The Majestic Hudson

Blog–Hideaway Pond–7/8/22

Time. This small ball of rock and water continues its inexorable spin through the endless cosmose. The sun is its time piece as it ticks away each precious day. Each millennium.

Mother Nature has lifted her skirts, leaped over the equinox and landed in the middle of July. She has already donned the bright green of her verdant summer wardrobe. “Time waits for no one”. Not even Mother Nature. Especially Mother Nature.

The critters have noticed. The hectic spring of birthing, hatching and raising families is over.

The hemlock next to porch is empty of its nest of cardinals. The fledglings have scattered and now decorate the nearby woods.

Hummingbirds flirt with the begonias hanging from the porch eaves. A bit late to hope for the Carolina wren who nested in one of them a year ago. Maybe next year.

Turkeys occasionally visit. Food is not nearly as scarce as during winter. Then, we often see them race each other across the yard to be first in line below the bird feeder. Its stash of fallen bird seeds is their ambrosia.

The bears are out. Several males have dropped by. We await the females. They’ll soon be wandering into the open to show off their new offspring. .

The trees are populated by several hyperkinetic squirrels. Among these is one of the rarest, most celebrated and beautiful critters in all critterdom. Matinee idol of the species. A black squirrel. Only one in 10,000 of its species is so endowed.

A buck has made a nightly salad of our pond side vegetation. One even braved a lightning storm while wading in the pond today. That’s hunger. And a doe with her fawn have visited briefly several times. Not even a “Hello”.

The grass carp continue to pursue their illusive green prey. And the bass exercise their cannibalistic instincts, digesting their own offspring in the process.
Tough love in this pond.

And heron has dropped in each day to share the pond’s finned bounty.

This beautiful valley is blessed with so many wonderful things. Not the least of which are our magnificent Catskill Mountains. But the valley is also home to one of the most majestic rivers in the world, The Hudson.

The Hudson’s source, “Lake Tears of the Cloud”, lies high in the Adirondacks. From there, still a small stream, It wanders south through country once disputed by the Dutch and British.

It passes land long ago occupied by northeastern Indian tribes. Algonquian, Iroquoi, Mohegan and other northeastern American Indian tribes. Beaver pelt trade between the Dutch and Indians brought much of the early Dutch influence to the Valley.

When the River reaches Albany, it ends as a river and becomes a tidal estuary of the ocean. This is where the “salt water front” begins. It passes the lovely Catskills and farm country, once part of an area known as New Netherlands. Remnants of stone fences can be found there, left by Dutch farmers while clearing their fields.

The River now passes Kingston, a Dutch settlement twice burned by the British. From there it flows past West Point, the Tappan Zee, the magnificent Palisades and ends at what was once known as New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam Yankees? Hmm.

Tonight the thunder moon will be at perigee, its closest to the earth. It will be the biggest and brightest of this year’s “super moons”. The mighty Hudson will be its mirror. A timeless spectacle for the ages.