forms! Make Hay while the Sun Shines! Hurry, hurry, hurry! (Sounds like Summer to me.) MAKING HAY - What a great old saying: “make hay while the sun shines”.

The title of this piece describes this last week perfectly - it seems like we went from spring to SUMMER! in just a few days, with everyone dressed down and plodding around in the 80- degree heat and humidity. There is no doubt anymore that Summer has finally come to the Southeast Catskills. I say it that way because in early May Summer seemed so far away. The first couple weeks of May were colder than average and wet, but the last half of the month flip- flopped on us to bec

THE SEASON OF NEW LIFE - As the days get longer and the sun moves higher in the sky, slowly the Arctic jet-stream that brought forth our record cold temperatures retreats northward. Finally, the Spring of 2026 is becoming free to unfold. The vernal season is a notoriously fickle one in our part of the world and this year is a perfect example, oscillating warm and cold, sun and cloud, three steps forward, two steps back. With the recent warming trend it now looks like the myri

Now that winter winds are no longer whipping down our mountain slopes, and the icy snows are melting fast, the green carpet of life can start threading its way inexorably, steadily upward into every nook and cranny, every gully and hidden quarry of our southeast Catskills. Little shoots of Wild Chives, that somehow survive - even thrive - under the snow, gladly reach for the sky, alongside wide leaves of Ajuga - itself always one of the earliest plant-harbingers of Spring. Br

THE SNOW MOON, Waghkonk Notes, February, 2026 Polar winds plunge over the southeast Catskills, freezing all before them and casting frosty whiteness about as they continue to bring real winter down to Waghkonk. The desiccated and sere husks of last season’s Beebalm, Goldenrod and Milkweed, bent by those gusts, seem to nod in agreement. The peaceful White Pines and the wise northern Oaks also bow before the all-powerful North Wind - for it rules this time. It is both King an

As the polar winds plunge south, driving summer into a faint memory, all of us - animal and plant - hunker down, waiting for warmth. We dream of warmer days to come and watch as the lost light slowly returns. It’s that typical winter conundrum - that which can be so uncomfortable - the cold, ice and snow - can also be a source of comfort and safety for many well-adapted native animals and plants. Winter has great beauty, as well - sometimes subtle, other times overwhelming in

Northwest winds sweep through the hills, bringing their cold message of winter, transporting snow from Lake Ontario all the way down here to the southeast Catskills. Swirling snow-devils dance their white dervish dance, tearing reluctant leaves, themselves remnants of this season past, from branch and bough. Only the brazen small-birds - Cardinals, Chickadees, Bluejays, Sparrows, Titmice, Juncos and the like - venture forth, hardy creatures bred through the millennia to perse

THE GAME OF WINTER should be on for real by now, but we keep getting enjoyably warm teases. November is usually cold (hence the Frost Moon) and the time when we get our first snow in Waghkonk. The Black Bears, Chipmunks and Woodchucks should be denning up for the winter, not to be seen again ‘til Spring, but since the forecast for this month looks to be mild, they all may not go down ‘til December. Turtles normally would be long-buried in the mud, dreaming Turtle-dreams and W