The best way to make friends with a porcupine? Offer the apple-loving critters a Red Delicious apple, which according to Melissa Gillmer, head keeper at Bear Mountain’s Trailside Museums and Zoo, is their preferred variety of one of their favorite foods.
Held weekly each February, the “Secrets of the Shawangunks” 2017 series highlights glaciers, the American chestnut, porcupines and wildfires.
Some days it’s a snow globe, others a wet mess, but always an economy
Good writing and publishing, McPherson told me, meant “engaging with the culture in a way that means you’re part of an ongoing dialogue where the work stays alive. I’ve always addressed that area of writing and reading. The purpose of literature is to change someone or something in our society. I consider that of the highest value.”
“People who live here, hike here, cross-country ski here all thrive when there’s proper interaction. Sharing experiences, climbing, life, is beautiful and serious. You have to be properly prepared and get the right advice from experienced people. There’s value to that.”
Now that I’m 35 and a courthouse away from near-marriage, it’s time to dig in my heels and resign myself
I calm myself down by pretending that I really know how my future will turn out. I will turn out a failure. This gives me a brief jolt of panic, but I slide through it.
I love winter. It is so fresh and beautiful and sparkling white. In winter you get stuck inside a lot, though, and that can be boring. So I cooked up some ideas that you can do for entertainment. I really hope you think my ideas are worth trying.
Deborah Dows traveled the world – “sleeping in haystacks and palaces” – and is said to have associated with general George Patton when he was still a major, and to have done a stint at the renowned Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Dows opened her riding school at Rhinebeck’s Southlands Farm in the late 1930s. An avid horsewoman, her aim was to teach people of all ages to respect and love the land and its animals. The nonprofit Southlands Foundation operates primarily as an equestrian center, but it opens its nearly 200 acres of trails to the public for hiking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and birdwatching for free, seven days a week.
The organization wants to cultivate a more extensive and committed community of Nordic skiers and “brand” New Paltz as a cross-county ski Mecca like Boulder, Colorado or Bozeman, Montana.