The last day of November. Again. In exactly 5 hours and 21 minutes December arrives. The winter Solstice is a mere three weeks away. The gods of time don’t seem to care about the theft of this, their most valuable asset. The tocs tic on.
The mountains, forests and their critters don’t care either. Their insouciance toward man’s puny concerns, an inborn trait. Ruminant indifference. How do you say “Who cares?” in deer lingo?
A six point buck has been grazing in the front yard each evening. The laid on fat will be a bulwark against Jack Frost’s angry winter gales. Two does and their yearling fawns gaze curiously into our kitchen windows as they gorge on the unplanned bounty of sunflower seeds. Accidental gifts, dropped from the birdfeeders. Turkeys, having recently escaped the ignoble fate of appearing naked as the centerpiece of a Thanksgiving table, join in the feast. Avian ambrosia from their generous benefactors. Such largesse is seldom seen among rival woods critters. And the tocs tic on.
Winter leaves hang like tattered rags.
But the mountain warms to red in the morning sun. A new day dawns.
“So ‘Come gather ’round people Wherever you roam And admit that the waters Around you have grown
November. Queen mother of gloom. It’s cool today. Clammy and still, with dark, low hanging skies. The grumpy afternoon of a waning autumn.
A skim of dead leaves covers the pond. And the trees stand in barren nakedness. They have lost the annual battle with Mother Nature over the last of her beautiful leafy array. Again.
Critter action has slowed to a stop, Or nearly so. The squirrels have suddenly disappeared. Abandoned remaining acorns to the bugs and worms and entered their winter nests. A rabbit shelters beneath the porch. And the resident woodchuck will spend the winter in its den. They’ll occasionally venture out to forage. With a wary eye out for the pack of coyotes who whine their way along the icy stream down the hill.
Sows–female bears–are asleep in their caves. They await the annual “blessed event” of one or two–or more–cubs. Black bear males and females come together only during breeding season. Some bears, instead of hibernating, enter the semi-conscious state of torpor. Their heartbeats can decline to as few as 8 beats per minute. During this time, the cubs are born and nursed. Sows mate several times a season, so the poor little critters never know their dad. Ever see a bear with an identity crisis? Sad.
A barred owl has been loudly announcing its presence. It will stay home this winter with other birds of the season, Cardinals, blue jays, junkos, sparrows and the ilk. Though ilks are solitary and rarely seen.
A heron dropped in yesterday for a farewell feast from the Hideaway Seafood Ristorante. It will find pickings slim. Most of the inhabitants have already sunk into the cold dark deep. There, they’ll snooze away the winter at a cozy 35F degrees. The heron will fly south hungry.
Two beautiful six point bucks, a doe and her yearling fawn have been hanging around the Pond most of the summer. Little doubt that the youngster will soon be sent away. And the adults will return to the herd to engage in a little ruminant romance. Life is cruel. Especially during rutting season. Even more so for a yearling fawn.
The Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains will be blessed early tomorrow morning by a full lunar eclipse. Early Indian tribes called a full lunar eclipse the blood moon because of its eerie blood red color.
A “blood moon” happens when Earth’s moon is in a total lunar eclipse. Lunar eclipses can only happen during a full moon, when the sun fully illuminates the surface.
The next blood moon will occur over the Hudson Valley and Catskills beginning at 5:16 AM tomorrow morning.
The eerily beautiful red light of the blood moon will bathe the Catskills early tomorrow morning until it moves west and gradually fades into daylight.
Mother Nature looks–well, a bit tired. And her wardrobe somewhat confused. The greens of summer remain. Oaks, cottonwoods, ash. Red tips grace the tupelos. It’s raining today. A cold hard Autumn rain. And leaves hang like limp wet gloves. The crabapple is naked and the crimson maples drop leaves like dying butterflies. Perhaps discouraged, in their final desperate grip on the last remnants of–summer?
Pope Gregory would argue. But some of us would like to see those warm summer months drawn out just a bit longer. Before Mother Nature’s glorious Autumn regalia steals the scene. Perhaps we grow old with the seasons. As good an excuse as any.
Late October marks the waning days of the harvest season. But many vegetables and fruits are still available for picking. Apples, pears, root vegetables, beans. And pawpaws!
Available from August through October, pawpaws are one of the few fruits exclusively native to North America. Difficult to ship because of their fragility, they are rarely found in grocery stores. But apparently not so in nature. Some people forage for them. Or go pickin’ pawpaws, if you will, “way down yonder in the pawpaw patch”. They are at their best when ripe (and ugly). It’s said that we often walk past a pawpaw bush without recognizing it. A shame, because they’re delicious. They taste like a cross between a mango, pineapple and a banana. And they make an excellent cocktail. {;-\ Or so I’m told.
The Mabon 3 ounces spiced rum 3/4 ounces St-Germain 2-3 tablespoons pawpaw puree Splash of ginger beer Add the rum, St-Germain, and pawpaw puree to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake. Strain into rocks glass over ice. Fill the remainder of the glass with ginger beer.
October’s full moon, if you can still see it after the Mabon, is called the “Hunter’s” moon. Algonquin, Mohawk and other northeastern tribes often used its light to hunt by. This is the time of year when animals store fat and pack on weight in anticipation of the long winter hibernation season. Good hunting.
Small critters skitter around the yard, up and down trees looking for nuts, berries, acorns and preparing winter nests. Bears are measuring caves for curtains. Female deer with this year’s fawns are plentiful.
The fish now enter their annual winter torpor and sink to the coldest, darkest depths of the pond. Some fish have all the luck.
And two beautiful six point bucks, still in velvet, have been hanging around the neighborhood all summer. Hunting and rutting seasons are just around the corner so they had better decide soon between fight and flight.
A waxing crescent moon has sailed over the Hudson Valley for the past several days. She will become full in a week and begin to wane on to November.
The month of Sept 2022 contains two major celestial events–the Harvest Moon (now past) and the Autumnal Equinox. Thus, this issue of my Hideaway Pond blog contains a double dip of moon dust. Those with lactose intolerance will no doubt be happy to know that there is no green cheese involved
So Autumn is on the way, though it’s too late to reap the beauty of September’s full moon. This year the moon will return to normal after summer has yielded four super moons in a row. That is, four full moons that rose during the moon’s closest approach to Earth during its elliptical orbit. Its perigee. This makes the moon appear larger than an average full moon.
September’s full moon has been called by its Old European name, the Harvest Moon. This is the closest full moon to the autumnal equinox, when many crops are harvested in the Northern Hemisphere. Additionally, some farmers have historically used the full moon’s light to work late into the night harvesting their crops. Now we know who to blame for daylight saving time.
The moon goes by several non-European names, as well. Best known among them is the Corn Moon, coined by the Algonquin tribes who inhabited what is now the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. The Maine Farmers’ Almanac, which began publishing Native American moon names in the 1930s, notes that the Corn Moon rises during the part of the year when corn, pumpkins, squash and various other fall staples are harvested. Yum.
The full moon occurs about once a month when the sun, Earth and moon align on an invisible 180-degree line. The moon’s orbit is about 5 degrees different from Earth’s, so our satellite is usually a little higher or lower than Earth’s shadow. Thus allowing it to illuminate Earth, The next full moon will be the Hunter’s Moon, which falls on Oct. 9. Artemis willing.
So when you eat your Wheaties tomorrow morning, sprinkle them with a little moon dust instead of sugar. Lighter and lactose free.
Equinox
This year the fall equinox arrives on Thursday, September 22, 2022, at 9:04 P.M. EDT . This date marks the start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere The equinox occurs at the same moment worldwide. Hopefully.
The autumnal equinox is an astronomical event that marks the start of autumn . In the Northern Hemisphere, the autumnal equinox occurs in September. In the Southern Hemisphere, it occurs in March. That is, in both hemispheres, half way between the winter and summer solstices. The operative word being “occurs”.
For those in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Sun crosses the equator going from north to south, this marks the autumnal equinox. When it crosses from south to north, this marks the vernal equinox. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the reverse. Got that?
After the autumnal equinox, days become shorter than nights as the Sun continues to rise later and nightfall arrives earlier. This ends with the winter solstice, after which days start to grow longer once again.
Note that fall foliage isn’t due to current weather conditions. This is a common misconception. Leaves change color because of the amount of daylight and photosynthesis.
Since the earliest civilizations of mankind, people have made sense of the world about them by creating stories and drawings to explain the complex and often frightening occurrences in their lives. Using available knowledge and experience, tales were woven around familiar and the unusual to explain these events in the absence of understanding the physical world.
Astronomy has more than its fair share of myths and legends. Early people struggled to understand the movements of the planets and stars, the effects of the Sun and the Moon and the changes in seasons. In addition, occasional and frightening events such as an eclipse or meteor showers would create fear and panic and belief in the foretelling of doom or disaster.
The Universe is everything. It contains all matter and energy. Earth and the Moon are part of the Universe, as are the other planets and their many dozens of moons. The Sun is one among hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And most of those stars have their own planets. Exoplanets.
All of them, including our own, are thought to have supermassive black holes at their centers. All the stars in all the galaxies and all the other things that astronomers can’t even observe are part of the universe. It is, simply, everything.
Even with all of our acquired knowledge, scientific research and sophisticated equipment, the Universe remains an awesome enigma to us. Mysterious, inspiring and overwhelming. Even, in some ways, as frightening in its incomprehensible vastness, as it was to those earliest civilizations of mankind. Millions of years ago.
A hazy red sun quietly lit the horizon this morning as the last star winked out. Its rays filtered through black silhouettes of the dripping hemlock grove behind the house.
It hasn’t been the prettiest of autumns. Perhaps that‘s the will of the weather gods. Woodstock weather records state that on this particular date, it has rained 19 out ot 30 days. For years.
I hark back to the year we put in the pond. I had finished cutting and burning brush (May–Sept) just in time to bring in the bulldozer and earthmover when a 3 week spate of wet weather moved in. The bulldozer barely escaped the mire before the job was done. And some very confused fish found themselves relocated to small randomly placed ponds. Well, large puddles, if one wants to know the truth of it, However, they were very good natured about it. Though happy to return to the homey environs of a brimful Hideaway Pond.
That said, it hasn’t been a total bummer of an autumn. Mother Nature did her best to dress things up and covered the pond with a beautiful carpet of fallen leaves. The trees–maples, birch and tupelos–have hit the crescendo of their annual color chorale. Baskets of tuberous begonias still grace the eaves of the porch and front of the house.
The east coast has been disappointingly devoid of water birds this year. Last year we were visited by a few mallards. The previous year it absolutely rained mallards, wood ducks and hooded mergansers. Ornithologists speculate that the shortage has something to do with this year’s drought conditions. I’ve posted some images of previous years’ visitors.
The delicate undergrowth of the island has taken on the appearance of a curtain of rainbow hued lace. It will soon be blown away. And the area behind will once again be open to view. Yes. That view.
The coyotes continue to yip and make a fuss by the stream down the hill. Some have recently moved up behind the house. We can hear them whining and snuffling around behind the studio. No threat, but not the kind of folks you want to encounter at night in a pack. At least not me. I have no desire to become some anonymous coyote’s chew toy.
I’ve borrowed some their voices and placed them. Careful. They bite!
Bad weather often leaves behind the gift of a beautiful sky. This evening we’re the lucky recipients of one of those gifts. A waxing gibbous moon will share the sunset skies tonight. They’ll light the Catskills until morning.
“The moon is like a scimitar, A little silver scimitar, A-drifting down the sky. And near beside it is a star, A timid twinkling golden star, That watches like an eye.” Sarah Teasdale
August. How did that happen? Didn’t we just celebrate Memorial Day? That old necromancer, Father Time, is plying his magic again.
Yet it’s been a very busy time on the Pond. Auxo, goddess of summer, has danced with her small Hideaway critters all season. Ever see a critter do a plie’? Me neither.
Squirrels skitter about the property seeking roots, nuts, & buds. And rabbits make a non-stop assault on the clover. Embarrassing. A reclusive woodchuck occasionally joins the party from his home beneath the porch. There may be a Charlotte under there too. Still water runs deep.
Three does with fawns of different age and size visit several times a week. They often graze by the ledge while a buck wades in the nearby water and enjoys pond side vegetation.
Turtles sun bathe on a log near the island. Reptile indolence. While a large heron makes a daily poaching run on our star crossed fish. Nary a word of thanks.
black bear marking tree showing bite marks in the barkblack bear rubbing his back on a marking tree
still image from video
4/27/12
While we’ve seen no cubs yet, adult males are out and active. A male will mark his territory by scratching his back on a tree to leave behind hair and scent. One can see bare areas on trees where Smokey has made his mark. Feels good too. Or so I’m told.
A few years ago a bear mistook one of our power poles for a tree. He broke the line that fed power to the house. I’m sure it wasn’t his best day either.
Tonight is a special night in the Catskill skies. A full “super moon“ will fly overhead. It is so named because this is the closest it comes to Earth in its elliptical orbit. Its parigee. Thus making it appear slightly larger than usual. The September super moon was also named the sturgeon moon by early American natives. This was the time of year when sturgeon were most frequently caught in the Great Lakes and Hudson River.
The moon will share the heavens with the Perseid meteor shower tonight. The Perseid meteor shower occurs each year in mid-August when the Earth passes through the dusty trail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. When those comet bits slam into Earth’s atmosphere, they can spawn bright trails as they streak across the sky. They appear to radiate out from the constellation Perseus, hence their name.
So a special drama will drift above and light the Catskills tonight. The Sturgeon moon and Perseid meteors will dance together in the cosmos. Then gradually fade into morning, late August. And September.
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.
May first. A flash of green and it’s suddenly June. ??!!
I’ve been away. But I can see that the Hideaway and its critters have done quite well without me.
Robins survey the yard for worms. Sure sign of small appetites in a nearby tree. A small rabbit dines on Spring’s gift of fresh green clover. Peonies, laurel and lilacs are in full bloom. And wild iris rims the pond in purple, green and gold. All welcome additions to Spring’s lovely vernal array.
A young doe introduced her new fawn to us this week. So small that it disappears in the tall grass as it struggles to keep up with its mother.
We got a real treat last night. A doe will very carefully hide her fawn while she goes on about other business. Instinct instructs the fawn to conceal itself and lie very still. As we watched them graze near the ledge, the fawn suddenly disappeared and the mother strolled away occasionally looking backward to check on the fawn.
A doe is obviously not given voice to sing lullabies, so she will lull her offspring to sleep by nursing, licking or, well–whatever works.
A black squirrel has moved into the neighborhood.
While squirrels come in many colors, the most common being red, brown, gray, and black, some are less common as compared to others. Black squirrels are comparatively rare, but you will be surprised to find that they are not really as exotic as they seem to be. They are concentrated in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, and are also found in Britain, Quebec and Ontario. It is surprising to note that they are not actually a separate variety or species of squirrels. Black squirrels are actually eastern gray squirrels with a genetic condition called Melanism. An unusual darkening of body tissues caused by excessive production of melanin, especially as a form of color variation in animals.Despite the large populations of black squirrels in these areas, they still account for only about 1 out of every 10,000 eastern gray squirrels.
June’s full moon is commonly known as the strawberry moon, a name that comes from the Algonquin Native American tribe in the northeastern U.S. and eastern Canada. It refers to the region’s strawberry harvesting season (not the moon’s actual hue).
Tonight’s strawberry moon will be at its brightest and fullest in North America after sunset. It will light the Catskills for a full three days before dimming, moving on to the summer solstice and a new celestial year.
Easter sailed in on a lovely “pink moon last night. The gift of a beautiful Algonquin legend. The April full moon was given its name by the Algonquins to match the color of the woodland flox that blooms this time of year.
And yesterday a crystal blue cold front blew in bright sun, dark clouds and intermittent snow showers. Vernal schizophrenia.
Many water birds have left local streams, lakes and caught the feathered freeway north. Our pond is now a roadside rest for mallards and Canada geese. The vanguard of their brethren still on the way.
Turkeys race each other across the yard to reach cast off seeds covering the ground beneath the bird feeders. One male usually reigns over an adoring harem. He often becomes so entranced by his own image that he abandons his charges. And falls in love with his reflection in the front storm door. Much elaborate preening and tail flairing ensue. Not to be out shamed, a male cardinal has recently been seen engaged in the same disgusting narcissistic behavior. Sans flairing. Note to bird: If you don’t have it, don’t flair it.
And a pair of blue birds has moved into the bird house that hangs on a maple tree near the pond. We look forward to becoming parents.
Female deer will soon be dropping the yearly issue of new fauns. Some graze by in twos and threes. An occasional lone buck will saunter through, long ago having forgotten those glorious old days of rutting season. Soon, however, his memory will recover and he’ll begin to grow a new pair of antlers. His weapons of choice for the forthcoming rutting season. Rutting season. A testosterone circus.
A pink moon rode the Catskill skies last night. She’ll continue to light them as she fades into next month and the beautiful “flower moon” of May. So called because of…what else? The beautiful flowering shrubs of May. Meanwhile, we savor memories of Easter’s “Pink Moon”. And flox.
Spring officially and quietly slipped onto the stage three days ago . So quietly, in fact, that her entrance could easily have gone unnoticed. No fanfare save Jack Frost’s last frigid gasp. An angry late winter sleet storm.
Yet subtle signs of approaching Spring are present. She has not yet donned her radiant vernal robe. But a warmer sunlight is slanting through the trees at a different angle. And the daffodils are poking through the dirt a tull 3 inches.
Robins are back!!
The maples are stretching their limbs after the long winter’s sleep. And tiny red buds signal forthcoming arrival of a curtain of bright green leaves. The Hideaway will become a secret again.
The Hudson, Sawkill and Hideaway Pond are now free of ice. Flocks of mallards have enjoyed the warming waters of the pond for the past week. Perhaps they’ll be joined by some of their winged brethren–wood ducks, hooded mergansers and canvasbacks– before instinct pushes all of them northward on the feathered freeway.
A few intrepid squirrels have emerged from their dens early. They seek acorns that they buried last year. And lost. Some of Mother Nature’s critters are purely fictitious. A smart squirrel is one of them.
Armies of turkeys have stormed the yard. Their main objectives are seeds that smaller birds have dropped from the feeders. A large tom fell in love with his own reflection in the front storm door. And went into full flair. Embarrassing.
The bass and grass carp still sulk in their winter torpor at the dark cold bottom of the pond. But within a month, they too will be stirring. The carp to enjoy the first green sprigs of new marine grasses. And the bass to spawn a generation of fish children who will spend their hapless lives eluding the cannibalistic instincts of their parents. Tough love.
So the Hideaway is beginning to segue’ into Spring. A new family of woods critters will blink their way into the bright Spring sunlight. The palette will turn from Winter’s grays and whites to Spring green. The onset of new life on Hideaway Pond.
