Saratoga woods and waterways

I think my brain is full up. Or at least there's so much stuff in there now (after 82 years), I can't find what I want when I want it. Things like the perfect word, or the title of a movie I saw ...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/04/just-go-with-flow.html

Oh my gosh, the forest-floor wildflowers are coming on so fast, I can hardly keep up with them! My camera's memory card is now full of their photos, but before I sort through them to share on th...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/04/dont-forget-to-look-up.html

When I was in high school (way back in the 1950s), I used to love a perfume called Yardley's April Violets.  It had a marvelously sweet fragrance, so I always poked my nose in the violets that p...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/04/april-violets.html

Hurray and Hallelujah!  The stem-cell therapy I mentioned in my last post has worked to relieve my severe eye pain, and over time, the stem cells, now absorbed by my own eye, should assist my in...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/04/i-can-see-clearly-now-pain-is-gone.html

Oh gosh, where was I, last time I posted here?  I think I was celebrating that flower buds were opening  and feeling happy that Spring was truly arriving. And then, the snow we missed out on al...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/04/where-was-i.html

I know, I know, I've been posting photos of Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) for a couple of weeks now. But all those specimens were total wimps compared to the gigantic ones that thrive in ...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/03/skunk-cabbage-paradise.html

'Twas a good day for the wearin' o' the green!  So what better day than St. Patrick's Day to visit the woods at Skidmore College, where the forest floor is paved with calcareous boulders covered...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/03/finds-of-fault-line-and-forest-floor.html

 Late last week, we had just a dusting of snow.  Will this be IT?  Is winter (if we can call this puny one that) really over?  All winter long, the snow in the woods was not much good for ani...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/03/spring-is-bustin-out-all-over.html

While we wait for our local forest floors to be paved with colorful spring wildflowers, are there any visual treats to be found right now among the sodden and dull dead leaves that carpet the woo...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/03/visual-treats-in-late-winter-woods.html

 Well, here it is, folks: our first flower of . . . Spring?  Sadly, I'm finding it hard to feel excited about this portent of spring, this definitely flowering Skunk Cabbage plant that was bloo...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/03/spring.html

We've had a whole string of blue-sky spring-warm days, and even though I'm grumpy and fearful about our lack of wintry weather,  I have enjoyed being outdoors in relative comfort. Here's just a ...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/02/non-winter-wanderings.html

Skunk Cabbage already in bloom?!!!  Some friends from the Albany area are posting Facebook photos of Skunk Cabbage already in full flower, about 40 miles south of Saratoga Springs.  Well, why a...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/02/spring-is-not-here-yet-but-neither-is.html

Oh my gosh, here it is, the last day of January!  What have I been doing since I last posted here?  Not much, besides sulking about how crummy our winter has been so far, with more rain than sn...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/01/new-trails-into-winter-wonderland.html

My nature buddies and I had one more day to enjoy the snowy woods before the rains returned on Friday.  And what better way could we spend that day but by hiking up the mountain at Moreau Lake S...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/01/ascending-to-porcupine-haven.html

"Don't let it be forgot, that there was once a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as . . . ." Well, not exactly Camelot, but mighty close to it: a perfect winter's day at Moreau La...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/01/for-one-brief-shining-moment.html

Yes, they got it right this time.  We DID have a snowstorm, and just a nice amount: about 6 inches of fluffy stuff. Once the front walk was shoveled (we have only 40 feet to deal with), the car ...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/01/forecasters-hype-did-come-true.html

If the weather forecasts prove true, we should be getting some snow tonight.  All I can say is, it's about time!  I will be happy about that.  It was also about time this past Thursday for me...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2024/01/back-outdoors-in-time-to-welcome-winter.html

  I guess I won't be driving for a while -- not this car or any.  On December 8, I got slammed hard while turning left right into the path of an oncoming car going full speed, and it was m...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/12/couple-of-breakdowns-and-im-taking-break.html

Due to a recent painful bout of ocular rosacea, I've neglected both cold-weather outdoor walks and extended computer use for a while. And my blogging has been on hold.  But one rather dark and n...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/12/rare-plant-remnants-along-shore.html

I am one of those odd folks who actually loves November -- this brown and bronze season as our warm-weather plants settle down for their long restorative winter naps.  But darn it all, old age h...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/11/still-out-there-still-finding-cool-stuff.html

When an old blog post of mine from October 31, 2019, showed up on my Facebook Memories yesterday, I was struck by how gorgeously colorful the Bog Meadow Brook Nature Trail had been on that date....

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/11/back-to-bog-meadow.html

Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am.  While much of the world is in terrible turmoil, from savage warfare or scorching wildfires, shattering earthquakes or ravaging hurricanes, death-dealin...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/10/autumn-color-in-saratogas-woods-and-on.html

When I woke up yesterday morning, it was as if a cloud had moved away from the sun.  I actually felt pretty good, after 10 days of upper-respiratory misery that was threatening to move down lowe...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/10/off-couch-back-outdoors.html

Oh man, what an awful week to be too sick to venture outdoors!  For this is just the week in October when Autumn is in her glory in Saratoga County, and I've been stuck at home.  Although I fin...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-kaleidoscope-of-autumn-color-redux.html

My eyes filled with tears as I beheld the scene pictured above.  I had thought I would never again visit Pyramid Life Center, a place of great natural beauty and profound spiritual resonance ...

https://saratogawoodswaters.blogspot.com/2023/10/return-to-my-personal-paradise.html