On Earth Day, April 22, you may have seen a plastic bag mummy, Plady, picking up trash while riding a mini plastic car, Toxicar, down Main Street in New Paltz. This was not an early celebration of Halloween, but performance art. Plady and Toxicar were created by the Taiwanese artist Maxine Leu, an MFA sculpture student at SUNY New Paltz, and enacted by performer Sanford Fels, a BFA sculpture student also at SUNY New Paltz.
Gazing over the patchwork landscape now under the stewardship of the Mohonk Preserve, it’s tempting – but misleading – to picture its evolution from its wild state as calm and gradual.
As we entered the thick of the coyote mating season, it was fitting that a recent Thursday night – February 14, Valentine’s Day – saw a packed Lecture Center on the SUNY New Paltz campus for a presentation titled “Coexisting with Coyotes,” with Melissa Gillmer, head zookeeper of the Trailside Museums and Zoo at Bear Mountain State Park.
The third most common tree in New York State is under assault by an invasive pest. But there’s something you can do about it.
The Wallkill Valley Land Trust has secured a conservation easement to permanently preserve and protect 57 acres in Gardiner as open space. The property, owned by Ray and Anne Allbright Smith, is a critical habitat that supports 106 documented individual Eastern Box Turtles and is recognized as an important wildlife area.
Currently numbering some 40 members, the Mohonk Preserve Volunteer Photographers provide the organization with a steady supply of new images capturing the many facets of the mountains. The images they record are used to build awareness about the Preserve.
With a gift from the Thomas and Corinne Nyquist Foundation, Historic Huguenot Street will host four seasonal nature walks at the Nyquist-Harcourt Wildlife Sanctuary and the Mohonk Preserve led by ethno ecologist and founder of Wild Hudson Valley Justin Wexler, who specializes in folklore and land use among the native people of the Hudson Valley.
As I look up, the world around me glistening, I begin to think that this feels like stumbling upon a Christmaslike celebration right smack in the middle of the woods.
St. Joseph’s Church basement was buzzing with community members excited to learn and impart knowledge on how to make their homes more energy-efficient and winterized, as well as practical and professional guides on how to recycle, compost, reduce food waste and junk mail as well as one’s carbon footprint.
Rainbow Falls appeared delighted to be drenching everything within its reach, including the bed of rocks that cascaded into the streambed below like a game of marbles, each one unique and letting the water slide over it like a fine polish.