Blooming Now: The Valley’s Own Native Cactus
With all the emphasis on native plants these days, you’d be forgiven for shaking your head when stumbling across a cactus on a local hike, assuming it’s not native. But here’s a surprise: two types of seemingly desert-ready cactus are...
Irvington Park at 20: How a Former Lumberyard Became Community Space Instead of a Big Development
When Scenic Hudson Park at Irvington opened 20 years ago this week — on June 28, 2001 — the village got a beautiful place to enjoy magnificent views and active recreation instead of a mega-housing development. To celebrate, we reached...
#WildlifeLove: All About the Hudson River’s Feisty (and Tasty) Blue Crab
Blue crabs may not be as synonymous with the Hudson River as they are with Chesapeake Bay — but plenty of these colorful crustaceans live in the estuary’s brackish waters, with some even found as far north as the federal...
Poets’ Walk Park at 25: Getting the Story Right
Poets’ Walk Park remains one of the Hudson Valley’s most popular destinations for enjoying spectacular views of the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains — a place where landscape becomes poetry. Yet it turns out the story we’ve been telling about...
Take a Field Trip into the World’s Prehistoric Past
Humans have existed for fewer than 200,000 years, which means a lot of interesting stuff happened on Earth in the billions of years before our arrival. You don’t have to drive far from the Hudson Valley to explore that natural...
#HudsonInspired: Artist Jean Shin Reimagines Fallen Trees
Frederic Church and his fellow painters of the Hudson River School saw nature in a beautiful, romantic light. Contemporary artists can’t, says Jean Shin: “We don’t have the ability to romanticize nature because of climate change.”Shin, who was born in...
Newburgh Street-Tree Planting Aims to Restore the City’s Healthy, Shady Canopy
In May, the residents of South Miller Street in Newburgh gathered to plant, to care for — and really, to better understand — a line of new trees that now dot the block. For some residents, it was an opportunity...
Healthy Soil-Focused Farming Poised for Big Step in New York State
On a spring evening in 1944, 150 farmers from across Dutchess County gathered in Millbrook to learn about a newfangled concept that had been created by the New York State Legislature. The farmers listened as state representatives explained how soil...