The Little Falls Cheese Festival has announced Saturday, October 3 as the date for this year’s Cheese Festival. The festival takes place along Main Street from 10 am to 5 pm, featuring New York State cheese-makers, gourmet foods, craft beverages, live music, and plenty of delicious reasons to bring friends and family along. [Read more…] about Little Falls Cheese Festival Planned for October 3rd
local farms
Bobolink: The Grassland Bird in a Reverse Tuxedo
If you live near a large meadow, hayfield, or grassland, you may have recently noticed some bubbly robotic noises emanating from those areas. It might sound like an overexcited android, but the real source is a medium-sized songbird, the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus).
One of the few avian grassland specialists in the Northeast, bobolinks have recently returned from their wintering grounds in southern South America and are now fully engaged in breeding activity. [Read more…] about Bobolink: The Grassland Bird in a Reverse Tuxedo
Women’s Role in Canned Food Consumption
New York State was the birthplace of the American canning industry and grew to become one of the nation’s most prolific food processing hubs by the late 19th century. The state’s history is marked by early technological developments, massive growth during wartime, and the rise of major corporate processors.
Initially, canned foods were not widely accepted, however. The overarching factor that drove the prevalence and public acceptance of canned food was the symbiotic relationship between the evolving canning industry and the changing role of women, in particular their need or desire to work in the public sphere. [Read more…] about Women’s Role in Canned Food Consumption
Cellar Holes and Old Foundations
As I kneel digging in the dirt of the gently collapsing stone foundation, birds singing, knees aching, and dirt permanently embedded under my fingernails, I try to imagine life here in Vershire, Vermont, in the 1880s.
I’ve been excavating the bottle caches and midden (trash) heaps of this foundation for three years now, sifting artifacts from the soil. I’m trying to assemble the story of the people who lived here 140 years before me, to anchor myself and my partner within a broader continuity of relationship with this land. [Read more…] about Cellar Holes and Old Foundations
Attorneys General Sue Trump Regime Over USDA Funding Conditions
New York Attorney General Letitia James and 20 other attorneys general today filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block sweeping new funding conditions imposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that they say jeopardize billions of dollars in funding for critical state programs.
The lawsuit challenges USDA’s new “2026 Conditions,” which force states to comply with vague and arguably unlawful policy requirements or risk losing essential funding for programs that feed families, support farmers, and protect communities. Attorney General James and the coalition are asking the court to block these conditions and protect states’ access to funding already approved by Congress. [Read more…] about Attorneys General Sue Trump Regime Over USDA Funding Conditions
OSI Supports Hudson Valley Environmental Programs
The Open Space Institute (OSI) has announced the 2026 recipients of its Malcolm Gordon Fund Awards, an initiative supporting environmental education programs, experiences that connect people to the land, and efforts to inspire the next generation of nature lovers in New York’s Hudson Valley.
For its 32nd annual round, awards were given to programs including a gardening tool-lending library in Rosendale, free guided river exploration for young people and families in Newburgh, and more. [Read more…] about OSI Supports Hudson Valley Environmental Programs
Bundling Up: Soil Microbes in Winter
Like any good animal, we sense the change of seasons through a hundred subtle clues. Leaves change and shed, becoming crispy piles underfoot. Geese cross the bright sky. Other signs of winter are harder to define: the morning chill deepens its bite, the afternoon light becomes pale.
Although we may be aware that other creatures are preparing for the cold, building their nutritious stockpiles and cozy dens, few of us think about the ground beneath our feet. Yet here as well a whole world is getting ready for winter. [Read more…] about Bundling Up: Soil Microbes in Winter
Stay Alert for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
Since it was first introduced into New York State in January 2022, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) has been documented in captive birds in multiple counties and detected in free-ranging wild birds and mammals throughout the state.
Wild bird mortalities from HPAI increase in late fall and peak over the winter months, then typically decrease in the late spring and summer months. At this point, it is widespread in wild birds and even suspected to be present in counties where it has not yet been detected. [Read more…] about Stay Alert for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
The Rough-Legged Hawk: A Winter Visitor
In late autumn, cold air masses come barreling down from the Canadian Arctic like an atmospheric avalanche, bringing with them a visitor from the North: the rough-legged hawk (Buteo lagopus). [Read more…] about The Rough-Legged Hawk: A Winter Visitor
Coyotes Prepare for Winter
My husband and I once planted 128 fruit trees on a hillside, mostly apples, but the back few rows included stone fruits.
Our apples began producing with gusto after only a few years. We made gallons of cider and sold bushels of heirloom apples. But the plums have required patience. Their blossoms are so delicate and our springs so unpredictable that after eight years, there were still varieties we had yet to taste. [Read more…] about Coyotes Prepare for Winter
The Hidden World of Carnivorous Fungi
In darkness, a wormlike creature squirms. A tiny nematode weaves its way between grains of rock and particles of organic matter, through inverted forests of tree roots. It follows what it thinks is a pheromone trail, pausing to inspect a droplet poised on the tip of a pale, nondescript strand of fungus.
A moment later, its body begins to seize up. The chemical signals that control its muscles have been hijacked, and within seconds it is completely paralyzed. [Read more…] about The Hidden World of Carnivorous Fungi
Black Locust: An Invasive with Historic Roots
The coming of autumn often makes trees harder to identify – but sometimes, it does the opposite. The black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) is a case in point.
In summer, its bluish-green, oval-shaped compound leaves could easily be confused with those of the honey locust (Gleditsia triacanthos), a close cousin. [Read more…] about Black Locust: An Invasive with Historic Roots
The Hidden History of Cyanobacteria
Perhaps you saw the flyers at your town office or a warning sign posted at your favorite swimming hole.
The smell might have driven you home, but maybe you crept closer – unable to see anything wrong but unnerved by the deserted shoreline on such a hot and inviting day. [Read more…] about The Hidden History of Cyanobacteria
The Port of Albany Grain Elevators & Feed Mill
The following description is from 1941.
The Port of Albany grain elevator, which is located in the port commission area on the west side of the Hudson River, was constructed by the port commission and is leased for operation to the Cargill Grain Co., Inc.
It is of concrete construction, having a storage capacity of 13,500,000 bushels, and is equipped with facilities for rapid handling. A battery of eight pneumatic marine legs capable of moving 20,000 bushels an hour can be employed in the unloading of a vessel at one time. [Read more…] about The Port of Albany Grain Elevators & Feed Mill
Dung Beetles: Rollers, Tunnellers, and Dwellers
Greek mythology holds that Zeus punished the murderous tyrant-king Sisyphus by banishing him to Tartarus for eternity, where he has to roll a big rock up a hill, only to have it tumble back down as he nears the top. Big deal – he got off easy.
Zeus could have condemned him to push a towering sphere of solid excrement that weighed ten times more than he did, walking backwards the whole time, and then dig a hole, bury the thing, and return to where he started to repeat the process. [Read more…] about Dung Beetles: Rollers, Tunnellers, and Dwellers
Columbia County Farms & Forests Talk: Troy Weldy at Copake Iron Works, July 27th
Since assuming the presidency of Columbia Land Conservancy in 2020, Troy Weldy has negotiated the preservation of nearly 3,500 acres of forest and farmland.
He’s been studying and conserving the lands of the Hudson Valley, including Columbia County, since 1995. Over that time, he has conducted multiple botanical and ecological surveys in New York State Parks, other state lands and on private properties. [Read more…] about Columbia County Farms & Forests Talk: Troy Weldy at Copake Iron Works, July 27th
Mowing Practices to Benefit Ground-Nesting Birds
While grasses are getting greener and flowers are blooming, New Yorkers, high on many people’s priorities is pulling out their mower and beginning the summer-long cycle of mowing their fields or larger lawns. However, the timing of mowing can have significant impacts on a variety of bird species.
Small grassland songbirds nest on, or close to, the ground in grassy and shrubby fields. Mowing and bush-hogging during the spring and early summer can destroy nests and remove the habitat required to successfully raise their young. [Read more…] about Mowing Practices to Benefit Ground-Nesting Birds
Cherries in America & The Rise and Fall of Cherry Street, Manhattan
The Queens-bound F train platform of Delancey and Essex Street Station features three cherry tree murals as well as several smaller cherry mosaics. Created in 2004 by the Shanghai-born and New York City-based sculptor Ming Fay, “Delancey Orchard” glass mosaic is an allusion to the farm land that once belonged to a Loyalist family.
Étienne De Lancy was a French Huguenot refugee from Caen; his wife Anne descended from the prominent Dutch-American Van Cortlandt family. In the course of his career their eldest son James De Lancey (born in 1703) served as Chief Justice, Lieutenant Governor and acting Colonial Governor of the Province of New York. [Read more…] about Cherries in America & The Rise and Fall of Cherry Street, Manhattan
Adirondack Council Shifts From Small Farm Grant Program
After ten years, the Adirondack Council is ending its Adirondack Farmer and Value-Added Producer Micro-Grant Program.
The program was started in 2016 following a roundtable where farmers identified the need for smaller, more accessible grant money to implement environmentally beneficial projects on their farms. [Read more…] about Adirondack Council Shifts From Small Farm Grant Program
‘How We Poison Our Children’: The 1850s Swill Milk Scandal
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend drinking only pasteurized milk and eating dairy products made with pasteurized milk. Even organic milk is only safe to drink if it was pasteurized.
The safety of drinking unpasteurized milk and dairy products made from unpasteurized milk is in the news because Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. advocates drinking raw milk and is critical of federal regulations. [Read more…] about ‘How We Poison Our Children’: The 1850s Swill Milk Scandal