Freakish May weather notwithstanding, there are no ifs, ands, or buts about the matter - Spring has Sprung in the valley of the Sawkill here in Waghkonk (the ancient, pre-settlement Algonquin name for what we now call the Woodstock Valley).

FLORA As we speak (or write),...

As Spring returns to the Catskills, life itself flows back into the land, much the same as the sap returns to the tree-trunk - in fits and starts - ebbing and flowing in that great seasonal tide. First, a reddish haze appears in the hardwoods, little dark-red bud-caps...

IT’S CRAZY

how Winter overlaps with Spring, the seasons battling for supremacy. Yet the days are noticeably longer, more and more migrating birds have returned; moths have hatched and are mobbing street-lights; Woodfrogs have woken from their frozen winter state, ready...

We are now midway between the uber-darkness bitter cold of midwinter – the Low Tide of Life – here in the Northern Hemisphere – and the usually (and oh so welcome right now!) too hot High Tide of Life of Midsummer. There are many unquestionable signs of early Spring ar...

A WILD RIDE INTO A FEBRUARY THAW

I've written recently about what a "rollercoaster" of a winter it has been - up and down, warm and cold, back and forth. An amazing (and kind of confusing and maddening) winter thus far. Sunlight increasing day-by-day gives us all the ho...

Yes, sunlight is noticeably on the increase now, by as much as an additional 5 minutes every day. By the end of the month we should have an additional 45 minutes of daylight (we’ll take it!). Up until just recently most of that increase was at sunset, but now we’ll be...

Cold arctic winds blow across the mountains, bringing their fierce reminder of Winter’s power, scattering brown leaves and making the deer in their winter yards hunker down a little more. While protected somewhat from the worst of the polar blast by the hills themselve...